Deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, nitrogen pollution – today’s agricultural feed cultivation for cattle, pigs and chicken comes with tremendous impacts for the environment and climate. Cultivating feed in industrial facilities instead of on croplands might help to alleviate the critical implications in the agricultural food supply chain. Protein-rich microbes, produced in large-scale industrial facilities, are likely to increasingly replace traditional crop-based feed. A new study now published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology for the first time estimates the economic and environmental potential of feeding microbial protein to pigs, cattle and chicken on a global scale. The researchers find that by replacing only 2 percent of livestock feed by protein-rich microbes, more than 5 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, global cropland area and global nitrogen losses could each be decreased.

A heat wave sweeps through a city and people swelter, running indoors to find air conditioning. But crops out in a field aren’t so lucky. For them, there is no escape.

Reductions in water use first observed in 2010 continue, show ongoing effort towards “efficient use of critical water resources.”

I recently wrote a press release for another cool plant study CSRS. This time, a group discovered a process through which gene expression in plants is regulated by light. They found that blue light triggers a shift in which portion of a gene is ultimately expressed.

Researchers at Oregon State University have learned that a specific wavelength range of blue fluorescent light set bees abuzz.

Palm oil has become part of our daily lives, but a recent study by EPFL and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) serves as a reminder that intensive farming of this crop has a major impact on the environment. Both short- and long-term solutions exist, however.

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says we are dramatically underestimating the role inland fisheries play in global food security.

A new CU Boulder-led study sheds light on the genetic mechanisms that allowed sunflowers to undergo a relatively rapid evolutionary transition from wild to domesticated in just over 5,000 years.

Kansas State University researchers are turning up the heat on wheat to prove the point that higher nighttime temperatures may be to blame for significant yield and quality losses in the crop.

The world produces more corn by weight than any other cereal crop. Corn, also known as maize, is a staple food in many countries. But farmers growing corn face many challenges, such as drought, diseases, and pests.