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Agriculture

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Agricultural productivity technologies for small-holder farmers; sustainable supply chain interventions in the palm oil industry; interventions that can provide clean water for cities and surrounding ecosystems — these are just a few of the research topics that grantees are pursuing, supported by the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT.

J-WAFS announces seven new seed grants

Nine principal investigators from MIT will receive grants totaling over $1 million for solutions-oriented research into global food and water challenges.

May 29, 2019

MIT team that designed BEAVER (Biosphere Engineered Architecture for Viable Extraterrestrial Residence), a proposed Martian greenhouse that could provide 100 percent of the food required by four astronauts for up to two years

MIT team places second in 2019 NASA BIG Idea Challenge

Multilevel Mars greenhouse could provide food to sustain astronauts for several years.

May 20, 2019

A new agreement will help initiate research collaborations between scholars at MIT and IIT-Ropar that respond to water- and food-sector challenges in India. IIT Ropar is located in Punjab, a primarily agriculture-based region of India, and has interdisciplinary centers focusing on water and agriculture.

New seed fund to address food, water, and agriculture in India

MIT-India, J-WAFS, and the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar launch fund to facilitate collaborations between faculty and scientists from MIT and ITT Ropar.

May 9, 2019

MIT Media Lab researchers (l-r) Xin Liu, Felix Kraemer, Ariel Ekblaw, Pete Dilworth, Rachel Smith, and Harpreet Sareen stand in front of the Blue Origin capsule holding their six payloads.

Six suborbital research payloads from MIT fly to space and back

Space Exploration Initiative research aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard experiment capsule crossed the Karman line for three minutes of sustained microgravity.

May 3, 2019

Judges and sponsors of the Rabobank-MIT Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize pose with members of the winning team, Gramhal. Team members pictured include advisor Russell DeLucia (third from left); head of operations Simeen Kaleem (fourth from left); CEO and founder Vikas Birhma (fourth from right). Not pictured is Gramhal chief program officer Pankaj Mahalle.

Mobile solution for farmers and plan for global shrimp marketplace win agribusiness prize

Seven finalist teams pitched their business ideas at the Rabobank-MIT Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize competition.

May 3, 2019

Symbrosia co-founder and CEO Alexia Akbay, second from left, and co-founder and CTO Jonathan Simonds, fourth from right, pose with members of MIT’s Water Club following the MIT Water Innovation Prize Thursday.

Water Innovation Prize goes to startups targeting methane and wastewater

Student-led startups Symbrosia and SiPure each awarded a $14,000 grand prize.

April 23, 2019

Winnie Gitau, a 2019 D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellow, is the founder of Kwangu Kwako, which provides safer, healthier, and more secure housing alternatives to the traditional informal settlement structures in Kenya.

MIT D-Lab awards fellowships to six East African social entrepreneurs

The one-year Scale-Ups Fellowships program provides each fellow with a $20,000 grant and support tailored to address their specific needs.

April 16, 2019

Janus emulsion droplets are captured in the process of changing form in response to the presence of contamination by a food pathogen in a lab setting. The emulsions can be viewed by the naked eye and, with the aid of a handheld sensor currently in development, can quantify the presence and amount of bacterial contamination in food.

MIT spinout seeks to transform food safety testing

An affordable, easy-to-use handheld sensor, soon to enter the market, can indicate the presence of bacterial contaminants in food in seconds.

April 9, 2019

Researchers in MIT’s Open Agriculture Initiative grow basil under controlled environmental conditions to study how taste and other features are affected.

The future of agriculture is computerized

Machine learning can reveal optimal growing conditions to maximize taste and other features.

April 3, 2019

A $30 million award from USAID will support MIT over the next five years in developing a Center of Excellence in Energy at Ain Shams University, Mansoura University, and Aswan University, in Egypt. The center will serve to connect researchers at the Egyptian universities with experts at MIT, to seek innovative solutions to the country’s energy challenges.

MIT receives $30 million to help address energy challenges in Egypt

Award from USAID will support research collaborations through new Center of Excellence in Energy at Ain Shams University in Cairo.

March 27, 2019

MIT engineers have developed a way to deliver genes to the chloroplasts of plant cells. In these images, mesophyll cells (right) and epidermal cells (left) in an arugula leaf have been engineered to express a yellow fluorescent protein in their chloroplasts. Cell walls are stained red and chloroplasts are stained blue.

An easier way to engineer plants

MIT-led team uses nanoparticles to deliver genes into plant chloroplasts.

February 25, 2019

J-WAFS commercialization grants are supporting two MIT research teams developing technologies to make current agricultural practices more sustainable.

J-WAFS grants advance sustainable agriculture

Two new J-WAFS Solutions commercialization grants will support novel technologies that aim to improve the economics and resiliency of farming.

February 14, 2019

For tropical growing regions in Brazil and some countries in Africa, differing soil and rock compositions make for a poor match for the fertilizers that are currently on the market. J-WAFS-funded MIT researchers seek to meet this challenge with a new type of fertilizer, and call for more interdisciplinary research to help close yield gaps.

Local rocks can yield more crops

J-WAFS-funded MIT research team shows a new method of fertilizer production can better suit the needs of farms in Africa and around the globe.

February 12, 2019

Researchers mapped out pathways of energy flow that connect the high energy side of the absorbed solar spectrum to the low energy side.

How plants expand their capacity to use solar energy

Research from the lab of assistant professor of chemistry Gabriela Schlau-Cohen advances the understanding of plants' photosynthetic machinery.

February 6, 2019

As drones increasingly take on the job of inspecting growing solar farms, Raptor Maps' software makes sense of the data they collect.

Optimizing solar farms with smart drones

MIT spinoff Raptor Maps uses machine-learning software to improve the maintenance of solar panels.

January 30, 2019