The Food Fix

About one third of all the food that is produced is wasted, according to the United Nations Environment Program.

This summer researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation MIT site program studied the harvest storage methods of small scale farmers in Uganda.

Mark Brennan is a site research assistant and Master student in the Technology and Policy program at MIT's Engineering Services Division. He talked about preventing large amounts of food waste in small scale farms.

Photo: Mark Brennan

There are many reasons community gardens are created. However few of those reasons involve martial arts. In Flint, Michigan, you can find a unique union of organic urban farming, and training in karate.

Jacky King, the executive director and grand master of King Karate Youth Karate-Ka, and Harvesting Earth Educational Farm, hopes to expand the business.

A group of Michigan State University students and faculty working with the Global Center for Food Systems Innovation went to Malawi recently to start two weeks of research and education.

The Frugal Innovations Program, brought the MSU students together with students from LUANAR University in Malawi to study food system problems in that southeastern African country.

The students represent a variety of disciplines, and will be searching for solutions to issues in Malawi that can be implemented frugally.

We caught up with two of the MSU students, Kevin Mills and Jodie Zhu, before they headed out.

Photo: Kevin Mills

They say one person’s trash is another person’s treasure...but what about one farmer’s animal’s...poop! Could we turn that into a renewable energy source? Could we turn something so dirty...and smelly into clean energy used to feed people?

Biogas research and technology does just that. By turning animal manure into clean, renewable energy, researchers working in rural Kenya are helping farmers improve their quality of life.

Taisha Venort is a masters student in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. She is here today to talk about finding energy in unique places.

Photo: Taisha Venort

A bitter-tasting plant that looks like a cucumber with warts growing all over it might help treat the symptoms of diabetes. The bitter melon, or bitter gourd, is popularly used to treat diabetes in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

According to World Health Organization, an estimated 1.5 million deaths were caused by diabetes in 2012.

The cost of treating diabetes can add up over a lifetime, and fruits and vegetables with medicinal properties could be treatment options in low-and-middle income countries with poor access to health care.

Jose Perez researches the potential of bitter melon to treat diabetes. Jose is currently a doctoral student at the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center in the department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.

Photo: Jose Perez

Researchers who are figuring out how to better feed the world need to know something before they can start: how well is the world being fed right now? That is, they need to be able to measure and quantify people’s access to affordable and nutritious food. That access to good food is called food security.

But it can be logistically challenging and expensive to measure food security, especially if you want to get repeated measurements to monitor changes over time. Photography could be a powerful and inexpensive tool that captures information about food security that is hard to get through interviews and focus groups.

Chris Bielecki used photography in his research to measure how people’s access to healthy food is changing over time in Guatemala.

Photo: Chris Bielecki

It takes a lot of work to start a new business, especially when that business involves food. Licensing, health concerns, finding suppliers, and even finding a kitchen that has the proper equipment to prepare the food are all things that have to figured out by people who want to start their own food businesses.

Joan Nelson is the executive director at the Allen Neighborhood Center. She spoke with the Food Fix about the Center’s Incubator Kitchen program that is giving local farmers a place to expand into new areas, and is letting small businesses get off the ground.

Photo: Joan Nelson

Can modern genetic research help find ways to produce wheat that is resistant to heat and drought?

Jared Crain is a graduate student in interdepartmental genetics at Kansas State University, Kansas. Crain and his colleagues are exploring the potential of genetic sequencing to find climate change resistant wheat crops.

Photo: Jared Crain

There are numerous challenges faced by the people who bring you fresh produce. They have to meet rigid standards, obtain pricy certifications and work hard to gradually “move up the food chain,” by getting more land and diversifying their crops over a period of years.

Underserved farmers are those who are outside the typical idea of a farmer - women, veterans, minorities. As a result of who they are, they face challenges in both getting into farming and moving up in the industry.

Michelle Napier-Dunnings is the executive director for Michigan Food and Farming Systems. She is here today to talk about this often unrecognized group of farmers.

Malnutrition remains a significant problem in less developed countries. It is the leading cause of death and illness among mothers and children. Legumes like beans and peas are very nutritious. They can seem like a magic bullet for solving malnutrition problems. But it’s not so simple. Farmers don’t just adopt a new crop overnight. Farmers often treat new crops like adopting a new technology. They may accept or reject it. A range of social, cultural and environmental factors influences their decision. Ellis Adams, is a doctoral studen in the Department of Geography at Michigan State University. He received a student internship funding from the Global Center for Food Systems Innovations at MSU to explore the social learning and community dynamics of Pigeon Pea adoption in Malawi. Photo: Ellis Adams