wire - news in brief

Waterloo-led team tackles food insecurity through sustainable year-round berry production in Canada By Katharine Tuerke Faculty of Science Climate change, armed conflict, economic and political instability and natural disasters can all impact food security.

A team from UdeM's Department of Computer Science and Operations Research is using artificial intelligence (AI) and modeling to optimize and automate winter strawberry production.

Ceragen is helping farmers engineer the plant microbiome to increase crop yields By Stephanie Longeway University Relations Danielle Rose works under a pop-up grow tent inside Velocity's main incubator workspace.

Robotic mushroom harvester, operating at Whitecrest Mushrooms Limited, in Putnam, Ont. (Submitted) Ten years ago, local mushroom farmer Murray Good approached engineering professor Mehrdad Kermani with a challenge. Could Kermani and his team develop an autonomous mushroom harvesting robot to address the labour shortage Good and mushroom farmers around the world were facing? Kermani, a world leader in the field of safe human-robot interactions , wasn't sure at first.

The international scientific community has created a validated list of scientific names for legumes.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have begun studying school-based meal programs across Canada to better understand which programs work well, how they have functioned during the COVID-19 pandemic - and whether a long-discussed national program could improve child nutrition in this country.

A refurbished Nabataean cistern at the site of Humayma, Jordan. Photo by Craig Harvey By Craig A. Harvey, Special to Western News October 13, 2021 This year witnessed one of the hottest and driest summers in recent history for Western Canada and the American Southwest. The resulting droughts adversely affected food supply and helped send meat prices rising three times faster than inflation.

Today, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Nature et technologies (FRQNT), along with its partner the ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation (MAPAQ) announced the creation of t