Agrifood—the $8 trillion industry that’s worth your salt

Agrifood, a combination of “Agritech” and “Foodtech,” aims to solve the inefficiencies preventing the food and agriculture value-chain from feeding our growing planet a diverse range of foods. Agrifood startups can improve processes in every aspect of food production–“from farm to fork”–which explains the recent multi-million dollar investments in companies such as Indigo Agriculture and Ginkgo Bioworks. Read more at TechCrunch ...

A new EPA rule would allow factory farms to avoid reporting air pollution

A proposed rule signed by EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler on Tuesday will allow toxic air emissions from animal waste in industrial agricultural operations to go unreported. What the owners of these operations, as well as the Trump administration, have labeled as “normal odors” can actually cause serious, possibly lethal, problems for farmers and nearby residents. Read more at Civil Eats …

Skyscraper farms are about to go global

The world’s largest automated leaf vegetable factory is set to open in a suburb of Kyoto, Japan. It is run by Spread Co., just one of many commercial firms that touts vertical farms as the solution to rising food demand and increasing urbanization. These leafy vegetables can easily be grown free of pesticides due to their indoor nature, and then sold at a slightly lower price than that of organically grown vegetables. Read more at Bloomberg  …

Five Below, the Amazon-proof store

Five Below, AKA “the most successful retailer you’ve never heard of,” has perfected a formula that keeps it out of Amazon’s sphere of competition. Rather than focusing on necessities, as The Dollar Tree and its ilk do, the store allows consumers young and old to “discover things you didn’t know you wanted.” It also doesn’t hurt that everything in the store, including yoga mats, clothes, seasonal decorations and storage bins, is priced at or below five dollars. Read more at The Wall Street Journal …

First FDA-approved cannabis-based drug now available in the US

Epidiolex, a cannabis-based medication that was approved by the FDA in June, is now available by prescription in every U.S. state. The medication is an oral solution designated to help Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which are both epileptic in nature. The approval of the FDA, DEA and the U.S. Department of Justice in this case will likely help further the study of cannabinoids as medication. Read more at CNN …