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Climate / Solutions


THIS STARTUP IS USING AI TO ‘SUPERCHARGE’ CROP BREEDING. IT COULD HELP PROTECT
FARMERS FROM THE CLIMATE CRISIS

By Jack Bantock and Gisella Deputato, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 8:43 AM EST, Mon December 2, 2024
Link Copied!
Crop development company Avalo is hoping its AI techniques can better equip the
farming industry to cope with the climate crisis.
CNN
CNN  — 

Since the dawn of farming some 10,000 years ago, the health of agriculture has
been inextricably linked to the health of the planet. Now the climate crisis is
disrupting farming across the globe.

Yet as increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and temperature changes
threaten crops, one startup is hopeful that artificial intelligence (AI) can
help farmers adapt to a fast-changing environment.

Avalo, a crop development company based in North Carolina, is using machine
learning models to accelerate the creation of new and resilient crop varieties.

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The traditional way to select for favorable traits in crops is to identify
individual plants that exhibit the trait – such as drought resistance - and use
those plants to pollinate others, before planting those seeds in fields to see
how they perform. But that process requires growing a plant through its entire
life cycle to see the result, which can take many years.

Avalo uses an algorithm to identify the genetic basis of complex traits like
drought, or pest resistance in hundreds of crop varieties. Plants are
cross-pollinated in the conventional way, but the algorithm can predict the
performance of a seed without needing to grow it – speeding up the process by as
much as 70%, according to Avalo chief technology officer Mariano Alvarez.

“What we’re doing, ultimately, is just the same process that’s happened for
thousands of years,” Alvarez explained to CNN.

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“There’s somebody in our greenhouses almost every day now taking two flowers and
rubbing them together to produce seeds … The difference in our process is that a
computer is telling the person which flowers they need to pull to put together.

“We are really just doing traditional cross-breeding and accelerating it with
information, rather than trying to change the method by which people are doing
it.”

The age-old method of cross breeding involves rubbing two flowers together.
CNN


REDUCING FOOD WASTE

Dandelions that can be grown to make rubber, heat-resilient tomatoes, and
drought-resilient cotton are all in the works at Avalo, as is a fully edible
broccoli, created to reduce food waste.

Only 20% of the total biomass of an entire broccoli crop is typically consumed,
according to Avalo’s CEO Brendan Collins. Tenderstem broccoli, also known as
broccolini, is entirely edible but is a different vegetable – a hybrid of
broccoli and Chinese kale (gai lan).

Avalo sourced hundreds of broccoli varieties to enable AI to identify the
desired traits, producing a broccoli that can be eaten sprig, leaves and all. It
is set to be the company’s first commercially available product, in 2026, taking
three years to get to market – half the time of a typical new broccoli variety,
according to Avalo.

“The leaves are just like kale or something you traditionally see in a salad,”
said Collins. “Then the sprig itself is just like a delightful, very tender
sprig of broccoli that you’d be familiar with.”

He added that the broccoli can be grown using less energy and fertilizers than
any other available variety.

Avalo says its machine learning algorithm accelerates the traditional process.
CNN

Dr Shruti Nath is a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, who isn’t
involved with Avalo. “AI’s performance for gene discovery and mining has shown
great promise,” she told CNN in an email. “Making the final link to then
providing information on future breeding that would help cope with climate
change is an excellent idea.”

“This type of technology – if done correctly – is a step change and would allow
for better planning before growing seasons,” Nath said.

In the ever-evolving landscape of protein alternatives, a lot of effort goes
into crafting food that tastes like the meat products we know and love.
Chicago-based company Nature's Fynd is turning a fungi microbe discovered in
Yellowstone National Park into meatless, dairy-free protein.

Clipped From Video
video

Related video How a microbe found in Yellowstone could start a food revolution

However, using AI-techniques for informing breeding decisions has possible
pitfalls, Nath warned.

“For example, some traits that are deemed useful for drought – let’s say – may
have been falsely picked up due to the numerous genetic properties driving
drought resilience. Being able to test this out is obviously very difficult
since you can’t create a ‘control’ candidate to check it,” she said.

“Furthermore, AI-models for these approaches need to be constrained to make sure
they do not ‘overfit’ on properties that do not exist, especially given the
complexity of this modelling problem,” Nath added. “Since consequences of
mis-prediction in this case may have disproportionate effects, making sure of
this is vital.”


GLOBAL EFFORTS

With the climate crisis worsening, there are efforts across the globe to find
more resilient crop varieties. United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based agritech company
Silal has teamed up with international partners like biotechnology company
Bayer, and screens a variety of seeds to assess their resistance to drought,
heat and salinity, testing them on their farms in Abu Dhabi.

Silal has spent the last two years developing two new varieties of Quinoa,
suitable for growing in the UAE’s arid desert environment, that it hopes could
become an alternative crop in the region.

“The trial has so far been so successful,” Silal’s director of agritech Shamal
Muhammad told CNN.

“We’re going to look at how we can develop a quinoa supply chain in the UAE and
then offering this healthy food to the nation.”

Facilities at Avalo's North Carolina headquarters.
CNN

Avalo hopes such innovations can help protect farmers’ livelihoods in the face
of increasingly erratic weather conditions while restoring more natural
diversity to crop development.

“If we can only release a new variety every 10 years, we’ll always be 10 years
behind what the weather conditions are going to be, what the newest disease or
the newest pest pressure is going to be,” Alvarez said.

“But if we can release new varieties every four to five years, we’re much closer
to keeping pace with the rate of environmental change that farmers actually see
in their fields.

“It gives me a lot of hope because I think we’re going to need some interesting
and potentially surprising outcomes if we’re going to keep our agricultural
system stable for the next 30 to 50 years.”




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