A research team at Hosei University and the University of Tokyo has achieved the world’s first stable production of edamame in an artificial light-type plant factory. Using the NFT hydroponic method, yields surpassed open-field cultivation while enhancing sugar and isoflavone content. This breakthrough enables year-round production of high-quality, nutritious edamame in diverse environments from urban buildings to deserts and even outer space, marking a significant step toward sustainable food systems and healthier diets.

As a mentor, Sindhu Jagadamma, associate professor of soil science at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, helps her students increase their self-confidence and push themselves to persevere through adversity, traits she learned to improve in herself as a young girl from a small town in India.

Former mentees who worked with Jagadamma in the Sustainable Soil Management Lab nominated her for the Women in Science Mentoring Award, given by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. She received the award at the three societies’ annual conference (CANVAS 2025), held November 9-12 in Salt Lake City.

A new study demonstrates for the first time that in tawny crazy ant societies, nest spatial structure is of primary importance in allowing social immune behaviors to prevent diseases from reaching the colony core, where the queen and brood live.

The EU-funded project SHOWCASE has released its final handbook, titled “Farming with Biodiversity”, which serves as a practical and evidence-based guide and bank of resources to help farmers, advisors and policymakers work together to make European agriculture both profitable and nature-positive.

The idea that irrigated agriculture underpins global food and water security—producing 40% of crops and using 70% of freshwater—has become widespread in science and policy. However, these statistics are not empirically supported, according to a new analysis. 

From a study published in AgriEngineering, new methodologies to simulate and independently control vineyard operations for more efficient and sustainable agriculture

A collaborative research team from institutions including China Agricultural University and Solomon Islands National University has addressed this question through in-depth analysis using a multi-country general equilibrium model. By leveraging trade data from 2001 to 2022 and combining it with a structural multi-country trade model, the team simulated the impact of China–Africa agricultural trade liberalization on the welfare and food security of both parties. The related paper has been published in Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering (DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2025617).