WATCH NOW: Season 2, Episode 5, March 17: KnowFOOD-KnowGROW: Exploring digital resources for crop production, plant genetics, and chemistry to deliver better nutrition through crops

At current rates--excepting for massive pandemics, tragic world wars, or massive climate disasters--the earth can expect a human population burden of just over 11 billion inhabitants by the time our children are elderly--which is roughly a 50% increase from now. One question everyone asks: Can we grow enough nutritious food to feed everyone?

One key to answering this question affirmatively will rely on development of standardized digital information cyberinfrastructures facilitating the characterization, utilization, exchange and traceability of plant genetic resources. To help us decipher what that entails, KnowFOOD will be joined by Professor Graham King, Executive Director of DivSEEK International and a Professor of Crop Genomics at Southern Cross University, Australia. In addition to his role in crop plant genetics and genomics research, Professor King helps facilitate the open dissemination of information about plant genetic resources.

We’ll also welcome Dr. Liliana Andres Hernandez, a postdoctoral researcher at Southern Cross University, Australia. Her research focuses on the standardization, collection, and integration of data and metadata related to plant phenotypic traits and also the development of the Compositional Dietary Nutrition Ontology (CDNO), an ontology developed to annotate, exchange, and query nutritional attributes of crop plants.

We’ll talk about these new resources, and also about how ag and food companies might utilize them to develop more nutritious food commodities, ingredients, and products. As always, KnowFOOD will be aired live and respond to audience questions.

Confirmed guests :

Prof. Graham King, Executive Director of DivSEEK International; Professor of Crop Genomics, Southern Cross University, Australia

Dr. Liliana Andres Hernandez, Postdoctoral Researcher, Southern Cross University, Australia

KnowFOOD co-hosts:

Matthew Lange, Food informatician and President/Co-founder of IC-FOODS

Courtney Riggle, Researcher with Food Systems Lab at UC Davis, and Co-founder of IC-FOODS