The Quinoa Quarrel

Part 1 of a series on solutions to freeing victims of labor trafficking around the globe. Labor trafficking is a deeply entrenched problem, woven into global economies where the victims are often hidden in plain sight. Almost everyone in the US owns some product likely made with slave labor. But there is hope - from grassroots workers’ coalitions to multilateral treaties and geo-data manipulation to new law enforcement initiatives, individuals are finding new ways to counter labor trafficking.

A genetically engineered fake meat that smells, tastes and has the same texture as a regular beef burger? Sounds impossible, but it's not for the Impossible Burger. Made from ingredients such as wheat and potato protein and coconut, it's the tactic of extracting heme (the ingredient found in the hemoglobin of cows) from leghemoglobin (a the plant alternative) that really helps the Impossible Burger succeed. This success is also a success for the environment by using less land, a quarter of the water and emitting an eighth of the greenhouse gases than is reported for livestock rearing.

An increasingly popular way to attract foreign direct investment is to let the world’s wealthiest trade cash and property investments for citizenship. The $2 billion-a-year industry allows the ultra-rich to buy passports that permit visa-free travel to nearly the entire world, often with no residency requirements. Highly controversial, the industry is marked by a lack of transparency and concerns about what happens to civic ties when citizenship can be bought and sold.

During the Industrial Revolution, farmers began harvesting monoculture crops which produced promising profits but proved harmful to the soil and weakened the immune capabilities of native plants. Lately, however, permaculture practices have been on the rise amongst farmers to better diversify their yields and reduce reliance on chemicals.

Scalesia, is a species of tree native to the Galapagos Islands that is quickly disappearing thanks to human activity. With much of the island's wildlife dependent on this tree, the ecosystem is threatened with the tree's extinction. Conservationists have taken action, however, by planting thousands of the trees as part of a shade-grown coffee operation.

"Farm to table" is a well-known saying in the food industry, but "lab to table" is also rapidly joining the rank of commonplace terminology. To both reduce the amount of animals killed and lessen the impact on the environment to raise livestock, researchers have found a way to manufacture cell-based meat that is created in a lab, yet still has the texture of meat.

Communities across Uganda have been realizing the benefits of agroforestry, an old farming system that mimics natural ecosystems. Apart from creating a diverse, stable local food supply, the practice promotes soil health, bolsters biodiversity, creates wildlife habitat, and sequesters carbon. An NGO is working with communities to spread the practice across the region, with marked effect.

As rising temperatures threaten marine life, the Pacific Hybreed laboratory is working to develop resilient shellfish. Their experimental breeding process attempts to uncover new genes to help a variety of shellfish withstand changing temperatures and disease, and it just might help save the fishing industry.

New DNA testing technology is showing promise as a faster, cheaper way to determine if a shark fin came from a protected species, an important task to curbing the illicit shark fin trade across the world. While experts warn that the technology won't act as a deterrent to the practice, it will help authorities better track and determine if shipments are suspect.

As a way to combat climate change, scientists are experimenting with genetically modified trees as a way to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to store in its leaves, roots, and trunk. The startup Living Carbon has genetically modified poplar and pine seeds in the ground and expect them to be ready by the end of the year. Some scientists are worried about how these trees can impact forest ecosystems, but they grow faster than normal trees, allowing them to study and assess the risks quicker.