It's not often you hear people refer to "livestock farming" and "climate change" in a positive context. And even less so among tech entrepreneurs, as increasing numbers look to create meat-free, alternative food products with the hope of reducing the impact of the meat industry on the environment.

Amid growing evidence and awareness of the impact of industrial agriculture on the environment, climate, public health, farming communities and local economies, an “underground insurgency” as Charles Massy calls it, is transforming the practice and culture of agriculture.

South Africa faces a double burden of hunger and malnutrition, on the one hand, and obesity with associated non-communicable diseases (NCDs), on the other. In many countries, in both the global North and South, malnutrition and obesity frequently co-exist in the same people. This is a condition known as “hidden hunger”.

Family farms are central to our nation’s identity. Most Americans, even those who have never been on a farm, have strong feelings about the idea of family farms — so much that they’re the one thing that all U.S. politicians agree on.

China has the third-largest dairy industry in the world. That’s a very new development; dairy was highly localized and not very popular nationwide in China up until the Soviet influence of the 1950s.

It’s time for agricultural researchers to take better advantage of the massive amount of data they produce and move into an era of “big science.” Open data—data that are publicly available and have been intentionally prepared for reuse and innovation by others—is the path to the research breakthroughs of the future. But to make that move, agricultural science must change in significant ways.