Our Plan
Identify the nutritional variation in the food supply, and develop definitions of variation.
To accomplish this we sample crops from across the food supply and document the levels and ranges of nutrients present. With that data set we can begin to identify what appears to be relatively high and low levels of nutrition and share that definition.
Determine what causes the variation in nutrient levels in food.
As we collect samples of crops we work with growers to identify what the environmental conditions were that those crops grew in. We also assess the soil the crops grew in to identify soil life, organic matter and other relevant dynamics. Our objective in this work is to be able to support growers globally in identifying what environmental conditions and management practices they are engaging I that correlate with lower level nutrient density in food so that they may evolve their practices.
Develop and support instruments that can be used to give real time readings on these parameters.
Our objective here is to provide any one who desires the ability to honestly assess food in real time. To be able to discern between this bag of carrots or that, or to be able to assess the plants while they grow so that they can modulate the growing conditions to improve plant and soil health an d crop nutrient density.
We believe that information about the nutritional value of food belongs in the commons, and so are committed to all of our work remaining open source. That means that any and all research we do and data we come up with, any engineering of instrumentation, any algorithms, apps, and code we develop will stay open so that everyone involved knows that they can trust the readings we develop.