Editor’s Note: From developing crops with deep roots to fungi-enhanced soil health and lightning-inspired nitrogen fixation, emerging food systems innovations are helping to shape a more resilient future for food production. This in-depth piece explores three bold and pragmatic innovations in 2025 that could transform the future of global agri-food systems.
This year calls for optimism, creativity and pragmatism—including in agricultural innovation. 2025 has already had its fair share of unexpected turns; development investments, including those aimed at making food systems more sustainable, are being scaled back by major donors such as the Netherlands and the United States. Agriculture—one of the most vulnerable and underfunded sectors in addressing climate change—is likely to be heavily impacted.
Fortunately, food systems innovations do not have a stop button. Political and economic headwinds may slow progress in some areas, but they often drive even more creative solutions. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
Clim-Eat has been working with the Bezos Earth Fund to identify the best-bet food systems innovations that could attract major investments in the coming years. From a short list of 50 or so showcased in detail on the Food Systems Tech website, here are some of the many reasons we should remain optimistic about the future of food.
1. Going deep on carbon storage
Soil carbon sequestration, the process of capturing atmospheric C02 and trapping it in the ground, could see some exciting breakthroughs in 2025, bringing the concept to a whole new—or deeper—level, quite literally.
One of the biggest challenges with storing carbon in soil is that much of it does not stay put—microbes quickly break down organic matter, releasing CO₂ back into the atmosphere. However, several research institutes and scientists are developing crops with greater photosynthetic capacity. The aim is to produce plants with greater biomass, which means they can capture more CO₂. This, combined with work to genetically engineer deeper root systems, helps keep the carbon locked in the ground.
If successful, these crops could act as enhanced carbon sinks, helping shift agriculture from simply reducing its footprint to actively storing more carbon in the soil.
2. Getting fungal with the power of mycorrhizal fungi
Mycorrhizae fungi are underground network builders. It is a group name for network-forming soil fungi that form win-win relations with plants. These fungi extend plant root systems, allowing plants to access phosphates and other nutrients in exchange for carbon, which they use for their own growth. This symbiotic relationship has the potential to increase crop yields while reducing the need for inputs such as synthetic fertiliser and helping to lock carbon in the soil.
While mycorrhizal fungi occur naturally, most modern agricultural crops do not fully benefit from them. Scientists are now uncovering the genetic traits that enhance these symbiotic relationships, paving the way for fungi-friendly crop breeding and soil microbiome management. At a time when global collaboration is under stress, perhaps the world could learn something from the quiet cooperation happening beneath our feet.
3. Catching lightning for green nitrogen
Plants require nitrogen to grow—but conventional (synthetic) fertilisers, primarily those that are ammonia-based—come with a massive environmental cost. The Haber-Bosch process, which dominates synthetic nitrogen production, accounts for 2 per cent of global energy consumption and is one of the most carbon-intensive industrial processes. In some places, tackling the overuse of fertilisers will be needed to cut emissions. In other poorer soils, including many in Africa, agriculture, at least in the short term, will need these inputs. So producing them in a cleaner way is important.
At Clim-Eat, we’ve recently highlighted some of the more imminent innovations, such as scaled-down renewable Haber-Bosch processing and green hydrogen-based ammonia. But these still rely on heavy industrial processes. Some innovators are now turning to nature for inspiration. Technologies like non-thermal plasma-based nitrogen fixation and enhanced organic fertiliser are mimicking the way lightning strikes create nitrogen-rich rainwater. If scaled successfully, these technologies could feed crops the nitrogen they need—no fossil fuels, just air, water and a high-voltage twist on nature’s own playbook.
We need all options on the table
These are just some examples of the innovations that have a potential role to play in the future of food. But too often in the food systems space, different discourses or innovations are pitted against each other. Take the innovations to produce inorganic nitrogen fertiliser in greener ways, and those targeting fungi heroes that occur in nature. It’s easy to see how they might be contradictory.
But let’s be honest, pitting innovations against each other is so 2024. The reality is that we need all the innovative solutions we can get, from low to high-tech. That means we need to be pragmatic about what is feasible and appropriate, and where. The key is ensuring that these innovations—both incremental and disruptive—translate into real-world implementation.
In the end, the future of food systems will not be shaped by choosing between individual routes of innovation, but by how boldly and cleverly we mix the best ideas to drive real change where it counts. It is about balancing pragmatism and creativity, stacking solutions instead of pitting them against each other—and of course, adding a healthy dose of optimism to keep things growing.
Header photo: Dean Calma / IAEA
