Today’s news roundup begins with several stories about using ag tech to advance farming sustainability and reduce the industry’s environmental impact.

Today’s headlines:

🌽 AGRICULTURE:

• A number of agriculture and food leaders are coming together in Minnesota to launch MBOLD, a coalition to address the industries’ major challenges including sustainability. Coalition participants including Cargill, Ecolab, and the University of Minnesota are working to accelerate solutions in areas such as soil health, water stewardship, and driving innovation.
• Illinois State University officials and state elected officials are praising a multi-university research effort to develop pennycress crops in a more environmentally friendly way, reports the Associated Press. Pennycress could be an alternative to corn and soybean crops and provide a source of biofuel.
• The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis is among the new partners joining a partnership to bring STEM and agriculture education opportunities to students in East St. Louis, Illinois, reports AgriNews. The program aims to help students gain marketable skills including agricultural innovation such as modern vertical farming.
• A farmer who owns thousands of acres of Iowa farmland is growing soybean crops for St. Louis-based Benson Hill to advance sustainable, technology-driven science for the food industry, reports Farm Progress.
• Iowa State University‘s Agriculture Entrepreneur Initiative and the Ag Startup Engine will host a virtual event on Wednesday to examine the ag tech and food tech ecosystem, challenges, and solutions across all sectors of the supply chain.

🗑️ WASTE: New Planet Energy is hoping to win St. Louis’s trash and recycling contract to demonstrate its new technology that turns waste into energy, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Los Angeles company wants to build a plant in St. Louis that would turn trash into pellets that can be burned for energy.

🌞 SOLAR: Solar Power World details how cadmium-telluride, thin-film panel developer Toledo Solar (previously featured in Centered) came about and what its leaders view as the secret to future success.