Paul Kasemsap

พรพิพัฒน์ เกษมทรัพย์

 Paul Kasemsap

~wondering how plants turn air+water+dirt into food!

1 April 2020 -

Grad Innovator Fellowship 2020: Meeting Global Protein Demands and Optimizing Resources in the Face of Climate Change

This is an excerpt from an article first published by UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health in April 2020.

Working against the climate clock on creative protein solutions

Pornpipat “Paul” Kasemsap has always had a passion for optimizing agricultural systems. As a PhD candidate in Horticulture and Agronomy with Dr. Arnold Bloom at UC Davis, he has come to understand the complexity of food production. Along the way Kasemsap’s higher education journey provided many opportunities to explore food production in diverse regions of the world such as Thailand, the Netherlands, and then California. Now he combines the different fields of genetics, crop physiology, and agricultural management to optimize plants as a food source.

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“Scientists are getting better at communicating their findings to the public. But communication is a two-way interaction. In order to meet global food challenges, we need the public to be engaged and responsive to the issues at hand.” — Paul Kasemsap, 2020 IIFH-FoodShot Innovator Fellow

As a Fulbright Scholar pursuing research in international collaborative environments, Kasemsap is well positioned to develop solutions for the grand challenge of feeding tomorrow’s global population with today’s limited resources. He believes that working with FoodShot Global as a 2020 Innovator Fellow is an essential step toward this ambitious goal. Kasemsap will join the investment platform in advancing a Precision Protein System, where science, technology, investment and innovation are deployed across protein sectors to deliver the maximum benefits to human and planetary health while minimizing resource inputs. “Of course, there is no single solution,” he says. “We need to exchange knowledge across different approaches, and then I am hopeful of democratizing access to sufficient, nutritious protein at a global scale.”

FoodShot is a collaborative investment platform of innovators, investors, industry leaders and advocates working to empower bold ideas and innovative companies that accelerate the transformation to a healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system. FoodShot’s integrated capital continuum awards over $500K in non-dilutive funding via the GroundBreaker Prize, as well as up to $10M of equity or debt investment for innovative businesses. Kasemsap’s experience working with agronomists, breeders, plant physiologist and geneticists will help explore improvements to protein nutrition and sustainability in pursuit of FoodShot’s plans for better human, animal, societal, and planetary health outcomes – including considerations for crops, seafood, meat, and emerging alternative proteins like algae, mushrooms, and cell-based meat.

This aligns with Kasemsap’s human health focus on nutritional solutions to come from future food crops, which will have to be adapted to anticipated climate conditions. Kasemsap and his research colleagues are concerned that expected atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations over the coming decades will have a negative influence on global food and nutrition security by interfering with a plant’s ability to assimilate nitrate into protein. As a consequence, the protein content of food crops may decrease by as much as 15% as CO2 continues to rise.


The “perfect candidate” for tackling Precision Protein

Following his FoodShot engagement, Kasemsap will review the market potential for wheat that is bred to tolerate rising CO2 levels. He characterizes the crop as a “perfect candidate” for meeting the global protein challenge: per gram of protein available for consumption, wheat has minimal impact on greenhouse gas emissions and remains an affordable option compared to other protein sources. On average, this staple crop supplies a significant portion of the necessary protein and calories for the daily human diet worldwide.

Through his work, Kasemsap hopes to identify the plant mechanisms and genetic bases for maintaining nutritious food supplies in the face of elevating CO2. His findings should help guide on-farm nitrogen management, an element responsible for significant yield improvements during the green revolution, and aid food system sustainability into the future.

category: news 
tag: science  plant 

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