Apply to India Smart Protein Innovation Challenge : Launched on World Environment Day

Dear Yatris,

Please share with anyone who cares about the problem at hand! Please visit www.smartproteinchallenge.in for more details. I can personally vouch for the immense positive impact this sector can create on the future of our planet.

Shardul Dabir,

Jagriti Yatri from 2016-17 

(Agriculture Vertical)

----------------

Today, June 5, is World Environment Day. It’s a day to rethink our impact on planetary health at the best of times, and especially at the depths of the current public health crisis. The food system is a great place to start - and unfortunately, examining the data reveals that we simply cannot continue with business as usual in the global protein supply.

We are at a unique point in history. By 2050, the world will need to feed nearly 10 billion people - one-sixth of whom will be Indian. Global meat demand is expected to grow by 70% during that time. We don’t have enough land on earth, fish in the sea or time to continue producing food the way we do now. Resource-intensive animal agriculture poses tremendous challenges in food insecurity, climate change, and public health risks including zoonotic disease - for producers and consumers alike. At the same time, malnutrition threatens our nation’s health security and prevents our children from shaping their own destiny. Nourishing a growing world demands a paradigm shift, and feeding 10 billion people sustainably means giving producers and consumers viable alternatives - foods that provide the same satisfaction as conventional meat, eggs, and dairy, but are better for human and planetary health. 

With thousands of crores of investment and hundreds of companies around the world, plant-based foods are taking off, and creating thousands of jobs for talented, committed young students and professionals all over the world. These foods are meant to perfectly replicate the sensory and cultural experience of meat, eggs. and dairy, but are made from plant or crop ingredients - which means they use vastly less land and water, have vastly lower greenhouse gas emissions, and pose far less risk to public health. 

That’s protein, made smart. It’s one of our best bets to feed a growing world. But to get there, we need a generation of innovators - students, young professionals, and entrepreneurs from across science and business, with a passion for tackling big challenges, growing their skills for the 21st-century food system, and building a more healthy, sustainable, and just protein supply. At the Good Food Institute India (GFI-India), we’re focused on leveraging markets and technology to tackle these problems and to help build world-class talent for this rapidly emerging sector in India. To cultivate this talent, we are launching a first-of-its-kind India Smart Protein Innovation Challenge in partnership with Gastrotope, Mistletoe (Japan), Thought For Food (Switzerland), ProVeg Incubator (Germany), CIIE.CO at IIM Ahmedabad and AGNIi (at Invest India).

Applications are without any costs and they open on 15th June 2020 and expression of interest is now live on the website! Please visit www.smartproteinchallenge.in for more details.