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Specialized bio-ingredients, $12T hidden costs, and more

Specialized bio-ingredients, $12T hidden costs, and more

This week’s must-read news for Food & Ag leaders in Asia-Pacific

October 08, 2025

Hi there and welcome to the 10th edition of the Further Insights newsletter.

Just a quick note before this week’s articles 👇

We’re now only 3 weeks away from the Further Food & Ag Investment Summit in Singapore, where innovative growth companies meet investors and strategic partners through pre-arranged 1-to-1 meetings.

If you’re a Startup, Scaleup, Private or Listed Established Food & Ag company, Investor, or Corporate, this is your chance to kick off Singapore International Agri-Food Week with your most valuable meetings already secured.

The Further Summit compresses months of your investor and partner outreach into a single day.

Confirmed attendees include:

AgFunder • Aerospring Hydroponics • Adisseo • Argor Capital • Astungkara Way • Bayer • Better Bite Ventures • Blackmountain • Blue Aqua • Clay Capital • Eclipse Ingredients • Harapura Impact • ING Capital • Innoven Capital • LIG Capital • Living Roots • Mana Impact • Materra • Mirova • Nestlé • OlsAro • New Energy Nexus Ventures • Numin • Pandawa Agri • Pine Ventures • RRJ Capital • SDG Impact Japan • Shiva Industries • Taurus Wealth • Terratai • Terraxy • The Radical Fund • Tindle • TRST01 • Toyo Seikan • Two Mountains Impact • Yindii • Zentide

Top 1-to-1 meeting slots are being booked fast. Head to further.ag to secure your pass early so our team can build the best matches for you.

The full agenda is now live, and we’ll be revealing the venue soon - right in the heart of town!

Now back to this week’s articles! 👇

This week’s must-read news for Asia-Pacific’s Food & Ag leaders reveal that specialized bio-ingredients are scaling beyond proteins. Cultivated omega-3 fats, microbial lipids, leaf-based proteins, and tailored fat platforms are pushing new material frontiers in food, cosmetics, and nutrition.

Indonesia stands out in this edition: moving toward rice self-sufficiency, urging the EU to delay deforestation rules for palm smallholders, wrestling with waste challenges, and set to host a U.S. agribusiness trade mission - registrations for the mission are open until tomorrow (10 Oct). More in the “Other News” section.

What else is inside this week:

🐟 Cultivated omega-3 fish fat going from Singapore to Japan
🧫 Microbes creating sustainable oil to replace palm oil
🗑️ Organic waste composted in 24h with aerobic digester
🇺🇸 U.S. trade mission to Indonesia invites applications by Oct 10
🚜 AI tractors gain PepsiCo backing in Asia-Pacific
🌾 Indonesia nears rice self-sufficiency amid production surge

Have a great read and looking forward to seeing many of you in Singapore, on 3 Nov.

Renato

💡Featured Stories

Singapore's ImpacFat brings cultivated omega-3 fish fat to Japan

Toyo Seikan and Leave a Nest back new cultivated fat R&D base in Tokyo

Impacfat | Toyo Seikan | Leave a Nest | Alt Fat | Japan

Terra Oleo engineers microbes to replace palm oil

Singapore biotech raises $3.1M from ADB and Better Bite to scale oil-producing yeasts.

Tech Crunch | Terra Oleo | Palm Oil | Singapore

Indonesia nears rice self-sufficiency amid production surge

National output jumps 12.6% as irrigation and field expansion boost yields

Antara |Indonesia | Food Security | Government Policy

EU deforestation law delayed again amid Indonesian lobbying

Palm oil producers push Brussels to exempt smallholders from new deforestation rules

Eco-Business | EU | EUDR | Palm Oil | Indonesia

3 agtech startups driving farmer financial inclusion across APAC

AgriFi, Invest Inya Farmer, and DHF Platforms boost credit, cash flow, and markets for smallholders

AgFunder | Fintech | Smallholders | Asia-Pacific

⏰ Other News

Beijing AIForce wins PepsiCo’s Greenhouse Accelerator in APAC

Recognized for autonomous low-carbon tractors advancing sustainable farming

Paradise on the Brink highlights Bali’s waste crisis and 24h compost solution

Shiva Industries' aerobic digester is one of the key solutions to APAC's organic waste (mis)management

FabFit | Shiva Industries | Waste Management | Circular Agriculture | Fertilizer

CleanBean debuts as Thailand’s new plant-based meat brand

New soy-based meat alternatives use high-moisture extrusion for realistic texture and clean ingredients

US trade mission to Indonesia accepting applications until 10 Oct

Mission taps Indonesia’s growing demand for U.S. agricultural goods

US Department of Agriculture | FAS | USDA | Indonesia | Trade Mission

Blended proteins could bridge meat & plant gaps in Asia’s diets

NECTAR’s study finds blended products may beat pure meat in taste tests

Leaft strikes deal with Lacto to launch protein in Japan

New leaf-derived protein poised to replace emulsifiers, eggs and whey in clean-label products Leaft Foods

PR Newswire | Lacto Japan | Rubisco | Alt Protein | Japan

CEFC and La Caisse launch US$160M Meldora ag-carbon platform

Rio Tinto signs long-term offtake deal to combine farming and native forest plantings for carbon credits

Tech transforms China agriculture with AI, drones, and smart systems

Autonomous robots, field sensors, predictive models cut losses and boost yields

World Bank and Sri Lanka back US$100M Rurban agriculture-climate project

Project targets 8,000 producers, upgrades 71,000 ha irrigation, and boosts rural jobs and climate resilience

World Bank | Sri Lanka | Rurban Project | Climate-Smart Agriculture

Report: State of Food and Agriculture 2024 uncovers $12T hidden costs in agri-food systems

New FAO report quantifies environmental, social, and health costs across 156 countries using true-cost accounting

FAO | Agri-food Systems | Costs | Food Policy | Report

South-to-South cooperation fuels food resilience with shared seed systems and digital tools

IRRI’s Seeds Without Borders and SeedCast link Asia-Africa in varietal exchange and planning platforms