Today’s quick hits, March 28, 2024

Climate-smart rice: Long-grain white rice and brown rice from Wisconsin’s Great River Milling are the first consumer products created under the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. (Wisconsin Public Radio)

Standards for food as medicine: The Food is Medicine Coalition, an association of community-based nonprofit food providers, released a 32-page accreditation standard Wednesday aimed at food companies, grocery stores, and even tech companies that claim to be part of the growing effort to use food to treat medical conditions. (STAT)

A lot of wasted food: The U.N. Environment Program’s Food Waste Index Report, released Wednesday, found that 19 percent of food produced around the world in 2022 ended up as waste, equivalent to around 1.05 billion metric tons of food. (Voice of America)

U.S. farmers and AI: As the global population grows, U.S. agriculture is making an urgent push to develop and adopt new labor-saving technology on a mass scale that is both affordable and accessible. (BBC)

Plight of cocoa farmers: Global market prices for cocoa have tripled within just a few months, yet of every euro spent on a chocolate bar, only about seven cents goes to cocoa farmers, while manufacturers and traders receive around 80 cents. (Deutsche Welle)