Every plant and animal in our food systems - from corn to cattle - has gone through a process called domestication where farmers selected for desired traits across generations. This guided evolution has usually taken centuries, and in the process, valuable traits from the wild ancestor species have often been lost.

While most common crops were first domesticated centuries ago, a few crops are much more recent. Blueberries and strawberries were both domesticated from wild North American berries within the last hundred years. Using then-cutting-edge breeding techniques, researchers shaved the domestication timeline to mere decades, and in both cases it paid off and the new fruits become billion dollar industries.

Our process is the next leap forward, shortening the process from decades to years. With backing from the National Science Foundation, we’ve developed a process to rapidly domesticate new crops - without the use of genetic engineering. Put simply, we can now guide evolution to rapidly improve the food output of wild species - without the unintentional loss of genetic diversity that has accompanied previous efforts. And the process is replicable. We envision a future where endless factory farmed monocultures are replaced by polycultures of crops derived from local native plants. A world where farms fit seamlessly into the natural systems they rely on instead of damaging them and the soil is naturally replenished instead of depleted.

Many wild foods contain superior adaptations to extreme weather and drought, as well as more robust root systems that allow them to thrive without irrigation. Our process lets us keep those valuable adaptations intact while improving flavor, size, grow times, and more to create new crops that are viable at commercial scale.