New Harvest
New Harvest is a non profit research institute that funds and conducts open, public, collaborative research that reinvents the way we make animal products - without animals. Researchers from around the world focus on finding a sustainable, safe and scalable way of producing alternatives to conventional animal products. AVINA supports New Harvest in advancing the applied research and establishing itself as the global, independent research center of excellence in the field of cellular agriculture.
Isha Datar
New Harvest perfectly represents the open source, non-profit research approach AVINA is looking for in our projects. In an exclusive interview, Isha Datar, New Harvest's CEO, gives insights into their ways of working, their goals and the role AVINA has played in becoming a center of excellence in their field of cellular agriculture.
In five sentences or less, describe what New Harvest does.
New Harvest accelerates breakthroughs in cellular agriculture by funding groundbreaking research. We want to see a world where we can grow products like meat, milk, and eggs from cell cultures rather than whole animals to feed the world sustainably.
Why Cellular Agriculture?
Cellular agriculture is a new discipline focused on growing food from cells. We want to make this form of food production a reality because animal agriculture as it stands today is fraught with problems of sustainability, safety, and access. Animal agriculture, especially intensive, industrialized animal agriculture, is the largest producer of greenhouse gases; a key driver of antibiotic resistance and epidemic virus development; and is the greatest threat to the welfare of animals. By producing meat, milk, eggs, and more from cell cultures instead of animals, we could potentially create a sustainable source of nutrition in a climate-changed world.
What is New Harvest’s approach?
Today, there is very little public funding dedicated to academic research focused on growing foods from cells. We address this important, neglected funding gap by funding scientists at institutions around the world and fostering international, interdisciplinary collaboration.
We are very people-focused: we believe people ignite change through the projects that they lead. We fund research but really, we fund scientists, who we believe will become scientific leaders in cellular agriculture. In addition to creating a collaborative environment, we help our grantees become ambassadors for cellular agriculture through speaking engagements, connections with industry, and by highlighting their work and motivations throughout their funding relationship with New Harvest. It’s incredibly rewarding to see a new field develop thanks to the energy and excitement of early-career scientists.
The cellular agriculture market is enormously fast-paced. How does one keep up with all that is happening, especially in academia?
It’s really hard to keep up, especially these days! When I started paying attention to this field over 10 years ago, it was easy to keep up with every single publication and news article. Now there’s a lot of information - of varying quality and credibility. What’s especially difficult about the academic work is that it isn’t happening in cellular agriculture per se, a lot of developments are taking place in the biomedical or industrial biotechnology fields, and you must be able to creatively apply those advances to cell ag. I personally find it most rewarding and fun to keep up through personal connections in the space, but for those who do not have that option (yet) I’d recommend following the New Harvest newsletter, Twitter, and Instagram. For industry-wide news, I’d definitely recommend the Cell Agri newsletter and Protein Report.
Today, there is very little public funding dedicated to academic research focused on growing foods from cells. We address this important, neglected funding gap by funding scientists at institutions around the world and fostering international, interdisciplinary collaboration.
Five years down the road, where will the cellular agriculture ecosystem be, and what role do you foresee NH playing?
What an interesting question! Let me think back to where we were five years ago. In early 2015 no cultured meat companies had been founded yet, and we hadn’t yet started funding research. Today, there are over 50 cultured meat companies worldwide, New Harvest has supported over 20 academic researchers, and other groups have started to fund cell ag research too. In 2025 I’d hope to see established government funding for cellular agriculture, for New Harvest to continue to be a driving force for the field - stretching into new academic disciplines, building centers of excellence around the world, and seeing our research fellows become “rock star” researchers building labs of their own.
I’d like to have seen New Harvest push the envelope in the cellular agriculture conversation. Through this technology we have a new approach to feed the world. How do we make sure that advanced technology also accompanies advanced systems thinking so that our food system is truly transformed for the better? Cell ag is a powerful technology; I’d hate to see cell ag companies replicate the meat industry that we see today. Innovative thinking needs to happen at all levels of introduction of this new food technology - not just in the lab.
How has the support of AVINA Stiftung changed New Harvest´s work?
AVINA’s support has been transformational for New Harvest. We could begin planning for growth in ways that we couldn’t before, when we could only count on funding for one year at a time. AVINA’s support let us dedicate time and effort to optimizing our internal processes, planning long term and hiring new staff. We have tripled our researcher headcount in the first two years of AVINA support and have been able to position our organization as the scientific leader in cellular agriculture.
AVINA’s support has been beyond financial. We love that AVINA also values the power of people to drive change in the world. We also love the strategic guidance they have offered. It’s been amazing to have a partner that we can be fully honest and transparent with about our hopes, dreams, and fears. These relationships are not easy to come by!
Which of New Harvest’s accomplishments are you especially proud of and why?
New Harvest does a lot of work but I am most proud of our flagship fellowship program. It’s easy to fund research - it’s not easy to create a new interdisciplinary research environment. We’ve had to do a lot of design work in order to bring forth the positive attributes of academia - academic independence, robust research, collaboration - and leave behind worries of “scooping”, research redundancy, or lack of career opportunities for graduate students. Through a combination of contract and program design, it’s been rewarding to see our values at work through this program.