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• Rice delivering vaccines for children without
refrigeration needs

Food sovereignty becomes drug sovereignty. Local farming
becomes local healthcare infrastructure. The same tools
used to feed communities can now help heal them.

Localizing Manufacturing, Globalizing Access

Today’s biologics are centralized. They are made in a
handful of high-tech facilities, subject to complex export
controls, IP entanglements, and temperature-sensitive
transport routes. The result is predictably unequal: high-
income nations dominate access, while low-resource
regions are left behind.

Edible biologics offer a different model.

Because they can be grown in modular, distributed
environments—from urban rooftops to converted shipping
containers to rural greenhouses—they enable
decentralized drug manufacturing. A developing country
doesn’t need to import antibody vials—it can grow them. A
disaster zone doesn’t need to wait for cold shipments—it
can stockpile plant-based oral therapies in advance. A
refugee camp doesn’t need infusion clinics—it needs
capsules.

Global health agencies, non-profits, and decentralized
clinical networks can partner with local producers,
embedding pharmaceutical capacity directly into
communities. IP barriers can be addressed through open-

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