Crops & Food
We eat to live. Humans use approximately 11% of Earth’s land for the cultivation of crops for food, but also for clothing, medicine and biofuels. Globally, major crops include sugarcane, pumpkin, maize (corn), wheat, rice, cassava, soybeans, hay, potatoes and cotton.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Dogs trained to sniff out bacterial diseases could protect bee populations
A new approach in the fight against American foulbrood – a disease effecting beehives across the world – is the ...
Anti-GMO activists can’t be allowed to ‘have their way,’ African farmer warns
When I was a little boy, what I feared most were the masqueraders .... human beings wearing masks or ...
Educating farmers key to biotech crop success in developing world
African countries and the Philippines have made significant progress in developing genetically modified (GMO) crops, adding impetus to the drive to ...
GMO controversy is a political debate, not a food safety issue, farmers say
According to a recent article in the New York Times, most consumers don’t know or realize that for decades they ...
New Age Meats lab-grown sausage passes first taste test
On [September 17th], the startup, called New Age Meats, let a handful of journalists and prospective investors taste its prototype product ...
Novel uses for plant hormones could boost crop yields to ‘new limits’
Amidst the growing interest in soil health and soil-plant interactions is a fledgling collective of newer concepts and products, from ...
Video: How CRISPR gene editing can protect and improve our food supply
Following the July European Court of Justice decision to regulate gene-edited crops as GMOs, a debate over the costs and ...
‘Gluten free,’ ‘organic’ and other health fads driving ‘huge’ changes in food production
U.S. consumers are increasingly scanning labels to check that products do not contain certain ingredients, such as gluten, GMOs, antibiotics, pesticides ...
GMO wine: Are we ready for it?
Genetic modification of grapes could help wine growers deal with a range of challenges -- if they can be convinced ...
Myth busted: Only ‘Big Ag’ develops GMO crops
Farmers in other parts of the world — particularly in third world countries — are experiencing REAL problems that the ...
Viewpoint: Catering to anti-GMO activists is a losing business strategy
A few years ago .... Brent Smart, CEO of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi's, headquartered in New York, who had managed their ...
Organic farming’s positive impact on bees may be ‘overestimated,’ new study suggests
Intensive agricultural landscapes can be hostile for bees due to a lack of floral and nesting resources, and due to ...
Biotech crops could soften impact of climate change, Gates Foundation says
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) just released its 2018 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the ...
Success of alternative meat sparks regulatory battle over ‘future of American food’
On Aug. 28, a law went into effect in Missouri that makes it a crime to use the term “meat” to describe ...
Predictability: Why there’s no reason to be looking for ‘unexpected surprises’ in GMO breeding
There's a big difference between "unintended" and "unexpected" effects from genetics and breeding, and regulators are looking for the wrong ...
‘Jumping’ genes responsible for strawberry sexes show how fast plants evolve
[S]eparate sexes may seem fundamental to nature, but they’re an oddity for most plants. Now, scientists have figured out how ...
How is your food grown? A trip to the farmer’s market might teach you
Wouldn’t that be great if we had an abundance of different types of food at our fingertips? Unfortunately .... The ...
Kenya can achieve food security if government invests in agricultural technology
Kenya relies on only 10% of her landmass for food while 89% of the country’s landmass, home to 36% of ...
Food myth busting: Is tilapia a toxic ‘frankenfish’?
Posts were appearing on my Facebook feed warning against the dangers of eating tilapia. So I decided to do a ...
Industry group ‘resurrects’ USDA’s canceled organic food research program
Three months after the U.S. Department of Agriculture pulled the plug on a plan to establish a national organic promotion ...
Are pro-GMO scientists corrupted by money?
Do you watch “crime shows? It’s intrinsically satisfying to see the facts proven and the truth revealed. Phrases such as ...
Embracing biotech crops and why Nigeria’s GMO fight is far from over
In July, Nigeria took a significant step down the biotech road by approving its first commercially available GMO crop, offering ...
Scientists hunting Asian hornet—invasive ‘honey bee killer’ spotted in U.K.
An Asian hornet sighting has been confirmed in Cornwall, sparking a hunt for the honey bee killer's nesting sites. The ...
DNA test could help people with severe food allergies avoid peanuts
For people with severe peanut allergies, eating even minuscule amounts of the legume can trigger anaphylaxis -- a life-threatening condition ...
Here’s what electricity can teach us about pesticide safety
Many people may find it difficult to imagine how a pesticide could ever be safe. To understand how that is ...
Memphis Meats vice president says traditional agriculture ‘required’ for success of lab-grown meat
Start-up company Memphis Meats says that in the future, consumer meat products won’t start in a pasture or a feedlot. Rather, they ...
Skeptoid podcast: GMO food labels fuel public fear of biotechnology
Should foods be labeled based upon their content (like ingredient lists do now), or upon the process by which they ...
80 percent of Americans prefer organic produce, but are they healthier for it?
A whopping 82.3 percent of American households stock up on organic food .... But what if everything we know—or think we know—about ...
