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.
UK sugar beet farmers could be growing gene-edited, disease-resistant crops within 5 years
[British Sugar] is investigating gene-edited beet seed as a long-term solution to [virus yellows] disease, which devastated crops across eastern ...
Anti-GMO activists launch final effort to block AquaBounty’s fast-growing, sustainable GM salmon as US sales loom
As biotech firm AquaBounty prepares to harvest its GE AquAdvantage salmon for sale in the US, activist groups have trotted ...
‘Peak meat’ 2025? As plant-based proteins grow more popular, beef consumption will drop, study predicts
An increasing number of people are eating meat and dairy alternatives as concern grows over health, the environmental impact of ...
Natural GMO: Whiteflies stole a gene from plants millions of years ago that can protect them from pesticides
Pale, squishy, and smaller than a sesame seed, these sap-sucking bugs terrorize more than 600 plant species, infecting them with ...
Viewpoint: Animal agriculture offers potentially ‘game-changing solutions’ to climate change
Cows are often assigned disproportionate climate change blame, but recent weeks in Washington bring hope that political leaders may begin ...
CRISPR ‘super corn’ with more kernels could reduce land, fertilizer and water use
Thanks to selective breeding over the course of some 9,000 years, humans were able to transform an ancient wild grass ...
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Thanks to gene editing, another biotech-driven farming revolution might be ‘just around the corner’
The basic principle of crop breeding is to first discover and then select for variants with desired traits. While selection ...
What is regenerative farming, and is it a solution to climate change?
At a high level, Regenerative Agriculture is a system of farming practices based on decades of science and applied research that ...
Lab-grown tuna could satisfy growing demand for fish without the severe environmental impact
From 1961 to 2015, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, global fish consumption grew from 9kg to 20.2kg ...
Bowing to political pressure, India scraps plans to trial GM, insect-resistant, Bt eggplant
[The Indian government] has junked its decision of allowing scientific field trials of transgenic crops including indigenously developed Bt brinjal. ...
Bolivia will repeal rules expediting GM crop approvals, inciting pushback from farmers who want access to new technologies
It's official. The [Bolivian] Central Government will seek to annul the supreme decrees that paved the way for the use ...
‘Stop conflating all biotechnology with genetic engineering’: The case for more refined USDA regulations
Policymakers had known for years that the U.S. regulation of crop biotechnology was out of date, and by 2016, discussions ...
Poverty and hunger follow Africa’s fall armyworm invasion
Africa’s fall armyworm invasion has contributed to poverty and hunger among smallholder farmers, a pioneering study shows. Severe levels of ...
Viewpoint: Public investment in farming technology could cut land use by 63 thousand square miles—’about the size of Iowa’
Using existing research on the relationship between R&D and productivity and SIMPLE, a global economic model of agriculture, we find ...
First lab-grown chicken nuggets just hit restaurants in Singapore, and more ‘slaughter-free’ meats could arrive in 2021
The company behind [an in vitro cultured] poultry product, Eat Just, has since sold more than 200 servings of the ...
Here’s how GM canola-derived fish feed could make aquaculture more sustainable
Fish feed ingredient Aquaterra, derived from genetically modified canola, has been certified for sustainable aquafeed production by Friend of the ...
Viewpoint: USDA data show the predicted ‘Beepocalypse’ has been postponed another year
The latest numbers on honeybee colonies have been released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and they show that the ...
25 years of GMOs: 4 farmers weigh in on the costs and benefits of biotech crops
[29-year-old Lewis] Stearns is part of a generation of farmers that has grown up with GM technology, which now is ...
GM fish coming soon: Major US seafood wholesaler will carry AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage salmon
The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.-based wholesale restaurant supplier [Samuels & Sons] is giving [AquaBounty’s] RAS-raised GE salmon a shot, despite the ...
Did you hear the story about the GMO that almost destroyed the world?
An old myth has resurfaced that a GMO almost destroyed all life on Earth — but what's the real story? ...
Will consumers accept the world’s first gene-edited tomato?
[Japanese startup Sanatech Seed’s] Sicilian Rouge High GABA tomato was developed using cutting edge CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology. It contains ...
‘Space farming’: Bacteria discovered on International Space Station could aid plant growth on Mars
A team led by scientists at the University of Southern California characterized four strains of bacteria isolated from the International ...
Viewpoint: ‘Organic At All Costs’? How a small clique of anti-GMO groups invented the conventional vs organic myth
Today’s farmers aren’t uneducated self-serving workers driven solely by greed. They are genuine stewards of the land, who employ a ...
Just how ‘green’ are biofuels? Why turning crops into energy might not be a worthwhile climate change solution
Biofuels are liquid fuels made from biomass (plant or animal organic materials) and used primarily in transportation, which is almost ...
Insect-resistant Bt rice nutritionally equivalent to its non-GMO counterpart, study finds
Researchers from the Republic of Korea documented that Bt rice is compositionally equivalent to its non-Bt counterpart by using four ...
Nature editorial: Post-Brexit, the UK should embrace gene editing in food and agriculture while taking safety concerns seriously
[B]ecause of Brexit, [the UK] has an opportunity to diverge from EU [agricultural] regulations. In a consultation that [ended] on ...
