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.
Malaysia: Bioengineered crops are agriculture’s green bravura
The following is an edited excerpt. Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) crops and food have another name. Because they are developed ...
Prime Minister Cameron wants GM crops grown in Britain
The following is an edited excerpt. David Cameron has given the clearest signal yet that the government wants to see ...
Chipotle becomes first US restaurant chain to voluntarily label GE foods
The following is an edited excerpt. The recent decision by Whole Foods Market to label all genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) sold ...
Resistance to biotech is robbing consumers of affordable food
The following is an edited excerpt. When a farmer discovered biotech wheat on a remote field in eastern Oregon in ...
Careless farming could cost us benefits of GM crops
The following is an edited excerpt. Resistance is far from futile. Agricultural pests are evolving immunity to the toxins in ...
The organic hepatitis outbreak: We need organic field testing
A recent outbreak of hepatitis A infections from the consumption of organic frozen berries highlights the problem with the organic ...
GM foods grow up
Critics of transgenic crops often focus on the seemingly unnatural act of adding something new and alien to a plant's ...
GMO pigs study – more junk science
The following is an excerpt. When I saw on Twitter that a ‘major new peer-reviewed study’ was about to reveal ...
“GMOs make pigs sick” paper avoids rigorous analysis
New research claiming GM foods hurt pigs is more fishing expedition than proper science ...
Nature Biotechnology analysis lashes French politicians for feeding anti-biotech fever
In March 2012, the French government issued an emergency ban on a GM strain of corn “to protect the environment." ...
Monsanto wins defense against organic farmers’ lawsuit over seed contamination
Monsanto Co. won another round in a legal battle with U.S. organic growers as an appeals court threw out the ...
Congress “protects” GM crops
The "Monsanto Protect Act" provision passed earlier this year has elicited overstated responses from critics and proponents alike ...
It’s past time for world to embrace biotechnology
The following is an edited excerpt. Convincing Americans about the advantages of biotechnology never has been the main issue. The ...
The calm of the genetically modified storm?
The following is an excerpt. As the world approaches a population of nine billion by 2050, GM crops can play ...
Wheat trading partners react to GM wheat announcement
The following is an excerpt. On May 29, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant and Health Inspection Service announced preliminary ...
Argentina says China approves more GM soy, corn for import
The following is an edited excerpt. Argentina's agriculture minister said on Saturday that China has approved three new strains of ...
Tests so far show commercial wheat seed GM-free, sabotage a real possibility
The following is an excerpt. Monsanto said Wednesday that broad testing of commercial wheat seeds in Oregon and Washington state ...
Massachusetts public hearing set on three GMO labeling bills
The following is an excerpt. A hearing has been scheduled to allow the public to offer testimony on three bills ...
Genetic modification and the fate of sustainable fish farming
Whole Foods's refusal to stock salmon fed with GM yeast may stifle technology that delivers environmental benefits ...
Being Gilles-Eric Seralini: Inside the mind of the anti-GM movement
Anti-GM activists live trapped in their own heads; All they can see and hear are their own slogans and conspiracy ...
GE wheat: Pulitzer Prize winner gets things wrong on the Colbert Report
The following is an edited excerpt. Near the beginning of an interview about GE wheat, Colbert asks (humorously) how the ...
Italian researchers explore how GE could improve the taste of wine
The following is an edited excerpt. A gene expression study of grapevine berries grown in different Italian vineyards has highlighted ...
Kickstarter-funded glowing plant sparks debate
The following is an edited excerpt. Among the many projects attracting crowd-sourced funding on the Kickstarter website this week are ...
Recommended reading on GE foods for skeptics
The following is an edited excerpt. Late June in 2009, I went to a talk at the Long Now Foundation ...
Will genetically engineered animals bring home the bacon?
The following is an edited excerpt. The critics of biotechnology who predicted the eventual emergence of a fearsome Dr. Frankenstein's ...
GE cotton improves diet quality for small-scale farmers in India
The following is an edited excerpt. Insect-resistant genetically modified (GM) cotton has significantly improved calorie consumption and dietary quality among ...
Labeling GM foods would pose monstrous hurdles
Science aside, efforts to label GM food face packaging issues as monstrous as any "Frankenfood." There are many "stealth" GM ...
