Agriculture & 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.
Ghanaian farmers hesitant on GM maize despite benefits
A new study of 550 maize farmers across five regions in Ghana found that while the majority are aware of genetically modified (GM) maize, ...
From ‘Frankenfood’ to superfood: Can the purple tomato overcome GMO myths to win over consumers?
Consumers know it’s important to eat a rainbow of fresh fruits and vegetables, however, they often fall short of meeting ...
Baby food panic, brought to you by trial lawyers hoping to prosecute by press release
Last week, I received an email from a law firm asking ACSH to promote its groundless allegations about the dangers ...
When farmers deny science: The hypocrisy hurting agriculture’s credibility
There is vast scientific consensus that our planet is experiencing a long-term climate change, and denying this trend — as ...
CRISPR pork: U.S. approves first gene-edited pigs for consumption
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved new genetically modified (GM) pigs for human consumption. Researchers engineered the ...
Fighting deforestation with CO2: Biotechnology breakthrough creates sustainable palm oil alternative for cosmetics
A significant advancement in sustainable innovation has emerged from a collaboration among the Mibelle Group, LanzaTech, and the Fraunhofer Institute ...
The free-range chicken dilemma: Better for birds, but with substantial costs
In the 2021 study, researchers looked at organic and free-range farms, which offered birds more space to roam and raised slower-growing breeds as ...
Viewpoint: Video — Big Solar is gobbling up productive agricultural land and hurting farmers yet providing little energy or sustainabilty gains
I made this 10-minute documentary, SUNBLOCK, because I love farmers and ranchers and want to tell their stories. This film ...
30-year-old tomato line shows genetic resistance to devastating virus
Researchers found that a tomato line developed 30 years ago is showing good resistance to the emerging tomato brown rugose ...
Four ways to strip carbon out of agriculture and limit farming’s climate impacts
Carbon is a “hot topic” in an age of Climate Change (pun intended). That is playing out in unique ways ...
Raspberries are one of the quickest fruits to spoil. That may soon change
One of our most popular summer soft fruits could last longer in the fridge thanks to pioneering new research conducted ...
$250 billion—that’s how much money AI is predicted to save farmers and producers, but the agricultural revolution it’s igniting won’t stop there
[The] food-manufacturing industry has a new AI tool for boosting productivity on farms and in factories: advanced large language models. With this type ...
Nigeria’s government pairing with scientists to convince a skeptical public of the virtues of agricultural biotechnology
The Federal Government has clarified that the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and their products in Nigeria is not ...
Ultra-processed foods found to harm male fertility and metabolism, study shows
A small but rigorous new study found that eating ultra-processed foods caused otherwise healthy men to quickly gain body fat and led ...
Steam technologists test a partial alternative to farm chemicals to control weeds
Recently a report published by the Propane Education and Research Council (PERC) ... featured a field implement designed to be ...
How self fertilizing gene-edited wheat could be a boon for developing world farmers
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have developed wheat plants that stimulate the production of their own fertilizer, opening ...
Why do some people gain weight more easily or develop liver problems while others don’t, even when they eat similar diets?
Our bodies follow a natural 24-hour cycle known as the circadian rhythm that influences everything from sleep to metabolism. While ...
Speed breeding: AI pollinating CRISPR gene-edited flowers are in development
For millennia, developing resilient crops relied on pollination by nature or humans—making the process long and often costly. Now, scientists ...
Organic farming will never be truly sustainable until it embraces gene editing
The organic process is neither viable nor sustainable but a new paper would like to change that. By allowing modern ...
25 years ago, India approved GMO rice and was poised to be the developing world’s crop bioengineering innovator. What went awry?
In the early 2000s, India’s fields promised to become laboratories of the future. When genetically modified (GM) cotton was approved ...
Just because a chemical ingredient used in food is found in household products or medicine does not mean its unsafe
"Many food-grade additives share names with industrial products, but concentration makes all the difference," said Jessica Steier, a public health ...
Resilience, sufficiency, efficiency: Balancing the challenges facing modern agriculture
There’s no shortage of opinions when it comes to the future of agriculture. Across Europe and beyond, the debate is ...
Viewpoint: Should the public foot the pricey bill for organic farming and food?
A group of European researchers argued in a recent journal article that permitting the use of gene edited crops in ...
The science skinny on synthetic food dyes: There is no evidence they are unsafe but they do make some unhealthy food more enticing
The appeal of a brightly colored candy, the vibrant hue of your mouthwash, the pigment of your sports drinks — ...
Certain foods naturally contain chemicals that help us sleep better. Here are some of them
Research shows that the most beneficial diet for sleep seems to be a plant-based diet that includes lots of wholegrains, dairy ...
Appeal to Nature Fallacy: Understanding soaring chemophobia from the ideological left and right
Chemophobia is complicated, but, in short, it’s a distrust or fear of chemicals and appears in many of aspects of ...
More than 12,500 pesticides need assessment or re-evaluation. Here is how EPA does its work
Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin has said he wants the federal agency to accelerate scientific safety evaluations of various chemicals, ...
