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.
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Bio-based UV filter extracted from onions could replace petroleum in solar cells, improving solar tech sustainability
Solar power is one of the best tools in humanity’s decarbonization toolbox, but even these green energy technologies aren’t 100 percent sustainable. For ...
From tubers to tree seeds: Solynta’s tech to overcome centuries of potato breeding challenges
Breeding potatoes is notoriously difficult. First, commercial potato cultivars don’t self-pollinate, which has historically prevented breeders from creating stable, genetically ...
Viewpoint: Regardless of benefits, the current renaissance of biotech breakthroughs still requires guardrails to mitigate risks
Biotechnology - synthetic biology, the engineering of living systems - is no longer something locked away in high-tech labs. It’s ...
Can native and conventional crops coexist with GM and gene-edited varieties? The case of Honduras
Over the last several years, it’s been more than evident there is an urgent need to increase food production at ...
Viewpoint: If activists and trial lawyers have their way, the herbicide glyphosate will be banned. What would that world look like?
As a reminder for the doomsayers, the Environmental Protection Agency classifies glyphosate as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” ...
Viewpoint: ‘Trump may need to ignore RFK, Jr. on food the way he does on energy, or he’s going to send a lot of his voters into bankruptcy’
Until the 1980s, the modern-day Malthus acolytes like Drs. Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren predicted Population Bombs and advocated for ...
Viewpoint: Gene-edited crops can save the planet—if regulators don’t screw it up
Crop breeding has long been used to improve agricultural productivity, but as modern biotechnology tools reshape the field, discussions over ...
How modern farming and science are driving a global rice boom
In a world worried about looming food shortages triggered by the climate crisis, the collapse in rice prices — now ...
Supporters of organic and genetically engineered crops want the same thing. How we get there most sustainably is the sticking point
Glyphosate (Roundup) is out but fungicides like copper sulphate are in. Genetically modified Bt corn is out but Bt spray ...
Viewpoint: Challenging Big Cattle’s attempt to illegally block the boom in cell-cultured food
Under Senate Bill 261, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law on June 20, "a person may not offer for sale ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
$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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
