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.
Empowering small farmholders and indigenous cultures is central to preserving at risk plants and forests
Empowering farmers, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and scientists to conserve and use genetic resources is key to resilient agrifood systems ...
Should genetically modified crops be regulated by the process that created them or the final product?
In many regulatory frameworks, a transgenic organism is one that contains deliberately altered genetic material which does not occur "naturally" ...
RFK, Jr.’s MAHA Health Commission attacks vaccines, ultra-processed food for chronic health problems, tiptoes around criticizing crop chemicals
President Trump's Make America Healthy Again Commission blamed factors including bad diets, chemical exposure and unnecessary medication for causing childhood ...
Tariff war: Europe open to trade concessions but draw the line at importing America’s hormone treated ‘beautiful beef’
Strict European Union food regulations, including a ban on hormones, govern [international butcher's work]. And those rules could turn into ...
Swedes, especially youth, are open to crop gene editing and want regulations relaxed
Gene editing offers the opportunity to breed with precision, adapting crops and farm animals to a changing climate, providing disease ...
Viewpoint: Organic farming is not as sustainable as popularly believed
At the supermarket, you’re often met with a choice: organic or not? Organic foods — largely free of synthetic pesticides, hormones and ...
How plant genetics could dramatically lower the environmental impact of fertilizer use in farming
Beneficial relationships between plants and soil microbes play a critical role in agriculture, providing sustainable solutions to reduce dependency on synthetic ...
Viewpoint: Activist-critics of GMO crops claim falsely that biotechnology increases chemical use in farming
When the anti-GMO movement gets tired of chanting “Monsanto” like a magic spell, it grabs academic buzzwords to sound respectable ...
Can AI play a signficant role in addressing world hunger?
Achieving zero hunger is a huge task and humanitarians need to use every advantage that is available to them. AI ...
Italy’s ban on cellular meat: Protecting tradition or blocking innovation?
In December 2023, Italy passed Law 172/2023, making it illegal to produce, sell, or distribute cultivated meat. Agriculture Minister Francesco ...
In the developing world, smallholder farms are key to climate resilient, sustainable agriculture
Smallholder farmers are integral to sustainable agriculture, contributing to climate mitigation through soil carbon sequestration, methane reduction, and agroforestry. Techniques ...
Food insecurity crisis intensifies: Almost 300 million people globally face hunger and malnutrition.
In 2024, over 295 million people across 53 countries and territories faced acute hunger—an increase of almost 14 million people ...
90% of new food and beverage products fail. AI is improving the odds
Recent data highlights a striking reality: 90% of new food and beverage products fail. Why? Lengthy product development cycles, outdated consumer ...
Viewpoint: Sustainable intensification—Debunking activist claims that high-yield agriculture leads to industrial monocultures
“Nature organisations have an uneasy relationship with modern agriculture. I think many of them would ideally like to free up ...
Bayer ponders bankruptcy option in renewed push to resolve 60,000 pending glyphosate suits
Bayer is making another push to resolve lawsuits linking the popular weedkiller Roundup to cancer, while exploring a bankruptcy filing ...
AI can play a crucial role in making agrifood more resilient but could lead to increased carbon emissions
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies are offering powerful tools to transform the agrifood system, and new research ...
GLP spaces on X: Pesticides cause Parkinson’s? Another scandalous chemical claim misses the mark
Like so many other chemical scare stories, the claim that pesticides cause Parkinson’s disease (PD) has circulated online for years, ...
Nebraska and Montana ban lab grown, cell-based meat
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte announced on [May 13] that he signed House Bill 401 into law. The legislation banned the ...
Public support for CRISPR gene edited food surges in the UK
The UK is backing emerging innovation to protect the future of our food supply, with 69% of UK adults strongly ...
Viewpoint: Agricultural science shouldn’t be partisan but that’s the way we are trending
Science itself is not partisan. It is based on data, evidence, testing and peer review. It does not take sides ...
GM crops have enhanced environmental sustainability. As climate change roils farming, we’ll need even more biotech innovation
hen genetically modified (GM) crops were initially commercialized in the mid to late 1990s, many critics of the new technology ...
Kenyan government announces action plan to counter activist GMO misinformation
The government has pledged to strengthen public education and combat widespread misinformation around genetically modified organisms (GMOs), as it launched the ...
Disrupt the global food supply? Trump officials dubious about RFK, Jr.—MAHA plan to ban crop chemicals
A bid by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to label pesticides as a potential cause of U.S. health woes ...
Eating a healthy diet delays puberty in teenage girls
Girls who grow up eating a healthier diet than their peers may be less likely to get their first menstrual ...
CRISPR pig joins a shortlist of genetically modified animals approved by the FDA for human consumption
Most pigs in the US are confined to factory farms where they can be afflicted by a nasty respiratory virus ...
Del Monte threatens suit against Nicaraguan farmer growing its patented genetically engineered Pinkglow pineapple
In the middle of last year [2024], Fresh Del Monte indicated that it would take legal action if it was ...
Fruits and vegetables that stay fresh for weeks? Gene edited ‘super foods’ could be on British supermarket shelves soon
Bananas that don’t go brown, strawberries that last for weeks, tomatoes boosted with vitamin D: gene-edited foods could be on ...
