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.
Talking Biotech: Kevin Folta on how farmers can communicate science effectively
Don't let Dr. Oz and others who know nothing about ag tell a farmer's story: Kevin Folta ...
As bugs become resistant to Bt maize in South Africa, new practices needed to delay resistence
In the case of maize, the GM crops planted and consumed in South Africa are known as Bt-crops, so named ...
Chilean salmon industry aims to replace antibiotics with biotech bacteria
In an effort to reduce the use of antibiotics in the Chilean salmon farming industry, researchers in the South American ...
Nutrition professionals need to enter conversation on GMOs
I originally discussed the need for nutrition professionals to enter the genetic engineering (GE) conversation/GMO debates on the American Society ...
After cancer assessment of farm chemicals, farmers still comfortable with using herbicides
Farmers count on chemical herbicides to keep their fields weed-free. In the last few months though, scientists brought together by ...
GM rice could address hunger, cut methane emissions 90%, fight climate change
It’s food for climate conscious consumers. A strain of rice has been genetically engineered to produce less methane. Rice agriculture ...
Cripr-Cas9 DNA editing opens world of possibilities—and Pandora’s box
Crispr-Cas9 makes it easy, cheap, and fast to move genes around—any genes, in any living thing, from bacteria to people ...
Chef Tom Colicchio weighs in against the ‘DARK act’
It’s not surprising that as a chef, I want to know what I am feeding my customers. It’s also not ...
Fraud or drift? USDA finds 43 percent of organic foods contain ‘prohibited’ substances
Pesticides have been found in nearly half of organic fields. Is this a case of accidental drift, or fraud? ...
WTO members raise concerns over EU, China biotech restrictions
The World Trade Organization committee dealing with food safety, animal and plant health, formally known as the Committee on Sanitary ...
Chipotle loses integrity hyping non-GMO menu, as growth and traffic sour
In April, the high-class Mexican food chain Chipotle announced that it was going GMO-free. That is, the company would no ...
Neil Young donates $100,000 to fight Vermont’s GMO lawsuit
Canadian rocker Neil Young joined Gov. Peter Shumlin to voice his support for Vermont’s GMO labeling law, which requires food ...
Water: California drought yet water bottles everywhere
Humanity's future depends on how we manage our interactions with water. This takes the form of how we package it, ...
Audio: Bill Nye suggests ‘Proudly GMO’ label
Just in case Part 1 wasn’t controversial enough, Bill Nye and Chuck Nice are back to answer new fan questions ...
Democratic critics of voluntary GMO labeling bill launch attacks
Critics of a GMO regulation bill are proposing amendments that would add restrictions or exemptions to the legislation and allow ...
Anti-GMO activists so religiously dedicated to ideology they’ve lost progressive ethos
Plentiful are the takeaways from Will Saletan’s expertly researched, if a bit viciously anti-activist, barn-burner of piece over at Slate ...
European experts say glyphosate cancer warning not grounded in science
It is described as the world’s safest pesticide, used so pervasively that it shows up in human breast milk and ...
Genophobia, an intution like Creationism, can be overcome by science
Over at Slate Will Saletan has a very long piece Unhealthy Fixation: The war against genetically modified organisms is full ...
Kevin Folta debunks pay for play paper finding formaldehyde in GMOs
Let's visit the paper by Ayyadurai and Deonikar, published in Agricultural Sciences, a journal I've never heard of, and a ...
Pesticide residues on food too small to be harmful
A new study published in International Journal of Food Contamination shows that pesticide levels in food are far below levels that ...
French may be GMO averse, but its scientists still innovating in biotech
While Silicon Valley cooks up eggless mayonnaise and salt without sodium, French entrepreneurs are doing away with supermarkets. Despite traditionally ...
How to scare people into supporting bad policy on bees and other pollinators
If you are a scientist with an agenda, nothing works better than cooking up a "modeling" study: junk in, junk ...
Out of his depth, Nassim Taleb bungles risk assessment of GMOs
In a July 13 commentary in the New York Times, financial gurus Mark Spitznagel and Nassim Taleb, neither of whom boasts any ...
Saletan’s Slate on target expose of GMO fear mongering overstates corporate influence
The title of William Saletan’s July 15 j’accuse in Slate, “Unhealthy Fixation” is spot on, but the subtitle really nails ...
Vitamin A prevents night blindness, yes, but does Golden Rice?
Journalist Will Saletan set the Internet afire yesterday with his long-form piece against anti-GMO activists. A key component of his argument is ...
Organic farming contributes to more greenhouse gas emissions, not less
Here’s some hard, responsibly farmed news to swallow: Big Organic isn’t really doing much to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, commercialized ...
The fall of Gary Hirshberg: From reformer to reactionary anti-science propagandist?
Gary Hirshberg is in the midst of rewriting his legacy from admired 'social responsibility' leader to crank apologist for disinformation ...
