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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Cultural differences over food and GMOs dog US-Europe trade talks
Everyone in agriculture—from farmers, to agribusiness executives, to the professors who conduct agricultural research—says that decisions ranging from what to ...
Plant breeding blamed for gluten problems but evidence isn’t there
Wheat—and the main protein it contains, gluten—has been cited as a cause of weight gain, “brain fog,” skin rashes, joint ...
Watershed: Records requests reveal abusive tactics of extremist GMO opponents
U.S. “Right to Know” (US-RTK) is a lobby group opposed to genetic modification (GM), and with the mandate to implement ...
Bolivia plans genetically unique quinoa brand to tap into gluten free mania
Australia and the United States, two of the world's biggest wheat exporters, are racing to become mass producers of the ...
Dicamba-resistant crops aim to fight ‘superweeds’ but critics worry about environment
To counter a "superweed" epidemic plaguing farmers, agribusiness giant Monsanto is steadily moving forward on the introduction of its next ...
Take the New York Times’s interactive GMO food labeling quiz
Few industry debates are as heated these days as the one about labeling foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. And ...
Washington’s apple growers fear stigma by association after GM apple approval
The debate over genetically modified organisms didn’t end in 2013, when this state’s voters narrowly rejected an initiative that would ...
Are shrooms the new pesticide?
Scientists in Ireland have found that growing fungus inside barley helps the plants ward off disease. Brian Murphy, a botanist at Trinity ...
Cult of ‘natural’ opposes modernity
The idea of genes being crossed from different species into another — the “Frankenfood” myth—may sound strange and “unnatural” when it is ...
Map highlights where cropland has room to grow
If we don't start producing more food, we're going to run out in the future. With world population growing and ...
Columbia Journalism Review: Anti-GMO group’s records request threatens independent research
U.S. Right to Know, based in Oakland, Calif., has asked at least four universities to turn over all correspondence since ...
At Last Count: Global status of GMO crops
Looking at the numbers as of 2014 of approve genetically modified crops around the world ...
China’s rejection of GMO “contaminated” alfalfa–Biotech failure or global politics?
In 2014, China rejected imports of alfalfa from the US that contained trace amounts of GE material. Activists reacted with ...
In push for labeling GMOs, why not label mutagensis?
A federal bill that would mandate the labeling of genetically engineered ingredients in food or beverages sold in the U.S ...
Glyphosate not harmful to humans, according to food science
Two weeks ago, I girded my loins and wrote a column endorsing genetically engineered food. The spate of fist-shaking, chest-thumping ...
Technique used for GM mosquitos could be used to target agricultural pests
Back in the 1950s, two American scientists came up with a revolutionary idea to eliminate a longstanding scourge of livestock ...
Why do we trust science but not GMO crops?
Our daily lives are quite used to scientific innovations that we trust and use—mobile phone, radio, television, electricity, and even ...
Australia’s organic farm group warns lawsuits will follow lifting of GM bans
The lifting of bans on genetically modified (GM) canola in NSW and Victoria will trigger a landslide of lawsuits from ...
Burkina Faso’s Bt cotton success may spur Nigeria biosafety law revamp
Burkina Faso’s farmers will be cultivating BT Cotton for the eight season this year and they have benefited significantly from ...
GMO farmer borrows from organic soil management practices
Based on organic farming principles, regenerative agriculture builds soil health for continued use while cutting down on greenhouse gases. Based ...
Is organic grass-fed beef healthier than grain fed?
Almost always, when I talk to scientists and farmers about food supply issues — whether it’s farm size, organic methods, ...
Why people become skeptics of GMOs, vaccines and climate change
We live in an age when all manner of scientific knowledge—from the safety of fluoride and vaccines to the reality ...
Russian outfit plans to spend $25 million to secretly study GMOs
Back in November, a group that has campaigned against GMOs in Russia announced that it was going to do a ...
Union of Concerned Scientists join criticism of anti-GMO activist ‘attack’ on university researchers
The legal attack hit Kevin Folta in early February. After receiving a FOIA request from U.S. Right to Know—a nonprofit ...
Cult of Biodynamics: Future of farming or agrarian organic witchcraft?
Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that rejects many aspects of modern agriculture including genetic engineering, originally developed ...
Biotech could blunt predicted devastation of climate change
A study of wheat yields by 53 researchers on six continents, including a Kansas State University professor, has found that ...
Owen Paterson: ‘Anti-GMO stance of Green Blob, Greenpeace condemn poor to starvation, death
Former UK environment secretary goes on the attack against what he says are modern Luddites: Greenpeace and the ministers of ...
