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.
GMO meta-study: Pesticide use down 37%, yields up 22%, profits rise 68%
A meta-study published this week in PLOS ONE—A Meta-Analysis of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Crops--crunched data from 147 studies ...
GMO label law crushed in Colorado, loses narrowly in Oregon
Two of the countries most liberal states appear to be rejecting measures that would require mandatory labeling of some foods made ...
Maui voters approve moratorium on GMO crops, court fight looms
With almost all votes counted, Maui voters appear to have approved an initiative that bans GMO cultivation in Maui County. The still ...
Award for most needles in an anti-GMO illustration
For the unrealistic arguments against genetically modified organisms ...
Understanding the war against GMOs
I recently finished Robert Greene's marvelous book, The 33 Strategies of War--a 33 stage journey in destroying your enemies. As ...
Cameroon on path to introduce GMO Bt cotton
Cameroon is poised to become the tenth country to grow GMO cotton--a cotton variety modified to express the natural insecticide, the bacterium ...
Got GMO milk?
Bioengineers in the US are developing the world’s first artificial cow's milk made from genetically engineered yeast in an effort ...
Golden Rice faces ideological and technical hurdles
In south and southeast Asian nations such as India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, rice is the primary food source, ...
Open letter: Slow to adopt GM crops, Europe becoming ag backwater
More than twenty of Europe's most prominent scientists issued a joint letter making the case for embracing crop biotechnology--or face ...
Which tastes better: Conventional or organic foods? A tale of two apples
Many studies (e.g., here) have broached the topic of the taste and ‘quality’ of organic food versus conventional. Robustly, The ...
3 billion malnourished Asians ask Greenpeace: Why deny us vitamin enhanced rice?
Many GMO opponents are targeting the development of Golden Rice--a variation on the Asian staple enhanced with Vitamin A that ...
Indian NGO leader: Don’t lift Indian moratorium on Bt eggplant and other GM crops
The Indian government is currently debating whether to life an 18-month freeze on trials of 13 genetically modified food crops, including the ...
100 percent boost in tomato yields with new genetic toolkit
Tomatoes are some of the most genetically modified foods in history. What were tiny, strangely-shaped fruits the size of a ...
$25 million for “Factor GMO” study—Are the results pre-determined?
What anti-GMO activists are billing as the most expensive and comprehensive longterm study of the impact of GMO crops and ...
Is Nassim Taleb a “dangerous imbecile” or on the pay of anti-GMO activists?
Even Nassim Taleb's friends call him a "vulgar, bombastic windbag". Now he's becoming one of the new faces of the ...
Why support erodes for GMO labeling (Hint: It’s not because of spending by Big Ag)
As happened in both California and Washington state, what seemed like an easy path to victory for supporters of a ...
Two-faced anti-GMO groups: Block crop and food innovations then claim Big Ag prevents GMO innovations
Thailand appears poised to move ahead with growing test plots of a genetically modified papaya, modeled after the GMO Hawaiian papaya, ...
Downside to GMOs: Yields have become so good, they exceed processing capacity
Organic food should catapult itself to being a $105 billion industry by next year. Times are good, they have a ...
Science as profane: What superstition of 1752 and 2014 share in common
Today, the Frankenstein story is invoked in exactly the opposite way that Shelley wrote it - it is invoked as ...
Agricultural science is back in fashion for college students: Here’s why
Michigan State University is reporting something this fall that hasn't been the case for 40 years: Agriculture is back, and ...
Consumers will pay more to avoid GMOs–If labeling is mandatory rather than voluntary
Will consumers pay more to avoid GMOs and if so, how much? Apparently it depends in part on whether labeling ...
Kenya paying steep price for precipitous ban on GMO
In 2011, Kenya was poised to enter the club of GMO growing nations when the National Biosafety Authority affirmed the safety ...
What’s so “natural” about “natural crop breeding”?
One of the most popular arguments of critics of crop biotechnology is the claim that conventional breeding is more "natural" ...
Battle of Britain: NGOs and scientists clash over proposal to loosen EU GMO restrictions
Britain has emerged as the key battleground that could determine whether the European Union relaxes its tight restrictions on GMOs ...
Cropland expansion in China has led to dramatic rise in carbon emissions
Over the last 300 years, the population of China has expanded and so has cropland to feed her people. To ...
Challenging tired arguments against GMOs
Steven Novella of the New England Skeptical Society has a thoughtful and entertaining piece on his Neurologica blog on the seven ...
Two Oregon papers join most others in urging “no” on mandatory GMO label vote
Two more Oregon papers, both conservative leaning, are urging votes to reject the Oregon GMO labelling initiative. Most of the ...
