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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How genetic breeding is revolutionizing vertical farming
In the pursuit of enhancing resource management in indoor vertical farming, the utilization of limited space becomes a critical consideration ...
Smart agriculture: African farmers urged to gradually reduce use of pesticides and fertilizers rather than abandon them to reduce risk of significant crop and economic losses
After decades of mono-cropping and overgrazing, around 65% of Africa’s farmland is now considered unproductive or degraded, leaving more than 270 million people ...
AI poised to unleash a new generation of bio stimulants
Syngenta and a UK artificial intelligence company are combining forces to use the 'full power of AI' for the development ...
MAHA v. Big Food: Will a left-MAGA coalition crystallize to fundamentally change the US food system?
The new Trump administration could be coming for your snacks. For years, the federal government has steered clear of regulating ...
French Association for Scientific Information rebukes hysteria-promoting anti-pesticide activists for endangering sustainable agriculture
We are witnessing a new campaign promoting unfounded fears. In terms of the media, it all started with an AFP ...
Vertical farming won’t feed the world or even the poor. So what are its advantages?
Vertical farms look hi-tech and sophisticated, but the premise is simple – plants are grown without soil, with their roots ...
Africa lags behind much of the world in embracing crop biotechnology, and the result is mass undernourishment
The African governments must decide if they want to fight poverty in the continent or continue to plunge millions of ...
RFK Jr. claims to want healthy food, but demonizes the science that makes it possible
It’s been an... interesting couple of weeks, to put it mildly. Donald Trump nominated RFK Jr. as Secretary of the ...
Outdated regulations and slow adoption of precision agriculture limit China’s agro-biotechnology advancements
The increase in agricultural productivity over the past century has enabled a five-fold increase in the human population and about ...
GLP podcast: Modern farming—’a miracle of science’; extreme weather threatens our food supply? Activists promote retracted pesticide study
Food production has absolutely exploded since the 1960s, feeding billions more people while innovative technologies reduced the environmental impact of ...
Viewpoint: Is the criticism of organic food justified?
If you spend any time on the internet in spaces where people talk about food, nutrition, and the environment, you’ve ...
Are plant-based meats healthier?
Unless you live in isolation from supermarkets, you've likely heard of plant-based meats — products made from plant-derived ingredients like ...
Video: Intransigent vegans: Look what happened when a financially-tottering California restaurant added regeneratively-farmed meat to its menu
A vegan restaurant chain has been forced to close for good following furious customers criticizing them for putting meat and ...
Should agriculture get the blame for antibiotic resistance?
Journalists are an easily spooked bunch. Where scientists see a problem in need of a solution, the press often sees ...
Pork from gene-edited disease resistant pigs should be on grocery shelves in 2025
[R]eports suggest that gene editing could bring us disease-resistant pork as soon as 2025. It’s been thirty years since the ...
The controversy over ultra-processed foods: Some are healthy, some are not
[One] study is helping to answer a pressing nutrition question: Which ultra-processed foods are harming our health—and which might not ...
Bioenergy: Booster gene could naturally jump plant growth 30%
A gene called Booster has been identified in poplar trees that boosts photosynthesis and growth by up to 200% in controlled ...
35 years after Alar hysteria devastated the apple industry, there are more varieties than ever before. What happened?
[I]n 1989 the apple industry was hit with the notorious “Alar Scare” when the environmental group NRDC asserted that a ...
Global farming revolution since the 1960s: ‘A miracle of science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship
The global production of six major food and animal feed crops (corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, cassava, and millet) has dramatically ...
Viewpoint: NGO claim that crop pesticides has led to hundreds of thousands of poisoning deaths has proven false but activists don’t retract it
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” The sentence in the ...
How ‘clean food’ ingredients are opening a new frontier in skin care
The promise to support skin health, the immune system and the microbiome, among other benefits, is driving parts of the ...
How GMO tobacco can improve infant formula and dairy-free plant-based milk
In an eclectic application of transgenic technology, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis describe retooling cells ...
What defines ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ and does it deliver real benefits?
While explicit promotion of “Regenerative Agriculture” is a relatively recent trend, it’s practical implementation typically involves a combination of already ...
Extreme weather is threatening global food supplies. What can be done?
As the world grapples with the challenge of feeding a growing population against an increasingly unstable backdrop, leading journal Science ...
Viewpoint: The downsides of the ‘clean eating’ fad
“Clean eating” is a dietary trend focused on consuming whole foods while avoiding processed and packaged foods with refined sugars, ...
Ignore the click bait. Despite the headlines, seed oils do not cause colorectal cancer
The fear-baiting is truly out of control these days. I can’t open a web browser or social media app without ...
China barrels ahead in its quest to exploit agricultural biotechnology, leaving other countries behind
China has approved five gene-edited crop varieties and 12 types of genetically modified (GM) soybean, corn and cotton, expanding approvals ...
