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.
Calorie counting? AI could help, bite by bite
[R]esearchers in Canada are leveraging artificial intelligence to analyze food bite-by-bite. All diners have to do is record themselves eating ...
Fact Check: No, we have not ‘perfected’ technology to put vaccines in lettuce and tomatoes
A post on X (formerly Twitter) claims that the University of California has perfected the technology to put vaccines in lettuce ...
Debunking the ‘MSG is harmful’ myth: How baseless stories spawn enduring food fears
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is the poster child for food additive fear, chemophobia, and the harms of using anecdotes as evidence ...
Is your cheese GMO? The Non-GMO Project and other activists claim 90% of cheeses in America are ‘tainted’. Here are the facts
In cheese production, the need to use traditional rennet obtained from calf stomachs has largely been removed because of a ...
GLP podcast: China bans ‘irresponsible’ germline editing; losing weight causes cancer? Modern culture could drive mental health issues
China has banned germline gene editing, calling the technology, "irresponsible and not permitted." A recent study suggested that losing weight ...
Processed meat and memory: Connections between eating bacon, hot dogs and dementia
Regularly eating processed red meats like bacon, hot dogs, sausage, and salami may increase the risk of developing dementia, according ...
Can CRISPR gene editing spur increased consumption of fruits and vegetables?
Pairwise, a food and agriculture company that uses gene editing and CRISPR technology to transform plants and production systems, recently ...
Seedless blackberry: What seemed impossible with conventional breeding is now a reality
Blackberry lovers everywhere can rejoice! NC State University alumna Lauren Redpath has harvested success by helping develop the world’s first seedless blackberry ...
Guilt-free dessert? Enzyme-boosted chocolate bar soaks up sugar in the gut — turning it into fiber instead
A guilt-free chocolate bar, full of sugar, could someday land at a supermarket near you ...
Breakthough Institute: Are cover crops the silver bullet to reduce agricultural carbon emissions as regenerative-farming enthusiasts claim? Time for a rethink
Cover cropping, the practice of planting secondary crops during the off-season to improve soil health, has roots stretching back to ...
Small farms in South Africa are vulnerable to pests and diseases. Here’s how investing in the ‘bio-economy’ can give farmers early warning signs
Smallholder and emerging farmers in South Africa are particularly vulnerable to plant pests and diseases, leading to significant yield losses ...
Electrocuting weeds: Environmental and health concerns over herbicide use sparks quest for new solutions
As concerns over chemical usage and weed resistance increase, different technologies have been offered as alternatives to weed control. Recently, ...
From ‘lifeless dust’ to livestock farm: Farmer credits regenerative agriculture for soil transformation
In 2010, when Barry Meijer bought Meijer’s Rust near De Rust in the Klein Karoo, the soil was bare and ...
Video: Organic, non-gmo, gluten-free, keto? How food labels mislead us about health benefits
Dr. Mike Isratel of Renaissance Periodization explains how food labels can mislead consumers on the health benefits of eating their ...
Viewpoint: Eating organic to help the environment? Think again
Organic food has become increasingly popular over the last several decades, and sales of organic food hit an all-time high in 2023 ...
Why organic food costs so much: Hand weeding
Organic food sales nearly doubled between 2013 and 2022, to more than $61 billion. The top seller, according to the Organic ...
Viewpoint: ‘Clean eating’ trend — Does it make sense to rebuke all ‘processed foods’?
A new study demonstrates that eating primarily minimally processed foods, as they are defined by the NOVA classification system, does not automatically ...
Meet the beetles: Mealworms could be a food of the future
I have a special fondness for the yellow mealworm, Tenebrio molitor ...
A robot you can… eat? Robotic food could ‘reduce electronic waste, deliver drugs, monitor health’
Robotic food could reduce electronic waste, help deliver nutrition and medicines to people and animals in need, monitor health, and even ...
Analysis: Misguided activist attacks on Africa’s push to increase the use of synthetic fertilizer — ‘Maintaining low agricultural yields won’t accomplish the climate and environmental goals rich Westerners purport to support’
One of the many impacts of Russia’s war against Ukraine was a spike in global food prices. Although food prices ...
GLP podcast: Lead in Lunchables? Dismantling Consumer Reports’ latest chemical scare
"Should You Pack Lunchables for Your Kid’s School Lunch?" Consumer Reports asked rhetorically in a recent headline. "CR's tests found ...
Viewpoint: Few topics in science, health and food elicit more fear and misconceptions than the phrase GMO, most of it based on intentional disinformation
Few topics in science, health and food elicit more fear and misconceptions than the phrase GMO, and most of it ...
Protecting crops from unpredictable weather, restoring soil health, and removing carbon from the atmosphere: Three ways seaweed is transforming agriculture
Ascophyllum nodosum is also known as rockweed in many areas of the world. It’s been used for centuries by local ...
‘Forest reset’: When dinosaurs went extinct, rainforests thrived — allowing new vining grapes to evolve
A lack of dinosaurs traipsing around following the K-T mass extinction may have allowed the grape we know and love to spread and thrive. A team ...
Viewpoint: Rockefeller Foundation and other advocacy organizations argue agricultural production ‘hides’ the ‘true’ cost of food, favoring big corporations and wealthy and wasteful countries to the planet’s detriment. Here’s the nuance behind the inflammatory rhetoric
The first battle in President Lydon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” launched in 1964, was figuring out how to measure it ...
Food phobia: Activists want to scare us about safety and sustainability of what we eat. Here’s why they are (mostly) wrong
Today’s choir of food critics would have us all fear our food. But is that fear really justified? One happy ...
Kenyan farmers, scientists and consumers hold their breaths as decision to lift long-time ban on GMOs punted until the fall
Efforts by the Kenyan Government to have the orders barring the importation, distribution & adoption of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) ...
