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.
Agribusiness giant Bayer introduces new focus on organic seeds
An international company perhaps best known in agriculture for its conventional crop protection products is making its first foray into ...
Mexican biologist outlines multiple benefits of crop biotechnology to a skeptical nation
According to the molecular biologist Francisco G. Bolívar Zapata, one of the measures that must be taken urgently is the ...
How anti-GMO advocates hijacked German science, blocking agricultural innovation and threatening the CRISPR revolution: A farmer’s perspective
Susanne Günther, Farmer, Blogger, and Winner of the InnoPlanta Prize for Objective Reporting on Modern Plant Breeding | July 12, ...
Ghanian farmers press for locally-developed pest-resistant genetically modified cowpea
More than 200 Ghanaian farmers have expressed their readiness to plant Bt cowpea, Ghana’s first genetically modified food crop as ...
Insect- and drought-resistant genetically engineered corn approved for trials in Nigeria
The government of Nigeria has granted environmental approval for evaluation and open cultivation of TELA Maize, a new maize variety ...
Switching from beef to chicken can have big environmental benefits — but it also means many more animals to miserable lives and death
We often talk about steak, lamb chops, bacon and chicken nuggets as if they’re on a level playing field. Just ...
Meet Kernza, the climate change-fighting seed: Wheatgrass perfect for baking that sustainably grows back year after year
Most commercial crops are annual. They provide only one harvest and must be replanted every year. Growing these foods on ...
What’s on the menu in a climate-sensitive diet — and will we eat it?
What if people who shared the distaste for today’s food system could encourage the building, seed by seed and cell ...
Climate change-induced droughts and floods put one of the world’s most important staples — rice — in peril
Farmers in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam — the biggest rice-growing countries — as well as in Nigeria, Africa’s largest ...
Nigerian farmers just can’t get enough of GMO cowpea seeds
Nigeria is witnessing a shortage of genetically modified cowpea seeds as farmer demand for the insect-resistant crop dramatically outstrips supply ...
Seed Speaks Video: Are GMOs sustainable? Can organic feed the world? One size doesn’t fit all
The debate about GMO safety and sustainability is ongoing, but one fact remains: food security is paramount. Does the absence ...
Viewpoint: Public Affairs professor advocates for agroecology systems, claiming technology-centric agricultural programs promoted by Gates Foundation has failed in Africa
Agroecology applies ecology and social science to the creation and management of sustainable food systems and involves 10 or more ...
Viewpoint: Cornell prof Anthony Shelton’s personal account of the sustainability and economic success of GMO eggplants in Bangladesh
I had the opportunity to work on a project that helped transform the lives of resource-poor farmers in Bangladesh and ...
Pest resistance developing to fall armyworm-fighting Bt maize prompts pest management strategies
Maize that is genetically engineered to contain specific toxic (to armyworms) proteins created by the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has ...
Viewpoint: Part 1 — Opposition stirred by anti-GMO advocacy group propaganda fading in the developing world, as more countries embrace crop biotechnology
Although acreage under GMO crop cultivation has expanded rapidly worldwide since GMOs first began to be grown in the mid ...
‘This a crop that not only does not exist in the wild, but could not exist in the wild’: Modern corn is humanity’s creation, for mostly better and some worse
While the 1,500 miles of America's corn belt might mislead you into thinking corn is a wild crop, it was ...
Viewpoint: African agricultural biotechnology advancing swifty in labs to address food security threats — but implementation slowed by European opposition
From the beginning, genetically engineered (GE) crops (also known as GMOs) have been controversial. Europe has always been at the ...
Part 1: Addressing food security in Nigeria — Seeds of hope for subsistence farmers as insect resistant GM cowpeas finally come to market
Not a lot has improved for Nigeria’s subsistence farmers over the years. Most can’t afford fertilizer and chemicals; there’s no ...
GMO eggplant is documented win for resource-poor farmers
Insect-resistant brinjal, or eggplant, is arguably the most impactful project to bring agricultural biotechnology to resource-poor farmers. Studies show that ...
Insects: The sustainable future of food and feed?
Call it protein on the fly, on the shuffle or on the crawl. Insects are the future of food, offering ...
GLP Podcast: End climate ‘alarmism’; FDA vs kratom; Is ‘GMO’ ice cream dangerous? Nope
Human-caused climate is occurring, but the science community may be amplifying the public's skepticism with failed "alarmist" predictions. Is kratom ...
For the first time, India opens gates to imported GM farm products for use as animal feed
The first consignment of 50,000 tonnes of genetically modified (GM) soyameal from Bangladesh has arrived in India via the land ...
Viewpoint: Why criticism of the Green Revolution is misplaced
The wheat varieties developed by Norman Borlaug and his Mexican team [during the Green Revolution] swept over Asia in the ...
Reducing meat consumption to tackle climate change: What role will Africa play?
A burning issue in the world today is climate change. Across Africa, the effects are complex. They range from the ...
First global index of pollinator population changes: Habitat loss and land management are primary drivers, with pesticides last
The top three global causes of pollinator loss are habitat destruction, followed by land management – primarily the grazing, fertilizers ...
Freezer burn wastes food. Now scientists are developing bio-based solutions to prevent recrystallization
Open the freezer door and there, way in the back, may be an old carton of ice cream growing spikes ...
Kenya’s first crop of GMO Bt insect-resistant cotton ready for harvest
After waiting for nearly two decades for the commercialisation of BT cotton, there is finally some light at the end ...
