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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Podcast: Plant diseases destroy $220 billion worth of crops annually. Meet the scientists fighting to protect our food supply
Looking at the massive selection of goods available in US grocery stores, most consumers likely don't realize just how hard ...
Simple test could speed development of drought-tolerant wheat as climate change accelerates
Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), ARC Center of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, and CSIRO Agriculture and Food ...
Netflix ‘Unnatural Selection’ gene editing miniseries focuses on extreme examples, ignores potential food sustainability impact of CRISPR
I watched dumbfounded. That is not how genetic engineering works ...
If Britain and Wales went 100% organic, crop yields would crash by half and carbon emissions would double, UK study shows
Greenhouse gas emissions would go up if all farms in England and Wales went organic. Though the emissions of individual ...
Dunkin’ launching Beyond Meat breakfast sandwich at more than 9,000 US stores in November 2019
Dunkin' is launching its Beyond Meat breakfast sandwich nationally in November, two months ahead of schedule, after a highly successful ...
‘The Martian’: More science than fiction? Crops could grow in space, study suggests
Whoever is going to survive on the Moon and Mars is going to have to eat. There’s just one problem ...
Beyond Meat pea supplier mulls lentils, oats, rice as beef substitutes to meet plant-based burger demand
One of the world’s biggest pea processors is considering expanding into fava beans as the boom in alternative proteins fuels ...
Genetic engineering, CRISPR and food: What the ‘revolution’ will bring in the near future
Genetic engineering and gene editing have the potential to radically transform our lives if they can overcome the objections of ...
New ‘superfood’ makes bees better pollinators—boosting crop yields up to 90%
Argentina-based startup Beeflow has developed a special nutrient-packed formula for bees meant to boost their immune systems and make them ...
Delayed GMO Bt rice approval costs China $12 billion annually, study finds
To maintain self-sufficiency in rice production and national food security, the Chinese government strongly supports research that aims at increasing ...
‘Big meat’ vs. scrappy startups: Nestlé, Tyson, Hormel roll out plant-based products to compete with Impossible, Beyond
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, scrappy start-ups that share a penchant for superlatives and a commitment to protecting the environment, ...
Podcast: The ‘what, how and why’ of GMOs, a crash course on genetic engineering
Agricultural scientists Karen Cox of West Virginia University and Dan Lima of Ohio State University offer a crash course on ...
Viewpoint: Ignore the internet food gurus—canola oil probably doesn’t cause Alzheimer’s disease
Food fads make me want to scream, cry, and hide in a cabin in the mountains. MSG is safe. And high ...
Where’d pineapple come from? Study explores the evolution of an ever-popular tropical fruit
Researchers have now gained new insights on how human agriculture helped shape the evolution of pineapple. Led by University of ...
Will Kenya lift its GMO ban as its agriculture falters?
Scientists should now move with urgency to allow for the continuation of research to support applications of biotechnology ...
USDA scientist: Cover crops check soil degradation—major threat to global food security
Visit the typical almond farm in California and you’ll see rows of trees stretching to the horizon, forming an arching ...
Fungus-treated tomatoes see 65% higher yields in salty soil, greenhouse study shows
Plant scientists in the Middle East have discovered that adding a desert root fungus, Piriformospora indica—first isolated in India—to the ...
AquaBounty will label GMO salmon before 2022 deadline to promote transparency, company says
AquaBounty is planning to preemptively label its genetically modified salmon in the United States in 2020, a company spokesperson told ...
Trump administration aims to boost farming, medical innovation with streamlined biotech rules
Trump administration officials say they are committed to reducing regulatory barriers to agricultural biotechnology as part of a larger strategy ...
GMO wheat varieties boost crop yields 20-30% in field trial
Studies conducted at the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) showed experimental genetically modified (GM) wheat lines [have] the potential to ...
USDA Kansas City relocation halts research on honeybees, organic food and Bayer’s dicamba herbicide
The relocation of two Agriculture Department agencies out of the District of Columbia has delayed the publication of dozens of ...
Too many carbs, calories? Nope. Lack of fiber biggest problem with American diets
Ask Americans about what they think is the biggest problem with their diets and you'll probably hear a variety of ...
Raging debate: Ghana’s move to commercialize its first GMO cowpea met with mix of optimism and fear
The country plans to release the modified seeds this year or next. Will they benefit the small farmers they were ...
Fertilizer, pesticides from microbes could help make urban farming more productive
Singapore could be an urban farming oasis and achieve government-set guidelines for produce self-sufficiency as researchers there pioneer the development ...
GMO Impossible Burger top-selling item at many grocery stores across US
Impossible Burger debuted on store shelves earlier [in September], immediately becoming the No. 1 product sold at some of America’s ...
Viewpoint: ‘Ancient grains’ can transform your health? Probably not—and they’re more recent than you think
KHORASAN, teff, emmer and amaranth. No, these aren’t planets in the next Star Wars movie, but some of the growing ...
