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.
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 ...
Should we eat less red meat? There’s no solid evidence behind that advice, dietary expert panel says
Public health officials for years have urged Americans to limit consumption of red meat and processed meats because of concerns ...
EU Parliament environment committee challenges recent GMO crop approvals, citing seed company ‘market domination’
The Environment Committee in the European Parliament voted against the approval of genetically modified maize and soybean varieties. [The committee ...
Viewpoint: EU does world’s GMO, CRISPR crop research but blocks implementation while other nations benefit from the technology
The story of agricultural biotechnology in the EU started with high hopes and expectations 25 years ago, when Belgian Professor ...
The coming ‘vegan economy’? Billion-dollar plant-based food industry rushes to satisfy eco-conscious consumers
Veganism is on the rise. The phenomenon has spawned a burgeoning industry in alternatives to animal-derived products that’s already worth ...
Viewpoint: ‘Big Ag’ owns scientists who endorse safety of GMOs? Busting the anti-biotech movement’s favorite myth
Scientists are generally inclined to dislike big companies--but they know that biotechnology has made our food supply safer and more ...
McDonald’s teams up with Beyond Meat to test plant-based burger in Canada
McDonald's is teaming up with Beyond Meat. On [September 26], the fast-food giant announced that it will partner with Beyond ...
Wait, corn is a fruit? Yes—here’s the biology that explains why
We all know the is-a-tomato-a-fruit debate (correct answer: yes, but you still shouldn’t put it in a fruit salad). Now ...
Newly discovered genes could help develop natural ‘antibiotic cocktails’ to battle plant disease
Yezhang Ding, Alisa Huffaker, and Eric Schmelz of the University of California San Diego and their colleagues have developed a ...
Drought resistant farming breakthrough: GMO corn survives nearly two months without water thanks to tomato genes, in field study
The intense desert to the south of the Coquimbo Region in Chile makes molecular biologist Simón Ruiz think about how ...
Nigeria needs GMO crops to boost food security, promote food safety, government says
Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, Minister of Science and Technology, announced that the Federal Government (FG) of Nigeria is working hard in ...
AI-powered smartphone app helps safeguard African staple crops against climate change
A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool available for free in a smartphone app can predict near-term crop productivity for farmers ...
Podcast: What Doctor Who can teach us about protecting California’s grape industry from ‘alien’ bugs
Are you a fan of the long-term sci-fi comedy Doctor Who? It's the bizarre but entertaining story of an extraterrestrial ...
High-yielding desert crops? Soil-free growing system could boost food security in world’s arid regions
A lush, green mat of fresh animal fodder is an unlikely sight in the harsh Sahara Desert, but a project ...
Viewpoint: ‘GMO’—the dirty three-letter word used to demonize life-saving biotechnology
The demonization of this technology funds numerous NGOs and has even become a cottage industry ...
Viewpoint: GMO Impossible Whopper can help save the planet—and lots of cows
[In September] I stepped inside a Burger King for the first time in three years. I wanted to try out ...
