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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Plans to introduce GMO crops in disarray, legislators angry after Uganda’s president rejects GMO cultivation law for second time
The lawmakers could attempt to enact the legislation without the president’s signature ...
Can indoor farming surmount agriculture’s biggest challenges?
A car park opposite the infamous New York City housing estate where rapper Jay-Z grew up seems an unlikely place ...
Growing some crops under solar panels boosts water efficiency, electricity generation
Solar panels might seem like they’re in direct competition with plants. One is catching sunlight to do photosynthesis, the other ...
Hormel, Kellogg launch ‘non-GMO’ plant-based meats to compete with Beyond, Impossible
Hormel said [September 4] it will launch its own plant-based meat brand, following Kellogg’s announcement of a similar addition to ...
Podcast: The story of a grape disease that decimated vineyards for 200 years—and how science helped stop it
When Europeans began to colonize North America 400 plus years ago, they brought along the crops they knew how to ...
Plant geneticist Kevin Folta: Scientific American’s rewritten anti-GMO article a ‘lesser abomination’
The Scientific American article about "dying broccoli" and "toxic corn" drew wide criticism for its unreferenced and outright false indictment ...
US world leader in GMO research, cultivation—growing 75 million hectares in 2018
The US remains as the top producer of biotech crops in 2018, according to the Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM ...
Should your dog eat ‘paleo’ kibble? How misleading pet food labels fool consumers
Zealotry about pet food is every bit as self-satisfied as a Food Babe mantra. Since food is the new religion, ...
Virus-resistant GMO pinto bean could cut crop losses in Brazil by 40% or more
Brazilian farms are expected to begin planting a transgenic [pinto] bean resistant to the main crop disease in October, and ...
Don’t go vegan? Missing nutrients from meat could be bad for your brain
The momentum behind a move to plant-based and vegan diets for the good of the planet is commendable, but risks ...
Education, politics, religion may have no impact on our acceptance of GMOs
A study examining the public's 2006 views on GMOs offers a glimpse into the evolution of the ongoing debate over ...
DNA sequencing technique spots wheat pathogens, and diseases-fighting microbes to stop them
Plant diseases, especially those caused by fungal pathogens, jeopardize global crop biosecurity and preventing them requires rapid detection and identification ...
CRISPR and other new breeding techniques could be key to unlocking potential of global wheat production
Scientists and policy makers are calling for wider use of new breeding techniques ...
Climate change’s silver lining? Longer growing seasons boost farm productivity in some regions
Depending on your side of the aisle, climate change either elicits doomsday anxiety or unabashed skepticism. Jason Hubbart, director of ...
Infographic: GMO crops ‘wreck’ the environment, human health? Latest evidence says otherwise
"GMOs are not saving farmers money, they're not producing higher yields, and perhaps most significantly they're wrecking the environment and ...
KFC tests Beyond Meat wings, nuggets to size up demand for plant-based chicken
Kentucky Fried Chicken on [August 26] said it plans to start testing Beyond Meat chicken nuggets and boneless wings this ...
Fine-tuning cocoa yields chocolate with richer flavor, aroma
Just as we have seen an increase in the number of microbreweries making specialty beers, the market for chocolate has ...
Lessons learned from GMOs: How lab-grown meat can avoid crop biotech’s controversial legacy
This article discusses the choices and strategies that can hasten or delay the adoption of novel food technologies. We start ...
Meat wars: Cattle industry fears dwindling sales as Impossible, Beyond burger popularity grows
For decades, veggie burgers were the token offering to vegans at the backyard barbecue, and Tofurky was the Thanksgiving benediction ...
Eliminating photosynthesis ‘bottleneck’ could boost crop yields by 10%
Scientists have found how to relieve a bottleneck in the process by which plants transform sunlight into food, which may ...
Off-patent GMO Bt corn could slash seed costs for farmers, boost crop yields
Extremely low-cost and high-yield Bt corn? Off-patent, generic Bt corn is rapidly approaching farmland and the price differential might cause ...
Crops engineered to destroy infected cells could fight off deadly diseases
Hiding inside each plant cell, protein complexes encoded by disease resistance genes are like sleeping armies, waking up and activating ...
CRISPR breathing new life into wheat and other crops—can it avoid GMO controversy?
The food industry is hopeful the new gene-editing technology can help create new crop variants without running into the activist ...
Non-GMO product demand surges while consumer biotech knowledge remains low, survey shows
The proportion of shoppers shunning genetically modified foods has tripled over the past decade, according to The Hartman Group, Bellevue, ...
GMO crops cover 191 million hectares worldwide—113-fold increase since 1996
Biotechnology can be used to develop stress-tolerant and more nutritious crop varieties to protect natural resources and human health. Each ...
CRISPR-edited wheat resists humidity damage, could yield higher quality flour
Scientists have created a rain-resistant wheat variety using genome-editing technology, a breakthrough that could lead to the development of higher-quality ...
Dr. Harriet Hall: National Geographic natural foods book ‘unscientific, and even dangerous’
The National Geographic store proclaims, “This authoritative guide to the foods, herbs, spices, essential oils, and other natural substances that ...
