Crops & 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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Russia banned GMOs years ago to distinguish itself from the United States. What’s its current stance toward genetic engineering, CRISPR and other New Breeding Techniques?
Russia's decision to ban importation and cultivation of GMOs made sense from a political perspective. But it's a decision the ...
Why small African pig farmers are losing out on big data revolution globally transforming agriculture
The Cloudfarms pig-production-management software program provides real-time reporting through big data captured via workers’ smartphones as they move through the pig ...
GLP podcast and video: Aspartame doesn’t cause cancer; Alcohol is good…and bad for you? An expert checklist for spotting health scares
Does the sweetener aspartame, found in all sorts of foods and drinks, cause cancer? Controversy over the chemical's safety has ...
Orange ‘super banana’: Gates-funded Ugandan scientists develop vitamin A enhanced fruit that could help reduce blindness and save lives
Wilberforce Tushemereirwe holds up a genetically modified banana that took millions of dollars and 20 years to make. It contains ...
Flipping the script: Gates Foundation funds ‘farmer-centric’ approach to developing next-generation agricultural technologies in the developing world
Across the world, agricultural scientists are starting to work backward. For years, they’ve seen how improved crop varieties — which ...
‘We live in a changed climate’: Here’s what may happen to wheat crops as number of heat waves and droughts increase
The world is getting hotter, causing shifts in seasonal patterns and increasing the amount of extreme weather such as severe ...
Can regenerative agriculture live up to its hype and help feed a globally growing population?
Decades of industrial agriculture have caused environmental and social damage across the globe. Soils have deteriorated and plant and animal species are ...
22% yield increase: How non-photochemical quenching, or NPQ, could dramatically boost corn production
Awash in a rowed sea of its brethren, a corn leaf relegated to the lowest rung of its stem spends ...
Humans have been genetically modifying crops for thousands of years. Here are some examples of what some popular foods used to look like.
Ever wonder how your food would look and taste if humans had not genetically modified them over the course of ...
Still-unapproved CRISPR gene-drive could suppress fruit-killing vinegar flies
Akihiko Yamamoto, Alun Lloyd, Amarish Yadav, Anandrao Patil, Cole Butler, Maxwell Scott, Mick Kulikowski | 
Researchers have developed a "homing gene drive system" based on CRISPR/Cas9 that could be used to suppress populations of Drosophila ...
Climate-induced ketchup shortage? How AI and other advanced technologies are helping farmers navigate global warming
Three summers’ worth of unprecedented high heat in the world’s key tomato-producing regions—Australia, Spain, and California’s central valley—have led to ...
How soon will gene-edited seeds become the agricultural norm?
Rabobank sees that expectations for gene edited crops are high, and significant growth in their adoption is projected in the ...
Kenyan High Court rejects appeal to suspend genetically modified crop import ban
The government recently suffered a setback when the Court of Appeal declined to overturn orders of the High Court suspending ...
From dirt to the dinner table: Tracking how foods make the journey across a massive globally-connected food system
I’m a naturally curious person, but sometimes life (read: kids) takes me off course. But recently, I seized the opportunity for ...
Kenya upholds ban on GMO crop importation
The Attorney General (AG9) has lost a bid to have orders stopping the importation of genetically modified foods (GMO) suspended ...
Microplastics are widespread across our food supply. Are they a health hazard?
A new study by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, is one of the first to analyze the available academic literature ...
USDA promotes new rules to improve seed industry competition and enhance resiliency of America’s food supply chains
On March 6, 2023, the United States Department of Agriculture ("USDA") released a new report: "More and Better Choices for ...
Mexican argument that corn ban does no harm meets US opposition
The Mexican government continues to minimize U.S. concerns over President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's restriction on genetically modified white corn, ...
Mustard greens genetically tweaked to be less bitter will be the first CRISPR edited food available in the US when they reach supermarkets this summer
A gene-editing startup wants to help you eat healthier salads. This month, North Carolina–based Pairwise is rolling out a new ...
Does GMO corn increase crop yields? More than 20 years of data confirm it does — and provides substantial health and safety benefits
While many studies show that genetically modified crops contribute to yield gains, GMO critics say that they don’t. Such claims, ...
Removing bitterness: Why do today’s Brussels sprouts taste so much better than when we were children?
It’s not just in your imagination that the Brussels sprouts you ate in your adolescence were, uh, potent, to say ...
Viewpoint: Mexico remains divided on GMO corn ban. Here’s what one farmer wants to happen
In Mexico, we buy significant amounts of corn from growers in the United States because my country doesn’t have the ...
30 years of waiting for an insect-resistant tomato but questions about taste may limit its market
A tenacious plant breeder has developed more than a dozen new lines of naturally pest-resistant tomatoes — foreshadowing a future in ...
Viewpoint fact check: Honeybees aren’t disappearing and GMOs do not cause colony collapse disorder
In 2020 the EU had approximately 19 million honeybee hives, managed by 615,000 beekeepers. These hives altogether produced 275,000 tonnes ...
Edible insects: Cultures around the globe eat environmentally friendly bug protein. Why shouldn’t the United States?
Although edible insects are far from common in American and European cuisines, over 3,000 ethnic groups in 130 countries eat them regularly ...
Chronic food insecurity threatens many low-income countries. What can be done?
After more than fifteen years of heartening declines, global food insecurity and malnutrition are again on the rise. According to ...
Anti-biotech activists claim biotech crops promote “unsustainable” monoculture? Let’s separate facts from ideology
Biotech critics frequently claim that conventional agriculture and GMOs promote monoculture farming, which is harmful to biodiversity. A closer look ...