Daily Food & Agriculture Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of agricultural and food issues, including the GMO debate, conventional and organic farming, regulations, new breeding technologies and sustainability. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
GMO rice that could reduce synthetic fertilizer usage developed by Indian scientists
New GM rice developed by [India's] National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR) can improve uptake of natural Phosphorus from ...
Vinegar may activate ‘epigenetic switch’ that could increase crops’ drought tolerance
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) have discovered a new, yet simple, way to increase drought ...
Organic crop farming in US slides even as demand for organic food increases
The time is ripe for Jeff Bezos to work his business acumen on an area of the US food system ...
Antioxidant-boosting GMO purple rice could decrease cancer and other health risks
Researchers in China have developed a genetic engineering approach capable of delivering many genes at once and used it to ...
Opinion: Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio and foodie movement push expensive, counterproductive farm policies
Tom Colicchio wants every child to taste an apple by the age of three. That’s just one of the many ...
Kenya’s parliament calls for approval of GM corn field trails, rebuffing health secretary
[Kenya's] parliament has called for approval of field trials of genetically modified maize because the ban on GMO imports did not ...
USDA requests ‘stakeholders’ feedback as it researches what to say in federal GMO label guidelines
The U.S. Agriculture Department's Agricultural Marketing Service has started the process of figuring out how to write the guidelines for ...
Following controversial neonicotinoid study, researchers warn replacement pesticides may be worse for bees
Two large-scale studies published Thursday [June 29] suggest that common pesticides may harm bee colonies. In some cases, the pesticides ...
French PM rejects ag minister’s plea, green lights 2018 neonicotinoid insecticide ban
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe weighed in on a row between his environment and agriculture ministers ... to rule that ...
Prince Edward Island approves expansion of first North American GE salmon facility
A [Prince Edward Island] hatchery that will produce genetically modified salmon has received the go-ahead for two 40,000 square-foot buildings to expand ...
US biotech seed patents linked to increasing corn yields
[Mariam Barry at ENSTA ParisTech in France and colleagues] have studied the yield of hybrid corn in the U.S. since 1985 ...
Beepocalypse not now: Canada’s honeybee colonies up 10% in 2017 to record high
On Canadian farms, almost 800,000 honeybee colonies are in active duty this year. That’s about 10 percent more than in ...
Marion Nestle shuts down blog’s comments section, blames ‘Monsanto-funded GMO trolls’ for flooding site
With regret, I asked my site managers at Cre8d to block all future comments to this site. The GMO trolls—people who ...
Video: Neil deGrasse Tyson on GMO scientific consensus in Food Evolution movie
Adding more fuel to the GMO versus organic food fire, the documentary “Food Evolution,” ... attempts to end the controversy ...
Green Revolution 2.0: Agricultural technology ‘moonshot’ could change future of food
The first meeting of “Science Breakthroughs 2030” just convened to discuss the key advances essential for revolutionizing food and agriculture ...
Food Evolution director defends documentary as pro-data, pro-science
[Scott Hamilton] Kennedy goes deep here with his answers to Salon’s questions, judiciously explaining what others might consider blasphemy. ...
Opinion: Greenpeace’s ‘fearmongering’ gives environmental advocacy a bad name
The little town of Saint-Félicien, in Quebec’s lovely Saguenay region, is under siege. ... “Greenpeace wants our total death!” mayor ...
Prince Charles: ‘Future of humanity’ may depend on organic farming
Prince Charles has warned that the ‘very future of humanity’ may depend on organic farming. Speaking as he celebrated the ...
California’s Prop 65 listing of herbicide glyphosate as carcinogen goes into effect July 7
Glyphosate, an herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto Co's popular Roundup weed killer, will be added to California's list ...
‘Culture of confrontation’: Professor on abusive use of Freedom of Information Act in GMO debate
[Editor's note: David Zilberman is a professor of agriculture and resource economics at UC-Berkeley.] [A] few weeks ago, I received a ...
Opinion: Food Evolution movie gets science right—but that won’t likely convince ‘GMO-averse people’
[Editor's note: Keith Kloor is a freelance writer and adjunct journalism lecturer at New York University.] Unfortunately, there’s no good ...
Genetically engineered natural insecticides? RNAi crops with built-in protection hit the market
DvSnf7 dsRNA is an unusual insecticide. You don’t spray it on crops. Instead, you encode instructions for manufacturing it in ...
‘Crop of the century’: How GM soybeans unseated ‘king corn’ in the US—with help from China
[Editor's note: 78 percent (91.4 million hectares) of the world's soybean acreage, is genetically modified.] With planting almost complete, soybeans are ...
Gene ‘silencer’: GM crop technology could help stop spread of herbicide resistance
Introducing genes for herbicide resistance into a crop permits it to be sprayed with weedkiller that really does then kill nothing ...
Review: ‘Fact-based’ Food Evolution doc counters anti-GMO documentaries’ ‘questionable content’
Plant breeding doesn’t generally inspire filmmakers. But genetic engineering — the process that creates “GMO” crops — has already sparked ...
Jury orders Syngenta to pay Kansas farmers $218 million for GMO corn losses
A U.S. jury on Friday [June 23] ordered Syngenta AG to pay $217.7 million to more than 7,000 Kansas farmers ...
Will new government guidelines for GE crops spur innovation—or do they not go far enough?
[Editor's note: Hank Campbell is president of the American Council on Science and Health.] Since 2014, China has spent $4 billion ...
