Daily Food & Agriculture Digest
Unsustainable farming: Why your organic T-shirt might be bad for the environment
The word “organic” is a powerful marketing tool. In clothing—just as in food—brands love to tout their use of organic ...
Video: ‘Weed seed pulverizing machine’ could help combat herbicide resistance
Known by a name seemingly out of a superhero comic book, the Harrington Seed Destructor is a mechanical beast that ...
10 ways Whole Foods misleads consumers about organic food and farming
[Editor's note: Hank Campbell is president of the American Council on Science and Health.] I was at a meeting with ...
Pests and pathogens cost global agriculture $540 billion a year
The spread of pests and pathogens that damage plant life could cost global agriculture $540 billion a year, according to ...
Myth busting: Does Monsanto ‘control’ farmers with contracts that bar seed saving?
[Editor's note: Read the GLP's coverage of farmers' responses to Bette Midler criticizing Monsanto’s seed patent contracts here.] [Editor's note: Brian Scott ...
21st century veggie burger: ‘Bloody-pink and fleshy’ thanks to genetic engineering
The 20th century veggie burger was a beige patty packed with whole grains and carrot chunks, sold in a brown ...
Video: Organic food is a great business but a bad environmental investment
[Editor's note: Bjorn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School.] There are no health benefits ...
Kenya faces hunger, but refuses to import GMO corn from South Africa’s record harvest
Africa’s corn harvest this year is a tale of two extremes as worries about overflowing silos and rotting crops in ...
Liberal awakening: Ignorance of GMO science has no ideology
[Emily Thorne is a 17-year-old aspiring journalist from Athens, Georgia.] For a long time, I was part of the anti-GMO movement. It ...
Philippine’s GMO media coverage has moved from fear to science, study finds
The Philippine media developed a matured editorial position over 17 years of modern biotechnology reporting, according to the new publication ...
Video: Pest-resistant GE cowpeas could reduce pesticide use, increase yields of African staple
Dr. TJ Higgins discusses a global effort to genetically engineer a pest-resistant variety of cowpea (black-eyed peas) that will help ...
Spinach genome will help breeders improve disease-resistance, yield and quality
While you may not gulp spinach by the can-fulls, if you love spanakopita or your go-to appetizer is spinach artichoke ...
Scared to Death: Environmental Working Group fails the ‘sound science’ chemicals test
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) uses an authoritative sounding name to peddle scientific half-truths and outright fabrications. Along with Greenpeace ...
‘Sugar is sugar is sugar’: What Hershey doesn’t want you to know about its GMO-free chocolate
[Editor's note: Wanda Patsche and her husband own and operate an independent farm in southern Minnesota, raising corn, soybeans and pigs.] ...
How GMOs could slash livestock methane greenhouse gas emissions
Genetically modified ryegrass developed to reduce methane emissions and nitrate discharges by livestock is being tested in the United States. Limits on ...
‘Extra sweet’ GE pink pineapples flower on Instagram
The unicorn of fruit is here and it comes in the form of a hot pink pineapple. Pink. Freaking. Pineapples ...
Innocent victims: The GMO ‘petunia carnage’ of 2017
[In 2015], plant biologist Teemu Teeri was walking by a train station in Helsinki when he noticed some vivid orange petunias ...
GM non-bruising potatoes won’t be grown commercially in Canada this year
There will be no commercially grown GMO potatoes on Prince Edward Island [in 2017], according to Simplot Plant Sciences, the ...
GM corn and cotton varieties developed by Kenyan scientists ready for field trials
Kenyan scientists have used modern biotechnology to develop two crop varieties that are expected to be released in the country ...
Video: Food Evolution—Neil deGrasse Tyson-narrated documentary on GMO debate—set for June 23 release
Food Evolution aims to take a look at the science underlying the heated rhetoric of the GMO debate. Filmmaker Scott ...
Diet and land: Why organic farming is ‘less sustainable’ than conventional
[Editor's note: Steven Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine.] Perhaps the biggest problem with ...
‘Uncertainty and fear’: Why GE vitamin-A fortified ‘Golden Rice’ has been slow to catch on
Vitamin-A deficiency around the world leads to between 250,000 and 500,000 children going blind – every single year. Half of ...
South Africa expects record GMO corn harvest this season
[Editor's note: More than 70% of corn grown in South Africa is genetically modified. So far, South Africa is the ...
‘Doomsday’ arctic seed vault ‘flooded’ because of global warming? Not so fast
A failure at a fail-safe vault. The irony is delicious, but that’s not the whole story. On its website, the ...
Flower power: Decoded sunflower genome could unlock increased oil, stress tolerance
Take that, sunflowers. The convoluted genetic code that has thwarted scientists for so long has finally been cracked. Scientists published ...
After labeling bill fails in Canada, GMO critics press retailers not to sell GM foods
Members of the Canadian Parliament voted against approving mandatory labeling of genetically modified [GMO] foods in a vote on May ...
Mary-Dell Chilton: 78-year-old ‘mother of genetic modification’ still innovating
[Mary-Dell] Chilton...led a collaborative research study at Washington University in St. Louis, and although GMO tobacco was never commercialized, it ...