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.
Organic food imports plagued by ‘corruption, bribery and falsified documents’
Roughly 40% of all organic food sold in America tests positive for prohibited pesticides, according to two USDA studies. And, ...
Can the FDA convince public that GMOs are safe to eat, good for environment?
The Food and Drug Administration has a tough job ahead of it, a job that the food and agriculture sectors ...
Video: Genetically modified pollinating cyborg dragonfly drone takes flight
[Editor's note: As has been previously reported, these dragonflies could be used for artificial pollination.] A new experiment bypasses the ...
Did EPA and Monsanto conspire to downplay potential danger of glyphosate before EU review?
The European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking a Monsanto weedkiller to cancer after counsel from a US Environmental ...
Epigenetically modified cotton could lead to hardier varieties without altering genes
With prices down and weather patterns unpredictable, these are tough times for America’s cotton farmers, but new research led by ...
What’s driving the wave of agrichemical company mergers?
After a decade without any big deals, since 2015 three mega-mergers, collectively worth around $240bn, have been proposed. When they ...
US beekeepers report lowest overwinter losses since survey began in 2006
Beekeepers across the United States lost 33 percent of their honey bee colonies during the year spanning April 2016 to ...
Fake food news: Non-GMO Project sets standard for misleading consumers
[Editor's note: Kavin Senapathy is a freelance writer and co-author of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House.] As a ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
