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.
Cropland expansion in China has led to dramatic rise in carbon emissions
Over the last 300 years, the population of China has expanded and so has cropland to feed her people. To ...
Challenging tired arguments against GMOs
Steven Novella of the New England Skeptical Society has a thoughtful and entertaining piece on his Neurologica blog on the seven ...
Two Oregon papers join most others in urging “no” on mandatory GMO label vote
Two more Oregon papers, both conservative leaning, are urging votes to reject the Oregon GMO labelling initiative. Most of the ...
Can we ever have a civil debate about GMOs?
Every few years, it seems, there is a hot button issue that divides people in a way that goes far ...
Molokai, another Hawaii GMO battleground, rallies around farmers
It's often said that Hawaii is Ground Zero for the anti-GMO movement. However, as GLP contributing writer Joni Kamiya has written, ...
Clothing may soon be made from plants rather than petrol based sources
Companies from Invista to Genomatica from BASF to Cargill and Novozymes are making biopased polymers designed to replace the synthetic materials used to make clothing, shoes, diapers and a ...
Pest odor science is a citrus disease cure environmentalists can embrace
The Asian citrus psyllid carrying the huanglongbing bacterium is a devastating combination vector that causes a lethal citrus disease which is a threat ...
Anti-GMO forces leveraging September Montana GE wheat find
Last July, the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service found unapproved GMO wheat at Montana State University. The government ...
Nina Fedoroff’s Ted Talk: How to feed 10 billion dinner guests
How can we hope to feed a world population that is expected to reach 10 billion or more by 2050? That's ...
3 biggest truths about modern agriculture
Farming and food conjure up many images in people's minds: romantic visions of hardworking family farmers toiling away on behalf ...
Animated infographic: Story of biotech seeds
Crop Life International presents the "story of seeds"--an animated look at the evolution of germination. Seeds are the basis for ...
Will Hawaii County judge follow Kauai’s lead in invalidating anti-GMO law?
In August, a United States magistrate through out a Kauai law that required seed and chemical companies operating in the ...
Wall Street Journal: GMO label promoters are ‘organic protectonists’
Many commentators frame the various state fights between those who support GMO labeling and opponents as a 'David versus Goliath' battles ...
Critics of Bill Gates’ ‘industrial ag’ efforts in Africa take their case to Seattle
In Kenya, where he works with small farmers, Daniel Maingi “failed miserably” in his attempts to connect with agricultural organizations ...
Video: World Food Prize kicks off–Norman Borlaug’s legacy and challenges of global hunger
The World Food Prize annual gathering is being held this week in Iowa. Julie Borlaug, the granddaughter of Norman Borlaug, father ...
Why are “public good” GMO products sitting on developers’ shelves?
The U.S. National Academies of Science, as part of a new two-year study into the safety of genetically engineered crops, ...
Consumer Reports challenged for spreading misinformation on GMO labeling campaigns
Consumer Reports is widely known as a respectable organization that reviews and tests products on behalf of consumers. It is ...
As EU pesticide ban to ‘save bees’ backfires, focus of failure turns to activist politicians
Within only 10 months of the precautionary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, farmers in the UK are reporting significant crop losses for ...
Using the term ‘superweed’ in GMO debate is misleading
Superweeds have been in been in the news a lot over the last few months. Most of the recent coverage ...
Jimmy Kimmel: What’s a GMO?
This week the Jimmy Kimmel Live late night show sent their roving reporter out to a farmer's market to ask ...
‘Gene drives’ could circumvent anti-GMO hysteria but present unique risks
Wouldn't it be great if scientists could genetically engineer mosquitoes to be immune to the malaria parasite, thus protecting people ...
There’s more to feeding the world than high yielding commodity crops
Since the food price spikes of 2007-8, global hands have been wringing over the question, how will we feed the ...
Australia approves dual herbicide tolerant GMO canola
Australia's first dual herbicide tolerant canola varieties are set to be released next year. A canola with both triazine tolerance ...
Love organic Ruby Red grapefruit? Created by ‘atomic breeding’, anti-GMOers oppose labeling
Groups like March Against Monsanto continually share information that is not based on actual evidence, and it’s despicable how low ...
Infographic: How to avoid GMO corn? Turn back the clock 9000 years
In 9000 years, humans have altered sweetcorn to make it 1000 times larger, 3.5 times sweeter, much easier to peel and ...
Organic foods 4 to 8 times more likely to be recalled, regulators on the sidelines
Every day millions of shoppers are paying out as much as 50 or 100 percent more to buy organic foods ...
Walmart’s sustainability initiative dramatically reduces environmental impact of agriculture
Nearly a decade after setting a series of bold sustainability goals, Walmart has struggled to curb its climate pollution and ...
