Daily Food & Ag 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.
Viewpoint: Starbuck’s synthetic pumpkin spice: The drink RFK, Jr. should ban if wants to protect our health
In 2003, the Human Genome Project was completed and both Tesla and LinkedIn were founded. Those were all interesting but ...
CRISPR poised to help jump-start space exploration
CRISPR holds significant potential for enhancing various aspects of space exploration and long-duration space missions. One of its promising applications ...
‘DEI is a red herring’: How Ag Secretary Rollins’ targeting of food programs is hitting the rural poor in the U.S. hard
Shape Up’s garden was caught in the political crosshairs of a dramatic shift at the USDA. Since assuming power, the Trump ...
Video: How our food choices impact climate change
Our food production systems emit greenhouse gas emissions just like fossil fuels. But we don't talk enough about it. This ...
The first human trial of nutrient-rich gene-edited tomatoes is underway in England
The Quadram Institute in Norwich is recruiting 76 people with low vitamin D to take part in the ViTaL-D Study, ...
Viewpoint: The promise and challenges facing India’s turn toward gene-edited rice
In a notable milestone for India’s agri-biotechnology sector, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) announced the development of two ...
Unresolved mystery: Why has Bill Gates quietly become the largest private owner of farmland in the United States
Bill Gates, the tech titan turned global philanthropist, has quietly amassed a portfolio of over 100,000 hectares of farmland across the United States, ...
America’s farming economy in a recession? Depends who you ask.
Fifty-three percent of agricultural economists surveyed in Farm Journal’s July Ag Economists’ Monthly Monitor say the row crops side of ...
India and other warm-weather countries are growing climate resilient crops to blunt climate change
A sweltering heat wave decimated Pritam Singh’s wheat crop in 2022. That year, temperatures reached a record-breaking 127 degrees Fahrenheit ...
Is the global food supply collapsing as temperatures gradually increase? Just the opposite, as world is on track for record harvests
It’s not uncommon for people to tell me that global food production is already collapsing due to climate change. They ...
‘Quite advanced’: Scientists are close to perfecting biotech African potato variety that is free of killer late blight disease
[Researchers] at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization have used genetic modification to create potatoes that are resistant to late ...
Video: Should we revamp our diet to eat mostly organic foods? Harvard gastroenterologist says fears are based on hysteria not science
Dr Trisha Pasricha, a Harvard-trained gastroenterologist and scientist, who also writes the ‘Ask a Doctor’ column for The Washington Post, ...
Can gene editing be a game-changer in improving crop resilience and sustainability?
A Mexico-based research centre believes it may have hit the bull’s eye when it comes to using technology to enhance ...
How AI is rewriting the book on food and farming sustainability
The food production process begins on the farm, where AI technologies are helping farmers make smarter decisions. Precision agriculture, powered ...
Chemophobic misinformation: 40% of Europeans say they ‘want to live in a world where chemicals don’t exist’
Chemophobia—an excessive fear of chemicals—is everywhere today, particularly for food. It manifests itself in fads like “clean” eating, avoiding ingredients ...
CRISPR pitless cherries are on the horizon
Seedless fruit is easy to take for granted, until you find yourself eating grapes with crunchy bits and watermelons that ...
Nation’s most liberal court rejects plaintiff expert’s claims that glyphosate caused couple’s cancer
Although the US Supreme Court frequently overrules it, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering California, eight other western states ...
‘Praying to God for help’: With agricultural policy in disarray, Trump-voting farmers stumble through a catastrophic year
When speaking about his tariffs in March, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "To the Great Farmers of the United States: ...
7 ways biotechnology can mitigate climate change challenges
As the world grapples with escalating climate change, the impacts on agriculture have become acute and inescapable. In 2025, rising temperatures, erratic ...
Even biodegradable plastic is stressing plants
Micro- and nanoplastics cause stress to crops such as lettuce and carrots, PhD candidate Laura Julia Zantis found. This can ...
Misinformation alert: No, glyphosate use in Canadian forests is not spurring more wildfires
Quebec province does not allow the industrial weed killer glyphosate to be sprayed on its forests, but there is no ...
How the agriculture and food industries challenged MAHA heavyweights and reshaped RFK, Jr.’s ‘reform’ agenda
In meeting after meeting at the White House this summer, administration officials held talks with scores of leaders from the ...
As temperatures climb, so does America’s sugar cravings
Pan He, an environmental scientist at Cardiff University in Wales, hit on the idea to look at ... how rising ...
Lawsuits and misinformation have led to replacing safe glyphosate with far more problematic pre-1974 weed killing formulations
The herbicides in the quiver when Roundup came to market in 1974 were things like Diquat, Paraquat, 2,4-D, and Dicamba ...
Lab grown meat and other cellular agricultural products face environmental challenges
“Cellular agriculture has the potential to be more sustainable in areas such as water recycling and renewable energy use, if ...
Rewilding of former farmlands is increasing. What are the sustainability benefits?
Reaching "peak agricultural land" does not mean the problem of deforestation is solved. Growing demand for products like beef, soy, ...
Bowing to pressure from the cattle industry, Texas bans the sale of lab grown meat
Texas has banned the sale of lab-grown meat for the next two years, despite the product not being sold in ...
