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.
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 ...
‘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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Debate over crop chemicals driving a wedge between original MAHA and MAGA converts
Banning or heavily restricting certain pesticides has been a core tenet of the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement, and supporters ...
Mediterranean diet may offset much of the genetic risk of Alzheimer’s
Many observational studies have linked a Mediterranean diet to better cognitive health. ... Now, new research suggests that people at ...
From soil to DNA: How micronutrients drove genetic adaptations across human populations worldwide
Micronutrients, minerals that are part of the human diet in small amounts, may have influenced human evolution more than previously ...
The future of farming: Resilience vs Efficiency
Farmers should redesign agricultural systems by prioritising resilience over efficiency and supporting farmers through gradual, practical transitions rather than forcing ...
Viewpoint: How association studies and ‘links’ distort our understanding of the relative risks of different foods
There is a growing debate about ultra-processed foods (UPFs) —products designed for shelf life and taste, typically high in added ...
Weed-killing technology: What to do when herbicide-resistant weeds threaten to swarm crops
The weed control equipment trundling through the field in southern Ontario checked a lot of sci-fi boxes. They were robots, ...
Cilantro tastes like soap to you? It’s in your genes
Family medicine specialist Neha Vyas, MD, says cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) is one of the most polarizing herbs used in modern cooking. Why? Because ...
Jack-o-Lantern leaves: How phosphor-packed plants might one day help reduce utility bills
In a recent study, a research team led by Shuting Liu — a bioengineer at South China Agricultural University — ...
Here are the questions farmers need answer to when deciding what system technology is best for them and the consumers
For nearly 30 years, the loudest argument about GMOs has circled a single point: Are they safe to eat? That’s ...
Viewpoint: What’s behind the recent surge in anti-glyphosate propaganda?
Here’s what I’m observing: 1. Monsanto is gone. Bought by Bayer. A German conglomerate. 2. Syngenta is gone. Bought by ...
