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.
Here’s how climate change is poised to devastate the most productive agricultural region in the world
The San Joaquin Valley – the most profitable agricultural region in the United States, with eight million acres of farmland ...
Nigerian companies ramp up production to meet high demand for GMO cowpea seeds
Nigeria’s private local seed companies are expanding production of genetically modified (GM) cowpea seeds to supply farmers eager to grow ...
Viewpoint: Are we overusing agricultural chemicals? Not if we we want increased yields, lower prices and more sustainable practices
We would be remiss to ignore the positive effects that modern crop protection has had for us. Without pesticides, crop losses ...
Is organic food healthier or just a lifestyle buzzword? A nutritionist weighs in
“Organic” has become a buzzword, and these products are marketed as a healthier alternative to conventional options. An important question ...
Purple tomatoes? Superfood genetically engineered tomato rich in antioxidants nearing United States rollout
The purple tomato was created by Cathie Martin at the John Innes Centre in the UK. In 2008, her team reported that ...
Viewpoint: EPA wants to ban Enlist herbicides in certain areas to protect beetles. Here’s why one farmer believes that’s misguided
Soybean farmers like myself rely on special seeds and herbicides to help us grow crops more efficiently and make environmentally ...
RNA vaccines for plants?
The threat of COVID-19 spurred innovation at unprecedented rates. Moderna and Pfizer’s RNA vaccines were approved in about a year ...
Kenya debates final approval of genetically engineered corn
The approval for commercialisation of genetically modified maize now lies with the Cabinet after scientists concluded field trials and handed ...
Viewpoint: Why it’s reasonable to question if regenerative agriculture is really more sustainable than conventional farming
Scientists have been accused of mounting a sustained attack on regenerative agriculture and splitting the science community. Not all, but ...
Living Carbon has engineered a poplar tree that soaks up carbon and fights climate change. What are the barriers to rolling this out?
A California biotech company seeking to create fast-growing trees that can rapidly soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide has announced its ...
Viewpoint: ‘I live in India and I am launching a civil disobedience movement against the moratorium on GMO insect resistant eggplant.’ Here’s why
India’s farmers... need technological freedom. In my letter, I asked PM Modi to lift the 2010 moratorium on genetically modified (GM) ...
Viewpoint: ‘Sanctimonious’ biodynamic farming promoted by rockstar ‘Sting’ rebuffed by Italy’s president and Nobel laureates
Sting may swear by it, but the rock star’s trick of using dung, animal intestines and cow horns to get ...
Viewpoint: German science communicator says EU cannot reach sustainability goals without plant based diets and crop biotechnology
There is a simple solution to quickly reducing the climate-damaging greenhouse gases from agriculture: everyone should stop eating meat and ...
Gene editing can increase yields, improve nutrition, fight climate change — and bring native species back to African agriculture
Gene editing is making it easier for researchers to help local plants varieties adapt to changes in the local environments ...
Genetic engineering breakthrough could cut fossil fuel use in industrial compounds
Rothamsted scientists have engineered a plant to produce a range of vital chemicals used in the manufacture of common everyday ...
Air steaks? This California startup believes it can make meat out of thin air with some help from tweaked bacteria
The company is taking carbon dioxide—the pernicious greenhouse gas warming our planet—and transforming it into a juicy steak or a ...
Viewpoint: Why is Neil Young portrayed as a hero for challenging Joe Rogan’s anti-vax rants while promoting crop biotechnology disinformation himself?
Neil Young doesn’t make the kind of music I enjoy. Instead I was familiar with his name because he was ...
Study challenges health orthodoxy: Vegetable-rich diet alone does not reduce heart disease risk
Vegetables may be good for you, but eating a lot of them is unlikely to reduce your risk of a ...
Viewpoint: Challenging the ‘appeal to nature’ fallacy — Is being anti-GMO pro-starvation?
Almost anyone who is versed in agricultural science is pro-GMO. But for much of the United States, which are generations ...
‘The Genesis Machine’: Examining the future shift away from traditional farming products to lab produced foods
From domestication and selective breeding to synthetic insulin and CRISPR, humanity has long sought understand, master and exploit the genetic ...
New Zealand scientist challenges ‘scaremongering’ about herbicide glyphosate
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup™, is the most widely used herbicide in the world. It affects a specific enzyme ...
How biotech aids biodiversity
As the basis for food, housing, clothing, medicine, industrial raw material and potentially many more benefits to human well-being, biodiversity ...
Can alcohol-free beer ever taste as good as a genuine brew? Yes, finally, thanks to genetic tinkering
Finally, researchers have found a way to brew non-alcoholic beer that tastes just like regular beer. Even more, the method ...
How traffic and other urban stresses adversely affect plants
That plants can be hampered indirectly by noise pollution has never been in doubt. Since most flowering species depend upon ...
Genetically-selected crop breeding has increased yields more than 600% over 2 centuries. Gene editing could dramatically accelerate that
Humans have improved plants for their utility through selective self-pollination, crossing, and progeny selection for >10,000 years, largely based on ...
Why have humans evolved to like sour foods?
Scientists don’t know much about how our acidic taste evolved. Enter Rob Dunn. The North Carolina State University ecologist and ...
Are your organic clothes eco-friendly and chemical free? Fraud rampant in India exports, world’s largest cotton market
“This product contains independently certified organic cotton grown without chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers and genetically modified seeds,” the product description ...
