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.
Exxon partnership hopes to turn algae into fuel. Is it a potential climate change breakthrough — or just greenwashing?
Some scientists regard Exxon Mobil Corp.’s long-running quest to turn algae into a transportation fuel as little more than a ...
95% fewer insecticide applications? How integrated pest management (IPM) strategies can improve crop yields while slashing pesticide use
We used a 4-y experiment using commercial-scale fields replicated across multiple sites in the midwestern United States to evaluate the ...
Carbon farming: Can growing interest in regenerative agriculture make a difference for climate change?
Farmlands cover half of the Earth's habitable land, and the global food system produces 21-37% of the world's greenhouse gas ...
Class action tort reform: Why ‘outrageous’ judgements against Bayer in glyphosate cancer scare makes a case for dramatic legal changes
Legal reform advocates nationwide recognize October as “Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Month.” This year, the U.S. Supreme Court can help highlight ...
Fruits, vegetables and nuts: USDA-EPA-agricultural industry-public partnership project endorses continued support for neonicotinoids in specialty crops
The IR-4 project established by the USDA provides information to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to support use of neonics ...
Daily Beast investigation: Conspiracy-spreading anti-GMO group USRTK — founded and funded by anti-vaxxers — is New York Times and The Guardian’s favored source on crop biotechnology
Research from the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know has undergirded New York Times reporting on the food system, and outlets ...
Sri Lanka pauses organic-inspired ban on synthetic fertilizers
Barely six months after Sri Lanka’s overnight flip to complete organic cultivation and ban on chemical fertiliser imports, several stumbling ...
Genetically modified mosquito suppression system to fight Yellow and Dengue Fever released for home use in Brazil
[November 3, Oxitec announced] the landmark commercial launch of its Friendly™ Aedes aegypti solution designed specifically for use by homeowners, ...
Viewpoint: Global climate talks could expand agricultural research and genetic innovation to better address warming concerns
The worst-case consequences of rising temperatures and drought played out this year in Madagascar with the first famine induced by ...
Viewpoint on COP26: ‘Agriculture is a solution to climate crisis, not the main problem’
Among the many documents on the table [at the COP26 climate talks] will be the latest climate report from the ...
From ‘anti-cancer’ bread to vitamin-infused veggies, health-boosting gene-edited foods are on the way
While the UK is still very much in the experimental stage of creating gene-edited foods, elsewhere in the world they ...
Regenerative agriculture catching on in Sonoma wine country
To Lauren and Alex Benward, sixth-generation owners of the Beltane Ranch vineyard in Glen Ellen, Calif., the word “sustainability” does ...
Viewpoint: Can pseudoscience feed us? — Indian sustainability expert challenges anti-ag biotechnology activists
The internet is swamped with myths, misconceptions, half-truth, and baseless claims propagated by several entities (unqualified individuals in the guise ...
Growing crops in space? Biotechnology could make that a reality
If humankind is ever to undertake long-term space missions and colonization, establishing an efficient space farming system would be essential ...
Natural GMOs: Is it dangerous, as critics claim, to ‘transfer’ genes from other species? Nature doesn’t think so
Grass crops are able to bend the rules of evolution by borrowing genes from their neighbours, giving them a competitive ...
Agribusiness giant Bayer introduces new focus on organic seeds
An international company perhaps best known in agriculture for its conventional crop protection products is making its first foray into ...
Eco-friendly diets often call for banning animal products — but sustainability is not that simple for many people around the world
Sustainability discussions breed controversy, often pitting animal products and meat alternatives against each other. However, this dichotomous framing may impede ...
Mexican biologist outlines multiple benefits of crop biotechnology to a skeptical nation
According to the molecular biologist Francisco G. Bolívar Zapata, one of the measures that must be taken urgently is the ...
Seed Speaks Video: GMO labels are mandatory beginning 2022. What will they tell us?
It’s the eve of mandatory GMO labeling in the U.S. As of the start of 2022, manufacturers will be required ...
Viewpoint: ‘We’ve made a mess of our planet with our meddling.’ Should we engineer animal species to set things right?
We’ve made a mess of the planet with our meddling. Now, thanks to biotechnology, we have tools… to repair it ...
Ugandan scientists developing drought tolerant coffee varieties to save valuable cash crop
After releasing coffee varieties resistant to wilt disease, Ugandan agricultural scientists have begun developing Robusta varieties that are drought-tolerant as ...
Seed Speaks Video: Despite enormous sustainability benefits, some people still view genetically engineered crops with suspicion. Here’s why
Why do GMOs have an image problem? It’s a question we attempted to answer on the Oct. 13 episode of ...
Ghanian farmers press for locally-developed pest-resistant genetically modified cowpea
More than 200 Ghanaian farmers have expressed their readiness to plant Bt cowpea, Ghana’s first genetically modified food crop as ...
Lab grown coffee could cut deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, but may also upend the lives of poorer plantation workers
The coffee industry is both a contributor to the climate crisis and very vulnerable to its effects. Rising demand for ...
Viewpoint: ‘The definition of agroecology has become lost in translation’
Agroecology has become the latest buzzword in the agriculture sector—a mashup of the words “agriculture” and “ecology” with the latter ...
Eating technology: How the FDA failed us and why the future of food might rest in the laboratory
[LA Weekly:] What are the biggest myths of the FDA? [Ex-FDA Director for Social Science Richard Williams:] The FDA hasn’t ...
Could seaweed replace synthetic fertilizers?
When it comes to ocean health, the work of convincing farmers to ditch their synthetic fertilizers can’t happen fast enough ...
