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.
Is Bill Gates behind the release of disease-fighting sterile GMO mosquitoes in Florida?
A multi-year research project to genetically modify Aedes aegypti, a mosquito species that is known to carry and transmit infectious ...
How California is teaming up with conservation groups to rescue the western monarch butterfly from extinction
Monarch butterflies, known for their distinctive orange and black pattern, once flocked to California in the millions, spending the winter ...
‘There’s so much misinformation swirling around the internet’: Are pesticides really safe and necessary?
Here are 5 things you may not know about pesticides — from their long backstory to their development and testing ...
1/3 of 1%: Alternative protein sources such as Impossible Burger still represent a tiny share of consumer purchases — but polling shows consumers are open to switch
If you had three options in front of you: farm-raised beef, lab-grown meat and Impossible Foods protein — what would ...
Viewpoint: Can regenerative agriculture save the beleaguered coffee industry from climate change devastation?
[A]fter generations of cultivating coffee as a crop, irresponsible farming practices such as poor water management and dependency on harmful ...
Video: Here’s how synthetic flies could become a major tool in the quest to control insect-borne diseases
CRISPR-based technologies offer enormous potential to benefit human health and safety, from disease eradication to fortified food supplies. As one ...
Gene editing can prevent eucalyptus from becoming invasive
Gene editing can prevent eucalyptus — a tree highly valued in Kenya and elsewhere for its hardy timber, wood fuel ...
Can we grow chickpeas on the moon? It’s possible — and here’s why we just might want to do it
Lots of people get ideas, but when you’re a Stanford biophysics Ph.D. candidate who has already sent a lander to ...
Viewpoint: Thinking about carbon as a crop
“The idea behind carbon farming is pretty simple — remove excess carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the ...
Colombian university develops next-generation oil-producing transgenic crops
In products as common as wine, beer, cotton, flowers and others from the food sector such as soybeans and corn, ...
Viewpoint: ‘Overhyped, speculative, and fear mongering’ — How biotechnology critics have lobbied to mislead the public on the science of GM crops
Most of the issues raised in available literature against GMOs on the grounds of health and environmental risks, and national ...
Viewpoint: ‘A toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is wreaking havoc’ on soil in farms around the world
Like citizens of an underground city that never sleeps, tens of thousands of subterranean species of invertebrates, nematodes, bacteria and ...
Video: GLP’s Jon Entine at Aspen Institute conference — Why organic advocates should stop demonizing biotechnology and embrace a sustainability-focused ‘all tools in the agriculture toolbox’ philosophy
Advancing gene editing could be one tool to reduce chemical use in agriculture, but it faces the critical judgment of ...
Cell-based breast milk for mothers and babies inches towards reality
Durham, North Carolina-based women-founded startup Biomilq has successfully farmed human breast milk outside the body, the company has announced [June ...
Viewpoint: ‘Smart pesticide use’ — Here’s a way we can protect crops while preserving beneficial insects
Currently, products are developed and marketed to kill pest insects immediately. This has become the goal of crop treatments, and ...
Farmers warn Mexico’s GM corn ban will raise food prices
Mexico’s farmer associations are teaming up and pushing back through legal battles in opposition to a presidential decree to ban ...
CRISPR offers hope for controlling African swine fever
New vaccine trials hold great promise in the management of an East African strain of African swine fever (ASF), one ...
‘They offer a magical vision of a better future but not in this world’: In Foreign Policy, social scientists opposed to conventional agriculture spark fierce organic vs intensive farming debate
A recent back and forth has stirred up controversy over at Foregin Policy. Are “Big Ag” and intensive farming destroying ...
Viewpoint: Is aquaculture good for the planet? Here’s a carbon footprint sustainability snapshot
Reliable figures on the carbon footprints of different aquaculture species are hard to find – not least due to the ...
Viewpoint: New York’s ‘Birds and Bees Protection Act’ targeting neonicotinoid pesticides doesn’t protect either and would hurt farmers
[Recently,] the New York legislature began advancing the Birds and Bees Protection Act. If it passes both chambers and is ...
Swiss voters ‘overwhelmingly’ reject activist-proposed synthetic pesticide ban, referendum results show
Voters in Switzerland on [June 12] overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have banned the use of artificial pesticides in ...
Beer and sustainable farming: How brewing waste can disinfect soil and increase yields
Despite the simplicity, beer brewing generates substantial amounts of by-products, including large amounts of spent grain, which are difficult and ...
Could the current fascination with ‘regenerative agriculture’ spur production of more sustainable eggs?
Over the past decade, producers have skillfully persuaded consumers to pay four times the price for a dozen eggs that ...
Space wine: How sending grapevines into orbit could protect the wine industry from devastating impacts of climate change
[A] group of scientists is cultivating the next generation of mutant grapes, which they hope will be resistant to shocks ...
Ditching disposable: How a circular food system — where waste becomes new products — could boost food security and the economy
Linear economies follow a “take-make-dispose” plan in which raw materials are collected, transformed into a product and used until discarded ...
Fact check: No, this ‘undercover video’ does not show World Health Organization experts confessing secret dangers posed by ‘glyphosate-tainted’ vaccines
The video begins with ominous music and 10 seconds of video of a conference room or classroom. Viewers can't hear ...
Greenhouse gas emissions from farming wild lobster and shrimp often eclipse livestock emissions. Animal-free chickpea-based seafood could cut our carbon footprint
In 2016 alone, marine-fishing vessels released 207 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, compared to just 47 million in ...
