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.
‘It’s simply difficult to grow crops organically, on a large scale’: Gigantic organic farm failure in South Dakota underscores challenge of scaling up production
The food company General Mills, maker of Cheerios, announced in 2018 that it would convert [Gunsmoke Farms, located northwest of Pierre, ...
A race against time: One biologist’s mission to ‘fight climate change with plant genetics’ before her Parkinson’s disease advances
People needed to find new ways to grow plants — and soon. The scientist’s urgency came not only from what ...
‘If cats and dogs made up their own country, they would rank fifth in meat consumption.’ Cell-based meat poised to cut pet food industry’s carbon footprint
If cats and dogs made up their own country, they would rank fifth in terms of meat consumption, according to ...
Over 2,000 Nigerian farmers ready to grow GM cowpea this year
More than 2,000 Nigerian farmers are planning to plant Bt cowpea, the country’s first genetically modified food crop, in July ...
In ‘urgent plea’ for organic farming to allow biotechnology, researchers say Europe’s Farm to Fork program ‘will likely fail’ without it
An international research team, including scientists from Wageningen University & Research [WUR] in the Netherlands, says that unless the EU ...
Viewpoint: ‘Genetically modified crops are not deadly mutants produced in a lab. Consider them pest-resistant, famine-fighting Avengers’
The wild version of the banana plant had inedible fruit filled with tons of seeds. Humans have, through a meticulous ...
Viewpoint: ‘Feel-good purchases’: This farmer believes the ‘regenerative agriculture movement’ is the latest fad promoting misconceptions about conventional farming
The public’s fascination with regenerative agriculture is relatively new. But many people seem to think it’s a way to “fix” ...
Podcast: Pig and cow organs for human transplant? From valves to tendons, xenotransplanted animal parts are common, but so is rejection due to alpha gal meat allergies. Gene-altered pigs could change that
[A recent] episode covered Alpha Gal Syndrome, the tick-induced allergy to beef and pork. The same immunological response could also ...
‘Alternative proteins doesn’t mean adopting a vegan diet’: A vegan makes the case for the meatless meat revolution
About a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions are traceable to the food supply chain. Animal agriculture accounts for about three-quarters of those emissions ...
Viewpoint: Why technology alone cannot solve world hunger and food insecurity
Among technologies expected to aid the production of more and safer food in the future are cultured meat, precision agriculture, ...
Viewpoint: ‘Deep structural flaws’ plague Nigeria’s food system: ‘Gene-editing and the use of genetically modified organisms need to be mobilized’
During the lockdown in Lagos, Nigeria, I joined a humanitarian team to distribute food to poor people in the urban ...
Coffee is good for you. There are dozens of carcinogens in coffee. What are the real facts about whether coffee is healthy or not?
Moderate coffee intake is linked to a lower likelihood of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver and endometrial cancers, Parkinson’s disease and depression. ... For years, researchers linked ...
Viewpoint: ‘Regenerate or die?’ Fashion industry co-opts sustainability buzzwords like ‘regenerative’ and ‘circular’ — but what do they really mean?
The North Face and Patagonia now tout clothing made of regenerative cotton. And Secteur 6, a new Indian-American brand that ...
Viewpoint: Higher food prices, increased food insecurity, trade impacts? The EU’s Farm to Fork strategy has devastating potential outcomes
A recent study by the USDA Economic Research Service shows potential negative impacts to the global market if the European ...
Robotic farming: How artificial intelligence (AI) is taking precision farming to another level
Labor costs, climate change and growing food demand are ushering in an era of machine modernization across the nation’s agricultural ...
Florida Atlantic salmon? Recirculating aquaculture systems without antibodies or vaccinations poised to spur boom in in-land fish farming
In a series of indoor tanks 40 miles south west of Miami, Florida, five million fish are swimming in circles ...
‘Little crop of horrors’? Genes harvested from carnivorous plants and genetically engineered into tomatoes and other crops could fend off pests
They won’t devour insects with leafy jaws, but with help from carnivorous plant genes, tomatoes, tobacco and other crops could ...
Some Florida Key residents incensed about pending release of Zika- and malaria-stopping GMO mosquitoes, but others believe cutting-edge science will help control health menace
Oxitec will release half a billion gene-hacked mosquitoes, engineered to kill off the local bloodsucker population along a lengthy swathe ...
‘Current GMO legislation not fit for innovative technologies’: European Commission calls for revamp of agricultural biotechnology rules to allow gene editing, promote sustainable farming
The European Commission published, at the request of the Council, a study on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs). The study shows ...
Viewpoint: Genetically modified mosquito release ‘represents the best of what public-private collaborations can do’
10 years after the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) first invited Oxitec to the Keys, and in efforts to ...
Draught-wracked Australia and Asia: Still unapproved sustainable genetically-engineered wheat poised for approval in Brazil could address climate change disruptions
Bioceres is trying to succeed where no other company has before by selling genetically-modified wheat. While the vast majority of ...
Viewpoint: Big Ag is ‘cherry-picking sustainable practices’ and co-opting the language of agroecology
[A] coalition of academics who are members of the Agroecology Research-Action Collective announced a boycott of the [UN’s 2021 Food ...
800 million undernourished people: UN says we need ‘overhaul of the world’s food systems’ as COVID highlights devastating and ongoing hunger
The COVID-19 crisis has added between 83 and 132 million to the 690 million people worldwide who were already undernourished, ...
GM crops are not a ‘magic fix to climate change,’ but they are key to keeping us fed as temperatures rise
Future farmers face a big challenge: feeding everyone on Earth while being kind to the planet. Could genetically modified food ...
Kenyan farmers reap bountiful first harvest of GM cotton
Winfred Kasambu, a 50-year-old farmer and a grandmother of two from Kenya’s Eastern region, is cherishing high hopes of prosperity ...
‘Organic agriculture is not a synonym for safe food’: United Nation’s FAO challenges misleading marketing and public misconceptions
Organic food is often seen by consumers as healthy, tasty and environmentally friendly, but the organic food certification is not ...
Worried that GMO seeds are bred in a lab? They’re not as unnatural as you think. 1 in 20 plants are naturally transgenic
Genetic modification is a process that sometimes happens naturally at the hands of bacteria, a new study concludes. Dozens of ...
