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.
Already blamed for ‘widespread insect declines,’ neonicotinoid insecticides may threaten mammals, too
On an overcast January day in Estelline, South Dakota, Jonathan Lundgren zips his quilted jacket over a fleece, pulls down ...
GMO ‘scarecrow’: What’s keeping Africa from embracing genetically engineered crops?
The advent of climate change, coupled with new plant pests and diseases, has worsened the plight of Ghanaian farmers, relegating ...
Viewpoint: Hazard vs risk—What Europe gets wrong about pesticide safety
When reading articles, blog posts, or policy papers related to the use of pesticides, we often hear the word "hazard" ...
Industrial farming: Blessing or curse? Two books offer dueling visions of America’s food system
“Simply put,” [Mark Bittman, in his book “Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal,”] writes, “agriculture ...
GM crops, edible insects will boost global sustainability, UN chief agriculture scientist says
On the side-lines of the UN’s 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit, TIME speaks with Agnes Kalibata, the Rwandan-born agricultural scientist and ...
Bolivia looks to GM soybeans, cotton and sugar cane to boost flagging agricultural production
The administration of the [Bolivian] president, Luis Arce Catacora, promised to make viable, after a technical study, the use of ...
Kenya anticipates massive increase in crop production as GM, insect-resistant cotton distribution begins
The [Kenyan] Ministry of Agriculture started the distribution of Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis) cotton seeds to farmers as it embarks on ...
Impossible Foods cuts prices 20% in bid to make plant-based meat ‘mainstream’
Impossible Foods, the California-based producer of plant-based meat that counts Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing as an investor, has announced ...
Kenya approves 6 gene-edited crops as it pursues food security, sustainable farming
[A]t the Kenya Agricultural Livestock Research Organisation (Karlo) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) biotechnologists are using gene ...
Bayer strikes $2 billion deal to settle future glyphosate-cancer suits
Bayer has been struggling to finalize the settlement of claims that Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides cause non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a ...
Golden Rice: A tool of modern day ‘neo-colonialism’?
Noted Forbes and Slate contributor, blogger, and speaker Kavin Senapathy recently went against the grain, railing against Golden Rice and ...
Viewpoint: Organic farmers should be allowed to grow GM crops
Consumers are misinformed about the reality of the existing organic system. Current organic practices are no more “natural” than GM ...
CRISPR-edited chickens immune to avian flu could cut disease spread and help save farmers billions of dollars
Recently, the company [EggXYt] branched out into the field of disease prevention, licencing the GEiGS™ Technology Platform from Tropic Biosciences ...
Video: ‘Science over unjustified cautiousness:’ Why UK should abandon Europe’s biotech crop rules
Many groups, including the Consumer Choice Center, have endorsed genetic technologies, and there is good reason to expect the UK ...
Zambia approves imports of GMO-derived foods shown to pose no unique health risks
The National Biosafety Authority (NBA) has granted three permits to Gatbro International Limited and Zambian Brands Limited to import and ...
Viewpoint: GM crops have been a global success, so why do critics focus on the experience of one African country?
In October 2017, I took a trip to Burkina Faso from Accra, Ghana — a journey that lasted a little ...
Video: Mite vs mite—Farmers airdrop pest-munching predators into strawberry fields to protect their crops
Two tiny mites duke it out on strawberry plants throughout California. One is a spider mite that sucks the juices ...
Up to 10,000 Nigerian farmers projected to grow insect-resistant, GM cowpea in 2021
The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) said it would release 10 tons of Pod Borer Resistant (PBR) Cowpea before the ...
Salt-tolerant, GM Eucalyptus tree has no adverse effects on biodiversity, study finds
[A]n RNA chaperone gene derived from common ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum), alleviated injury and loss of biomass production by salt ...
Tasty gluten-free bread and peanut allergy pills: How CRISPR is solving basic problems with our food system
People will make do with gluten-free baked goods if they must, but the springiness of wheat is sorely absent. “It’s ...
Europe ‘systematically ignored’ risks of GM crops approved for import? Food safety officials, anti-GMO groups battle over EU’s biotech crop rules
Testbiotech has published a new report providing evidence that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is intentionally keeping significant risks ...
Popularity of GM, insect-resistant eggplant grows in Bangladesh as more farmers discover its yield-boosting benefits
With reduced costs of pesticides and increased yield, BT brinjal farmers say their profits have increased manifold. “After preparing a ...
Bayer asks federal judge to toss lawsuit demanding cancer warning label on glyphosate weedkiller
Monsanto is again asking a Delaware judge to toss a lawsuit that demands a cancer warning label on its weedkiller ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR crops offer many benefits. Governments should teach the public about them
Tomatoes that use technology to efficiently modify genes will be sold as the first "genome-edited food" in Japan by the ...
With GM salmon and lab-grown meat poised to hit the market, 2021 could be a turning point for food technology
The landscape is already changing. The first cell-based chicken appeared on a Singapore restaurant menu in late 2020, and several ...
3 pioneering African nations embrace gene editing to boost food security, farmer incomes
Kenya, Nigeria and Eswatini are taking the lead on genome editing in Africa as they see its potential in boosting ...
Could lab-grown plants offset agriculture’s environmental footprint?
Researchers at MIT have developed a new method for growing plant tissues in a lab — sort of like how ...
