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.
99 percent of almost 10,000 foods below legal pesticide safety levels, USDA finds
The EPA sets “tolerances” to ensure that any potential residues resulting from strictly regulated pesticide use are safe for consumers ...
Bayer close to resolving 88,500 glyphosate-cancer suits, but settlement costs rise by $2 billion
[Bayer’s legal bills] keep rising with costs to handle future [Roundup] lawsuits expected to surge to $2 billion. The German ...
Growing crops on Mars? Geologists explore ways to feed a Martian colony without hauling soil into space
Practically speaking, astronauts cannot haul an endless supply of topsoil through space. So University of Georgia geologists are figuring out ...
Social media misled you about pesticides. A farmer explains what they are and how they protect our food
It seems that too many people don’t realize that herbicides are considered a type of pesticide. All herbicides are pesticides, ...
Europe’s biodiversity faces grave threats, while pro-organic farm policies offer inadequate solutions
The European Environment Agency (EEA) released its “State of Nature in the EU” report [October 19], revealing that wildlife species and natural ...
Will we ever eat lab-grown meat? Infant industry faces technical hurdles and fickle consumers
Blood, sweat and tears are a given, but we’ll also need to see significant movement in the price and availability ...
Viewpoint: Undue precaution—‘Achilles heel’ blocking expansion of biotech crops in Africa
The application of GM technology is hailed as a major success in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, the ...
Decoded genome of New World screwworm could help prevent billions of dollars in livestock losses
The New World screwworm’s Latin name means “man-eater.” These shiny blue flies with pumpkin-orange eyes lay up to 400 eggs ...
Neophobia: The psychological barrier that inspires knee-jerk rejection of GMOs and other food technology
Psychologist Michael Siegrist and nutrition scientist Christina Hartmann have compiled research on the psychological and societal factors that influence consumer ...
US sugar industry flips the GMO script, hyping eco-benefits of glyphosate-tolerant crops
[The US] sugar beet industry is flipping the narrative, capitalizing on what was once its Achilles heel — its universal ...
Thank bugs for red velvet cake? How Cochineal insects became a sustainable source of food dye
A surprising amount of the food we consume contains various compounds to add color. Marshmallows look white, but they contain ...
AquaBounty identifies Kentucky location as possible site for 10,000 metric ton GMO salmon farm
[Aquabounty] announced that it has identified Mayfield, Kentucky as the potential location for its planned large-scale farm for the Company’s ...
GMOs coming to Zimbabwe? Agriculture minister says climate change has made farm technology a necessity
While farmers are gripped with the conservation farming technique that is fronted by [Zimbabwe's] government and other private organizations through ...
Picking up where GMOs left off: CRISPR leads the way to ‘greener’ food production in the 21st century
Genome editing may be one of the solutions to address climate change. A September 2020 report by the Information Technology ...
EU opposition to GM crops encourages hunger in developing nations, US trade official warns
A senior U.S. official blasted EU plans for greener farming on [October 27], accusing Brussels of risking worldwide starvation by ...
EPA backs Bayer appeal in glyphosate-cancer case, arguing juries shouldn’t override expert scientific judgments
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is backing the Monsanto Co.’s claim that federal law should have pre-empted a lawsuit alleging ...
Philippines earns an extra $972.6 million over 16 years of growing GM crops
Renowned economist Graham Brookes presented the global economic and environmental impacts of biotech crops from 1996 to 2018 for Thai ...
From disease-resistant bananas to biofortified potatoes, gene editing could make our food more plentiful and nutritious
Molecular biologists at multiple CGIAR [Consortium of International Agricultural Research] centers shared information about gene editing work underway at the ...
EPA re-registers drift-prone dicamba weedkiller, relieving some farmers and frustrating others who fear crop damage
Farmers can continue to use dicamba for five years, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said [October 27], offering certainty to cotton ...
GM insect-resistant Bt cowpea could add $638 million to Nigeria’s economy over 6 years
The Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), a biotechnology informative platform, says Nigeria could rake in 638 million dollars in ...
Why are food allergies on the rise, and what can we do about it?
More of the population has food allergies than ever before – and around the world, they are sending more and ...
GMOs unnatural? So are strawberries, Brussels sprouts and many other popular foods
By definition, a genetically modified organism is an organism produced through the production of heritable improvements in plants or animals ...
Epigenetic breeding could yield enhanced crops—and end run public’s fear of ‘GMOs’
Novel grafted plants — consisting of rootstock epigenetically modified to “believe” it has been under stress — joined to an ...
Bayer urges court to overturn $20M glyphosate-cancer verdict, objecting to ‘unreliable expert testimony’
Roundup manufacturer Monsanto urged three Ninth Circuit judges on [Ocotber 23] to overturn a jury’s verdict finding the weed killer ...
‘Science diplomacy’: What the Cold War can teach Africa about battling hunger with GM crops
It can be said the main problems facing the world are international in nature. No country can stand up today ...
How do you make ice cream without animals? Train fungi to ‘act like cows’
The food company Perfect Day has found a way to replicate whey—a milk protein that’s partially responsible for dairy’s creamy ...
Engineering soil bacteria could help develop enhanced, ‘non-GMO’ crops for Europe
Plant breeding – a method of selecting plants from a group that have the desired properties – is central to ...
