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.
Viewpoint: Bogus glyphosate-cancer litigation undermines legitimate product safety lawsuits
Nearly every American was taught the same six steps that serve as a fundamental building block to scientific education: Make ...
Despite past warnings from Fidel Castro, Cuba green lights GMO crop cultivation amidst severe food shortages
Cuba officially opened the door to GM crops on [July 23] as a “complement to conventional agriculture”, in the midst ...
‘Greenwashing’: Does plant-based marketing mislead consumers about sustainability?
"Greenwashing” is the term used to describe the promotion of a product based on misleading claims of superiority to other ...
Agricultural technology key to protecting nature and preventing pandemics
Scientists are urging governments across the globe to adopt technology to reduce agriculture’s impact on the environment and slow the ...
Nanotechnology helps farmers battle drought, pests but GMO rules could slow adoption
Agriculture is responsible for 75% of global deforestation, 70% of water consumption and 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. The expected ...
EPA ordered to review impact of glyphosate-based herbicides on monarch butterflies—but federal court blocks ban
A Ninth Circuit panel ruled against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on [July 22], finding the agency must take a ...
GMO ‘halo effect’: How biotech crops benefit farmers who don’t grow them
Agricultural Economist Graham Brookes of PG Economics is the latest featured expert in the ISAAA Webinar series. His talk focused ...
Pandemic postpones Florida Keys’ decision on releasing GMO mosquitoes until August
The five-member commission of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District voted unanimously to postpone a decision on the experiment for ...
More meat with less environmental impact? CRISPR and one gene change could improve the sustainability of beef production
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have successfully produced a bull calf, named Cosmo, who was genome-edited as an ...
Bayer launches carbon capture program to support ‘eco-friendly’ farming
Bayer AG launched a pilot program in the United States and Brazil on [July 21] that will pay farmers for ...
EU environmental groups say proposed pesticide rules would ‘water down’ protection for pollinators
EU countries .... expressed their preference for a way of regulating potentially bee-harming pesticides that has been contested by environmental ...
Food crops could be engineered to summon wasps that kill deadly plant pests
Plagued by stemborers, a type of crop parasitism, maize can launch a chemical defense that essentially calls in the cavalry ...
Bayer, BASF, Corteva urge federal court to review dicamba weedkiller ban, calling it ‘unconstitutional’
Bayer, BASF and Corteva Agriscience continue the fight to preserve postemergent dicamba use. The companies are contesting the results of ...
GMO mosquitoes set for Florida release during first Dengue fever outbreak in 10 years
The Florida Keys is experiencing its first outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease Dengue fever in 10 years.The Florida Department of ...
CRISPR could yield cyanide-free cassava, helping protect health of a billion people
“Roughly a billion people around the world rely on cassava as a source of calories, including around 40 percent of ...
Filipino farmer: Growing GMO crops ‘changed my life completely’
Ryan Lising, a biotech corn farmer from Magalang, Pampanga said that planting biotech corn changed his life completely. Before planting ...
Flood-proof crops? Plants engineered to grow taller may survive unstable environments
Stature matters to plants. Short crops can carry more grain without bending under their own weight—a key trait that helped ...
Bayer loses first glyphosate-cancer appeal, but court cuts damages by 74 percent to $20.5 million
Bayer AG failed to persuade a California appeals court to overturn a verdict favoring a school groundskeeper who claimed its ...
Over 90 percent of US corn, cotton and soybean produced from GMO crops, latest USDA data show
Genetically Engineered (GE) seeds were commercially introduced in the United States for major field crops in 1996, with adoption rates ...
After planting illegal GMO herbicide-tolerant cotton, Indian farmers poised to grow biotech eggplant, soybean and corn
The member farmers belonging to the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, who have already broken the law by planting genetically modified ...
KFC developing world’s first bioprinted chicken nuggets for planned rollout in Russia in fall 2020
KFC is taking the next step in its innovative concept of creating a “restaurant of the future” by launching the ...
Video: Burger King’s lemon-grass fed eco-Whopper not backed by evidence, animal scientist says
On [July 14], Burger King launched promotions for its new “eco-friendly” Whopper, burgers made from cattle that have been fed ...
Consumers are as open to seafood labeled ‘cell based’ as they are to ‘wild caught’ and ‘farm raised’
The research found common names using the word cell — including cell-based and cultivated from the cells of — did ...
Evidence may not matter: Roundup cancer settlements could trigger international pesticide suits regardless of health impacts
Since litigation began a couple years ago, Roundup, a particular brand of glyphosate based pesticide, is now firmly established as ...
European Union suspends some GMO regulations to fast-track COVID-19 vaccine
The EU’s stance on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has been criticized by the Consumer Choice Center, which has labelled it ...
Growing fish in space: Lab-grown tuna could feed astronauts of the future
.... [S]ending items into space is extremely expensive—about $10,000 a pound. Space dwellers will need to find a way to ...
10 things everyone should know about GMOs in Africa
1. Biotechnology, genetic modification, genetic engineering and GMOs are terms for essentially the same process: breeding crops and livestock to ...
