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.
CRISPR could speed growth and increase disease resistance in farmed fish, boosting aquaculture sustainability
The potential of fish and shellfish production to feed a growing global population could be significantly enhanced through advances in ...
Can we meet global food demand using conventional, intensive agriculture without sacrificing the environment?
The expansion of farmlands to meet the growing food demand of the world’s ever expanding population places a heavy burden ...
Gene editing could yield tastier blackberries and raspberries with longer shelf life
Like your berries? [Biotech startup] Pairwise .... is working to put more options on supermarket shelves. It has partnered with ...
Can a novel ‘genetic’ pesticide knock out citrus greening disease before it devastates US orange groves?
[Citrus greening] disease has already decimated citrus groves in the other major citrus-producing states of Florida, California and Texas. According ...
‘Climate-resilient’ wheat may provide sustainable fiber source, promote gut health
Some new crop varieties are bred to be more nutritious. Others are more resilient, bred to tolerate harsher environmental conditions ...
Biotech-powered, plant-based seafood poised to cut overfishing, pollution and ‘food fraud’
Plant-based seafood specialist Kuleana is targeting seafood and sushi lovers with what it describes as the ‘next generation of raw ...
Brexit unlikely to change UK’s restrictive GMO crop rules in the next 3 years, USDA reports
In his inaugural speech as Prime Minister (PM) in July 2019, Boris Johnson said “let’s liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience ...
Cellular agriculture could replace some of the 270 million dairy cows needed to produce milk
Worldwide demand for milk is continually increasing in response to a range of factors, including global population growth and changing ...
5 nations grow 174.5 million hectares of GMO crops annually—more than 90% of global total
High adoption of biotech crops continued in 2018 with 26 countries planting 191.7 million hectares worldwide. This area is an ...
Plant virus that combats fungal pathogens may yield low-cost COVID-19 vaccine
A variety of scientists worldwide are changing their primary research focus these days with the aim to bring solutions for ...
FDA has ‘no objections’ to lab-made dairy proteins produced with GMO microbes
Perfect Day, a startup producing milk proteins via microbial fermentation (minus the cows), has secured a coveted ‘no questions/objections’ letter ...
After three lost glyphosate-cancer trials, Bayer investors fear litigation ‘avalanche’ will further harm company’s reputation
Two influential shareholder advisory groups are split on whether investors should support Bayer AG’s management at its upcoming annual meeting, ...
Viruses that ‘turn off’ plant genes could help farmers battle herbicide-resistant weeds
A team of scientists from Rothamsted Research have successfully adapted genetic techniques developed for crop improvement to be used in ...
Can we prevent future pandemics while transforming more forests into farms?
Viruses that jump from animals to people, like the one responsible for COVID-19, will likely become more common as people ...
Podcast: ‘Angry Chef’ Anthony Warner takes on food pseudoscience and COVID-19 misinformation
Anthony Warner, better known as "the Angry Chef," visits the Fuel the Pedal podcast to examine how nutrition science is ...
Viewpoint: Glyphosate caused the COVID-19 pandemic? Debunking the latest coronavirus conspiracy
When I saw that Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a ... professor at MIT, wrote an article entitled Connecting the Dots: Glyphosate ...
Drones, big data and AI help China’s farmers weather the coronavirus pandemic
The Covid-19 or coronavirus outbreak has led to an economical standstill worldwide. Agriculture is no exception. China’s agricultural industry is ...
Could GMO microbes, plants yield larger quantities of heart drug digoxin?
Foxglove plants, found in many gardens, are known for the showers of bell-shaped flowers they produce. But plants belonging to ...
Gene from grass-dwelling fungus may help safeguard global wheat production against deadly disease
Wheat scab hits farmers with a double punch. The fungal disease, also known as Fusarium head blight, shrivels grain and ...
How the ‘seductive myth of nature’s goodness’ infiltrated our thinking about food, medicine and even makeup
“Humankind is poised to make monumental decisions,” Alan Levinovitz warns, “about the meaning and importance of natural goodness.” ... His ...
Without steady supply of pesticides, Africa faces food security ‘disaster’ caused by resurgent locust swarms
The locust is considered the most deadly migratory parasite and a single swarm covering a square kilometer can be made ...
Genetically engineered biofuels might be able to compete with gasoline ‘within reach’
Berkeley Laboratory scientists designed simulations to determine how much biofuel is needed for the whole bioproduct extraction process to be ...
Soil fungus could suppress soybean cyst nematodemore—cause of over $1 billion in yield losses every year
The soybean cyst nematode sucks the nutrients out of soybean roots, causing more than $1 billion in soybean yield losses ...
Farm workers fear coronavirus infection as they labor to keep US fed during COVID-19 pandemic
While millions of Americans shelter in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, farmworkers on California’s cool central coast move ...
Woman charged for allegedly selling illegal pesticides on eBay she claimed would kill coronavirus
A Georgia woman made her initial appearance on federal charges of illegally importing and selling an unregistered pesticide, Toamit Virus ...
Synthetic biology will help us feed ourselves with drought-tolerant crops as climate change accelerates
Drought stress has been a long-time limitation to crop production that is being exacerbated by climate change and associated reductions ...
With consumers still fearful of synthetic chemicals, biotech firms spend billions on biopesticide development
Major players like Bayer and start-up companies are spending billions to identify fungi, bacteria and organic compounds in plants that ...
