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.
Opposition to EPA re-approval of Bayer, BASF dicamba herbicides mounts as widespread crop damage continues
Decisions made in the next year will be critical for the future use of the herbicide dicamba, a weed killer ...
Customized diets based on genetics, and 4 other food marketing trends gaining traction in 2020
Food marketers, take note of these trends shaping the future of the food and beverage industry: Hypercustomization: Customizing food products ...
New report hails Ghana’s ‘unique’ biosafety regime as nation prepares for its first GMO crop
A new report has hailed Ghana’s “unique” biosafety regime as the West African nation prepares to commercialize insect-resistant Bt cowpea, ...
Once focused on vegan burgers, alt-protein industry sets sights on grain- and cell-based chicken, steak
After four years as a biomedical engineer specializing in 3D printing of tissue and organs in Barcelona, Giuseppe Scionti had ...
Electricity from genetically engineered trees: It’s not as crazy as it sounds—but is it ethical?
What if trees could provide electricity to cities? .... This surrealist idyll isn’t too far-fetched, say a team of researchers ...
Bayer insect‐resistant, herbicide‐tolerant GMO corn poses no risk to human health or environment, EU food safety panel confirms
Following the submission of application EFSA‐GMO‐RX‐014 .... from Monsanto Company the Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms of the European Food ...
CRISPR gene-editing can help turn Africa’s low-yielding rice varieties into sustainable staple crops
African Oryza glaberrima and Oryza sativa landraces are considered valuable resources for breeding traits due to their adaptation to local ...
Plant-based breakfast sausage is here. Beyond Meat scientists explain how it’s made
The Beyond Breakfast Sausage will be on grocery store shelves towards the end of March at ACME, Albertsons, Vons, Whole ...
As more states try to ban chlorpyrifos insecticides, small chemical firms boost production to meet farmer demand
Smaller players in the pesticide industry are angling to take advantage of a new and perhaps finite window to sell ...
Kenya aims to have 200,000 acres of commercial GMO insect-resistant Bt cotton by 2022
After many years of waiting, Kenya has finally commenced commercial farming of Bt cotton heralding a new dawn for cotton farmers in ...
Corporate farms vs small family farms: Is one operation better than the other?
There is an ongoing debate in the agriculture industry between small family farms and large corporate farms. The controversy between ...
Synthetic biosensors: Engineered plants could detect flu viruses and crop pests before they become global problems
You’ve felt sick ever since you started working in a different office .... but building management can’t find the source ...
Shoppers will buy gene-edited food if they know its consumer, animal and environmental benefits
The FMI Foundation in partnership with the American Seed Trade Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Farm Foundation, ...
Viewpoint: How GMO herbicide-tolerant canola accelerated sustainable farming
Who would have fathomed how significant a day in March 1995 would become in the history of Canadian agriculture? On ...
Africa’s locust outbreak: Proof we need GMOs, pesticides and every other tool in the toolbox to combat crop-destroying insects
A perfect storm of conditions led to the locust attack currently tearing through East Africa and Pakistan, where countries are ...
Feeding microbes expired bread during fermentation could yield cheaper, more sustainable food
Wine, cheese, yoghurt and bread: all these culinary delights owe their existence to the work of microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, ...
Mozambique sees GMO crops as way to reduce poverty, achieve food security
Mozambique is exploring the use of biotech crops to boost food security following its successful field trials of genetically modified ...
Space-grown lettuce a hit with astronauts, and nutritionally identical to its earthly counterpart
The astronauts floated around, expressing delight as they tasted something entirely unexpected in space. "Awesome! Tastes good! I like that! ...
Next glyphosate fight? Colombian farmers challenge government plan to reinstate aerial coca crop spraying
Pedro Arenas is afraid that they'll take flight again. "I expect it could be within the next months," he says ...
Center for Food Safety sues USDA to block organic certification of soil-free hydroponic crops
Federal Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler .... will be reviewing USDA’s decision to permit the “indoor agricultural evolution” known as hydroponics ...
Rapid genome sequencing streamlines efforts to safeguard global food supply against salmonella
Researchers from Cornell University, the Mars Global Food Safety Center in Beijing, and the University of Georgia have developed a ...
Plant-based food tops $5 billion in retail sales as consumer demand for ‘sustainable’ products booms
New data released by The Good Food Institute (GFI) and the Plant Based Foods Association shows U.S. retail sales of ...
Kenya picks 1,000 farmers to grow GMO cotton
The Kenyan government has identified 1,000 farmers who will receive the country’s first genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds. The farmers ...
EU neonic insecticide ban cut UK canola production from 1.8 million acres to 1.3 million annually
In 2012, U.K. farmers seeded about 1.8 million acres of oilseed rape [canola]. But over the last eight years, acreage ...
Judge cancels second federal glyphosate-cancer trial to aid settlement talks between Bayer, plaintiffs
In an order on [March 5], U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria vacated the March 23 trial date for the second ...
Plant-based meat industry start-up Daring targeting chicken-free ‘chicken’, the world’s favorite protein
Daring is an imitation chicken, which replicates the taste and texture of the familiar fowl, and which is targeted specifically ...
Wild wheat gene could boost drought tolerance and grain size of commercialized crop varieties
In new research published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, Harkamal Walia, associate professor and Heuermann Chair of Agronomy and Horticulture at Nebraska, and colleagues ...
