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.
Developing countries likely to boost CO2 emissions to combat hunger, study finds
Achieving an adequate, healthy diet in most low-income countries will require a substantial increase in greenhouse gas emissions and water ...
Viewpoint: Do neonicotinoid insecticides really boost crop yields? New study raises doubts
Ever year, farmers in the United States devote at least 80 million acres, a combined landmass three-quarters the size of ...
SeaWorld adds GMO Impossible Burger to its theme park menus as plant-based meat popularity soars
A handful of Central Florida theme parks are now adding a fierce veggie option. Today, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment announced ...
GMO eggplant developed by Bangladesh government cuts toxicity of pesticides used 41%, farmers increase revenues 27%, study finds
"Bt brinjal can improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in a developing country while protecting the environment.” ...
Pesticide-carrying bees help cut synthetic chemical use on farms
Bees are great at retrieving tiny cargo: their main job is to visit flowering plants in order to gather pollen ...
‘Using Nature’s Shuttle’: Judith M. Heimann’s fascinating new book about how scientists learned to create genetically modified crops
Judith M. Heimann’s recent book [Using Nature's Shuttle] provides a thoroughly engaging account of how [the mystery of plant crown ...
Video: Can meat substitutes like the GMO Impossible Burger make inroads as a meat substitute in China and other countries?
Meat substitutes are surging in popularity as an environmentalist backlash against meat intensifies and as the taste of meat substitutes ...
Viewpoint: IARC glyphosate-cancer controversy highlights need for tighter conflict of interest rules in science
In recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the scientific community (and beyond) about the possible conflicts of ...
Chipotle reaches $6.5 million settlement in lawsuit alleging ‘deceptive’ non-GMO marketing
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. has agreed to pay $6.5 million to resolve consumer litigation over allegedly misleading non-GMO marketing, according ...
EU rapeseed could recover from poor summer harvest, but neonic insecticide ban poses ‘painful’ challenge
Rapeseed sowings in major EU producers could increase after this summer’s poor harvest although restrictions on insecticides are causing problems ...
USDA reinstates honeybee population survey controversially suspended amid budget cuts
The US Department of Agriculture will resume data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report on October 1 -- ...
EU Court of Justice dismisses activist lawsuit challenging Monsanto GMO soy approval
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on [September 12] that the authorization of genetically modified soy produced by ...
Video: Crops engineered with nanoparticles could survive bleak environments—including space
A family of nanoparticles known as metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, can absorb harmful UV radiation. Joseph Richardson is a nano-engineer ...
Bacterial leaf streak disease can slash corn yields 20%—will science stop it?
Bacterial leaf streak, a foliar disease in corn, has only been in the United States for a handful of years, ...
Farmers, anti-glyphosate activists lobby EPA as agency mulls herbicide’s future in US
Pro- and anti-glyphosate companies and organizations lined up to praise — or bash — the active ingredient in the most ...
GMO crops and insects help stem overfishing, protect vulnerable marine ecosystems
For the first time in history, humans are poised to harvest more fish and seafood from farms than they catch ...
Paris bans synthetic pesticides as French anti-chemical movement ‘gains momentum’
Paris and four other French cities on [September 12] banned the use of synthetic pesticides within their boundaries, as an ...
Flood-tolerant crops could survive intense rainfall as climate change accelerates
Global warming has resulted not only in increased incidences of drought and heatwaves but also increased rainfall which brings higher ...
Sequenced pea genome aids effort to improve global nutrition, boost sustainable farming
An international team of researchers has assembled the first genome of the field pea, providing insight into how Mendel's original ...
Taco Bell rolls out vegetarian menu without Beyond, Impossible meat options
As more fast-food chains double down on menu items with meatless alternatives from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, Taco Bell ...
EPA plan to end animal testing by 2035 pits environmental groups against animal rights activists
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., announced .... that it will stop conducting or funding studies on ...
Pesticides don’t pose acute health risk to honeybees foraging on farmland, two-year study finds
Honey bees forage across a large area, continually scouting the local landscape for ephemeral food resources. Beekeepers often rely on ...
Plant breeding innovations required to weather climate change, report says
The world needs plant breeding innovations to address challenges of climate change and a growing population ...
US soybean and corn farmers fear plant-based burgers and glyphosate lawsuits signal uncertain future
I’m flat busted. My Missouri corn and soybean farm is bankrupt, financially incompetent, a lousy credit risk, upside down--you pick ...
We need phosphorus to fertilize crops and feed the world—can we mine it sustainably?
If you wanted to really mess with the world's food production, a good place to start would be in Morocco ...
Congressional Democrats push EPA to defend expanded approval of controversial pesticide sulfoxaflor
Oregon Democrats are asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to defend its decision to expand the use of a pesticide ...
Animal proteins from GMO microbes: More synthetic food ingredients to launch in 2021
The first three proteins from Motif FoodWorks’ fermentation-based food ingredient platform will be ready for launch in early 2021, says ...
