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.
Is ‘Big Ag’ getting into the cannabis business?
When Mowgli Holmes and his childhood friend Nishan Karassik founded Phylos Bioscience in 2014 they had one major goal: to ...
Kenyan scientists lobby for GMO Bt cotton approval to cut pesticide use
Mwea cotton farmers in Kirinyaga have expressed concern over the high cost of pesticides. They say they have to dig ...
Viewpoint: ‘Bombarding’ public with facts won’t end opposition to GMO crops
In a paper published early this year in Nature Human Behavior, scientists asked 500 Americans what they thought about foods ...
Natural GMOs: Parasitic plants steal host DNA to siphon off needed resources
Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their host plants and use the stolen genes to more effectively siphon off ...
Kenya field trial shows Bt cotton boosts yields four-fold
“The results from the biotech cotton have demonstrated the potential that it has in transforming the textile industry in the ...
‘GMO is too simplistic’: Why industrial microbes need their own classification system
ASTM International is the global leader in voluntary technical standards. If you’ve ever worn a bicycle helmet, for example, you’ve ...
Why 3 countries planted GMO Bt cotton and got ‘wildly different results’
Three countries used the same tactic to fight the same pest on the same crop, but they had wildly different ...
Could gene drive technology eradicate glyphosate-resistant weeds?
Waterhemp and Palmer amaranth, two aggressive weeds that threaten the food supply in North America, are increasingly hard to kill ...
Home-field advantage in Missouri trial could boost Bayer’s fortunes in glyphosate-cancer legal battle
Bayer .... facing an upcoming trial in St. Louis over allegations that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, has recruited ...
Viewpoint: Non-browning Arctic apple rollout offers ‘template’ for ending GMO debate
“Everybody thinks, 'GMOs … consumers are all against that,' ” Neal Carter, president of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, was quoted on ...
Some farmers earn more money defending GMOs on YouTube than they do growing food
It’s a sign of the times when farmers make more money advocating for the industry on social media than actually ...
Climate change could ‘significantly’ cut nutrient content in crops over next 30 years
One of the biggest challenges to reducing hunger and undernutrition around the world is to produce foods that provide not ...
Fitness-focused consumers spur development of non-GMO soybean with 50% more protein
Israel-based startup Equinom is developing non-GMO soybeans with higher protein levels, which the company said in a release will deliver a ...
Suspected Fusarium wilt infection in Colombia threatens global banana supply, but fungus-resistant GMO fruit on the horizon
In a long-feared development, an extremely damaging disease of bananas has apparently reached Latin America. Late last week, the Colombian ...
Bayer trial: Judge may cut $2 billion glyphosate-cancer damages to $250 million
A California judge will slash a $2 billion judgment against Bayer AG, which had been awarded to a couple who ...
GMO plants that produce industrial proteins could cut cost of medicines, consumer goods
Imagine if plants could be engineered to produce vaccines, pharmaceuticals, proteins and enzymes for medical, agricultural and industrial applications at ...
Dessert of the future? This $20 a pint ice cream made with GMO yeast sells out in hours
Agri-tech start-up Perfect Day released a line of real ice cream made with lab-grown dairy that costs $20 a pint ...
Engineered plants with deeper roots could store more CO2, help slow climate change
Hidden underground networks of plant roots snake through the earth foraging for nutrients and water, similar to a worm searching ...
Organic produce consumption lowers pregnant women’s exposure to some pesticides, small study suggests
Organic versus conventional foods: are they really better for people’s health? Are all organic foods created equal, and if not, ...
‘Industrial-scale’ beekeeping doesn’t boost disease prevalence in honeybee colonies, study shows
It is generally thought that the intensification of farming will result in higher disease prevalences, although there is little specific ...
GMO scare 2.0? ‘Arduous’ regulation may increase public distrust of CRISPR-edited crops
Modern biotechnology (transgenesis and gene editing) helps achieve an increase in food production without the need for more land area for agriculture ...
New test accurately estimates bee exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides, study claims
Bee populations are declining, and neonicotinoid pesticides continue to be investigated — and in some cases banned — because of ...
Viewpoint: We need GMO, CRISPR-edited crops to help feed 10 billion people
If we want to feed 10 billion people by 2050, in a world beset by rising temperatures and scarcer water ...
Farming without pesticides could double crop losses, boost global food prices, UK economist warns
The average UK family grocery bill could increase by more than [$977] over the course of a year without the ...
As technology ‘wipes out’ traditional work, biotech investment could revitalize rural America
Cow-free burgers are now all the rage — after Beyond Meats’ recent IPO, shares rose 163% on the first day ...
Vermont: First US state to mandate its own GMO crop regulations
On June 17, 2019, Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed a new law, which creates a committee to review new genetically-engineered ...
Mexico’s self-fertilizing corn could be worth millions. Will village where it grows share in the profits?
In a 1979 visit to Totontepec, a small town in Oaxaca, Mexico, naturalist Thomas Boone Hallberg marveled at the local ...
