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: Glyphosate herbicide’s ‘tough year’ could get much worse
Monsanto’s flagship weed killer, Roundup, has had a tough year. And it could get worse. With Roundup at the center ...
Crops and chemicals: What does the future hold for GMOs and pesticides?
[Editor's note: The following is a Q&A with Paul Vincelli, a plant pathology professor at the University of Kentucky.] Farmers are ...
State bans of dicamba herbicide could increase soybean, cotton prices
Efforts to ban the herbicide [dicamba] could benefit the prices of agricultural products such as soybeans and cotton. At the ...
African scientists call for implementation of biotech crops to further food security, development
Scientists are calling for technological transformation in how Africans undertake agricultural production to help improve food security on the continent ...
Uganda becomes newest country to approve growing of GMO, gene-edited crops
Uganda’s Parliament voted the long-awaited National Biosafety Act of 2017 into law ... ending years of governmental debate over whether ...
EU delays vote on whether to extend license for glyphosate herbicide
Health experts from European Union countries [were] expected to discuss whether or not to extend the license for herbicide glyphosate ...
Trace amounts of neonicotinoid pesticides found in 75% of honey samples worldwide—’far below’ levels dangerous to humans
A new study has found traces of neonicotinoid chemicals in 75% of honey samples from across the world. The scientists ...
Are ‘free-from’ (gluten, GMO) food labels informative—or misleading?
What could be conceptually simpler than labeling a food product? You tell the customers what’s in the product, or maybe ...
Why are thousands of bumblebees dying around the fragrant Linden trees of London?
Visitors in the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens near London have reported hundreds, if not thousands of bees, especially bumblebees, sick or ...
UK environmental groups ramp up effort to ban ‘bee-harming’ neonicotinoids
Environmental group Friends of the Earth has released a YouGov survey showing that over three quarters of the UK public ...
Pass the manure: Organic farming practices increase planet-warming methane emissions
The realization that livestock like cows are ruminants - and produce a lot of methane while chewing - was a ...
Viewpoint: No, we are not facing an imminent global food shortage
The Quartz article [“The world could run out of food two decades earlier than thought”] leaned heavily upon the testimony ...
Brazil regulator says Bayer’s takeover of Monsanto could be ‘detrimental to competition’
A unit of Brazil’s competition regulator Cade said the $66 billion takeover of Monsanto Co. by German life sciences firm ...
Plant scientist: ‘Needless and expensive’ GMO crop regulations hurt less-developed countries
[Editor’s note: Graham Scoles is a plant science professor at the University of Saskatchewan.] About 30 years ago, Canada and other ...
India should allow GMOs to boost lagging soybean yields, US says
“For India to increase production, it should allow the use of innovative technologies, including GMOs,” said Scott Sindelar [the agriculture ...
Antibiotic use on farms could be cut by up to 80 percent globally, study finds
Almost 80% of all antibiotics in the United States aren’t taken by people. They’re given to cows, pigs, and chickens ...
GMO soybean oil causes less obesity in mice than conventional oil
Long-term tests in mice indicate that a genetically modified (GM) brand of soybean oil causes less obesity and insulin resistance ...
Scientists urge US Interior Department to lift ban on GMO seeds
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), one of the world’s top science and technology think tanks, along with a ...
Calls to ban glyphosate, neonics highlight need to ‘protect science’, say French corn farmers
At a meeting hosted on Wednesday [27 September] by CEPM, the maize lobby in Europe, maize farmers stressed the need ...
Russia trying to reduce dependence on imported seeds—without GMOs
Many growers use specialized seeds designed to resist pests, disease and drought, but more than half for some crops come ...
GMO algae—environmentally-friendly alternative to palm oil—runs into resistance
When green cleaning company Ecover announced the launch of a new laundry liquid containing an oil made from algae, as ...
Why Indian farmers are buying unapproved herbicide-resistant GMO cotton seeds
If market and industry estimates are true, Indian farmers have, in the current kharif season, bought and planted about [350,000] ...
Viewpoint: Conventional farmers take better care of soil health than media portrays
[Editor’s Note: Amanda Zaluckyj is a practicing attorney and farmer's daughter who shares her family's story at The Farmer's Daughter ...
Many consumers mistakenly believe organic and non-GMO labels are interchangeable
[Editor’s Note: Jayson Lusk is a food and agricultural economist and head of the Agricultural Economics Department at Purdue University.] ...
Genetic engineering could increase biofuel production by fattening plant leaves
While there are legions of plant researchers dedicated to the idea of using GMOs to maximize food production, there's a ...
After settling with farmers, Syngenta turns attention to Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland GMO corn lawsuits
Syngenta AG moved closer to putting a troubled biotech corn seed launch behind it with a $1.5 billion settlement with ...
European Commission works to garner support for glyphosate herbicide re-authorization
The European Commission is exploring ways to bridge the gap between different member state requests regarding the re-authorization of the ...
