Daily Food & Agriculture 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.
Popular TED Talks explore future of agricultural innovation, biotechnology
The well-known TED Talks is a clearinghouse of big thinkers and big ideas, and quite a few of them have ...
Video: WaPo investigation raises questions about large dairy farm’s compliance with USDA organic standards
[A] closer look at Aurora [Organic Dairy] and other large operations highlights critical weaknesses in the unorthodox inspection system that ...
UK government advisors: Farmers’ emergency application for neonicotinoid insecticide use should be refused
The National Farming Union’s (NFU) application for an emergency authorisation for neonicotinoid seed treatments is not looking hopeful as Government ...
GM salmon farm won’t require new federal assessment, Canadian government says
A plant in eastern [Prince Edwards Island] that plans to produce genetically modified salmon will not require a new federal ...
Read the tea leaves: Decoded plant genome unlocks flavor secrets for future breeding
A team in China has decoded the genetic building blocks of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, whose leaves are used ...
Genetic secrets of farming’s most notorious and persistent pest: Aphids
Aphids are some of nature’s most notorious pests...which causes physical damage and transmits pathogens that often render plants unsuitable for ...
Pro-Trump farmers worry they’ll lose lucrative GMO corn exports to Mexico if president rolls back NAFTA
[Editor's note: Mexico imported $2.3 billion of US corn in 2015, almost all of it genetically modified, according to the ...
Robust roots: Hardier, more sustainable, nutrient-rich GMO crops in development
The function of a plant’s roots go well beyond simply serving as an anchor in the ground. The roots act ...
Camera-equipped drones may soon detect plant disease before any visible signs
Researchers are developing drones that could detect plant disease before any visible signs show, allowing farmers to stop infections in ...
Boulder County, Colorado’s GMO ban destabilizes the environment and economy
[Editor's note: Mara Abbott is the community columnist at the Boulder Daily Camera and a professional women's bicycle racer.] ["Economic, Environmental ...
Hazard vs risk: California’s Prop 65 relies on ‘flawed approach’ of WHO’s IARC cancer agency
[Editor's note: Read the GLP's coverage of the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer here.] [Editor's note: ...
Gene tweaks could lead to improved corn and sorghum yields
Researchers at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center have discovered a gene ...
Neonicotinoid ban cost UK farmers $23.7 million in 2016, while replacement pesticide use soared
The full cost to farmers of the neonicotinoid ban in 2016 was £18.4 million ($23.7) and resulted in almost 28,800 ...
Largest threat to honey bees in Canada? Bears
Contrary to what some headlines and marketing campaigns would lead us to believe, honey bee numbers in Canada are at ...
Video: Bill Nye finds people are terrified of GMOs — despite knowing little about them
Along with terms like organic and free-range, GMOs are a hot topic when it comes to our food. GMO stands for ...
Kenyan scientists push for female farmers’ access to biotechnology
Dr. Felister Makini, Deputy Director General (crops) at the Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), noted that African women ...
Former agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack: Environment benefits when farmers plant GMO
[Editor's note: Tom Vilsack is a former agriculture secretary under President Obama and currently serves as President and CEO of the U.S ...
Canada’s health regulator reaffirms glyphosate herbicide neither genotoxic nor carcinogenic
Health Canada says the potential risk to human health and the environment from pesticides containing glyphosate are acceptable, if used ...
Are you ‘anti-science’ if you resist biotechnology on political or economic grounds?
[Editor's note: Tess Doezema is a doctoral student at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona ...
Fact check: Conflicting studies on chlorpyrifos insecticide’s human health impact
When the Environmental Protection Agency decided to not ban chlorpyrifos, an insecticide widely used in agriculture, both the EPA and ...
Better beer? Sequenced barley genome could help breeders improve taste, other staple crops
Showing up in your cereal in the morning, your sandwich at lunch, and your beers or single malt Scotch whiskey ...
China’s slowdown in approval of GMO imports harming US farmers
U.S. officials have prodded China repeatedly for a faster and more open system for deciding whether to approve the import ...
USDA considers release of GM moths to control broccoli pest, GM virus to stop citrus greening
Diamondback moths are a global pest of cruciferous crops such as broccoli, Brussel sprouts and cabbage. On April 18, USDA ...
Farmers could control rice harvest timing with strain that flowers after fungicide application
A new strain of rice that flowers within a certain period of time after being sprayed with commercial chemicals commonly ...
‘Shockumentary’: How to spot fear-based movies about food and farming
It seems as though every year a food “shockumentary” comes out (GMO OMG, Forks Over Knives, Food Inc etc). I’ve ...
How will Sonny Perdue’s appointment to secretary of agriculture affect small family farms?
Donald Trump owes his election in no small part to the support of farm country. But since entering office, almost ...
National Academies tighten conflict-of-interest policies after backlash stemming from GMO, pain-relief reports
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are toughening their financial conflict-of-interest policies after publishing reports that some critics ...
