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.
Lobbying and big spending on GMO and pesticide issues escalate in Hawaii
The battle over genetically modified crops is turning into one of the most expensive political debates in Hawaii's history. Hawaii News ...
Why do people accept biotech in medicine but not GMO foods?
[Editor's note: this article summarizes a paper (PAY WALL) published in the journal Annual Review of Resource Economics.] In a paper─ The ...
Non-browning Arctic Apple rollout foreshadows more genetically engineered fruits and vegetables
Advances like gene silencing and other gene editing methods, like CRISPR technology, make biotech plant breeding cheaper and more precise than the ...
Ghanaian researcher: Let science, not scare-mongering, guide our country’s GMO policy
[Editor's note: The author is currently a Ph.D. Candidate studying Plant Science at the South Dakota State University, Brookings, USA. He ...
Are pest fighting GMO insects coming to a farm near you, impacting organic farmers?
Genetic modification of insects is used to create a self-limiting population. It’s a technological successor to the Sterile Insect Technique, in ...
Podcast: British scientist defends field trials of high-yield GMO wheat
[Editor's note: Listen to the full interview here.] Genetically modified crops may be in regular use by farmers in the United ...
GMO ban in Chinese province highlights major difference between public and government on biotech crops
Heilongjiang province, the bread basket of north-east China, has banned the planting of genetically modified (GM) crops – the country’s first ...
Insect-resistant GMO Bt rice poses ‘negligible risks’ to non-target species, study finds
Transgenic Bt rice expressing the insecticidal proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt) have been developed since 1989. Their ecological risks ...
Only conspiracy theories left to challenge science consensus that GMOs are safe
I have been writing about the GMO scientific consensus for quite some time, because this scientific consensus for the safety of GMO ...
Here’s the truth about the non-browning Arctic Apple
[Editor's note: The story is a response to a February 2, 2016, post on STAT news written by a campaigner with ...
As food insecurity rises in Zimbabwe, so do calls to repeal GMO ban
Food is scarce in [Domboshava]... Weather changes, including harsher winters and shorter rainy seasons, have compromised the earth's soil so ...
Global GMO food market expected to reach 130 million tons by 2021
As, the demand for GMO food is on a continuous rise, stacked traits, a mix of more than one transgene, ...
Sustainability: ‘Organic farming should embrace blight–resistant genetically engineered potato’
[Editor's note: This journal article is written by Godelieve Gheysenat, molecular geneticist, Ghent University in Belgium, and René Custers, regulatory and responsible research ...
Hawaiian chef slices through anti-GMO propaganda
[Editor's Note: This article is written by Ed Morita, a pastry chef in Hawaii. He has spent over 15 years working at some ...
New GMO corn study: ‘Transgenic maize is as safe and nutritious as conventional non-transgenic maize’
[Editor's note: Researchers studied the impact of GMO corn on rats in a 90-day feed study. For background on GMO safety ...
Infographic: 5 popular foods genetically modified by humans–before GMOs
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat a completely "natural" diet? Well, for starters, you wouldn't ...
Review of neonicotinoids’ effects on human health finds few studies, ‘methodologically weak findings’
Prior to 2000, neonicotinoid chemicals were virtually unknown, by farmers or anyone else. They have since become the most widely ...
Korean labeling law exempts food grown from GMO seeds with no GMO traces in final product
The government's new rules on genetically modified organism (GMO) labeling on products which will go into effect [February 4] is ...
Why Brazil’s cocoa market crashed–and how genetics is reviving it
Editor's note: This article describes a study by researchers at the University of Campinas’s Biology Institute and was published in ...
How to stem farmer suicides in India? Help farmers expand farm size
Editor's note: GMO critics, most notably philosopher Vandana Shiva (Read her GLP profile here), have long contended that the introduction of Bt ...
Friends of the Earth activist campaigner calls for increased regulation of ‘GMO 2.0’ gene edited food
Editor's note: Dana Perls is the senior food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth, you can read GLP's profile ...
UK votes support for first GMO crop since 1998, breaking with EU
A UK vote to approve EU proposals to authorise the first new GM crops for cultivation since 1998 suggests the ...
Cheaper blue jeans that are better for the environment? Genetic engineering can make it happen
Editor's note: This piece is written by Dr. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, who was the founding director of the ...
Tuberculosis-resistant cows developed using CRISPR gene editing by Chinese scientists
Tuberculosis has long been a problem for cattle farmers in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa. Now, scientists from ...
Monoculture: Is it really the problem ‘intensive agriculture’ critics make it out to be?
Editor's note: The author of this piece is Andrew Kniss, associate professor of weed biology & ecology at the University of Wyoming ...
Will consumers accept CRISPR gene edited non-browning mushrooms?
Marketers say the idea of a non-browning mushroom developed through gene-editing techniques is intriguing, although few seem to know if ...
‘Super yield’ GMO wheat gets green light for field trials in UK over critics’ objections
The GM wheat has been engineered to use sunlight more efficiently and has boosted greenhouse yields by up to 40%. Researchers ...
