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.
Video: Fruit, vegetable shelf life extended by spray made from plant extracts
[Editor's note: Watch the video here.] “We use food to preserve food,” [Apeel Sciences CEO James] Rogers said. They start ...
Green genes: Germany’s top organic researcher says environmentalists should embrace CRISPR editing
[Editor's note: The following is a Q&A with Urs Niggli, director of the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture in Germany ...
Even if organic food was as cheap as conventional, not everyone would buy it, study finds
[Editor's note: Jayson Lusk is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University.] I presumed most ...
Golden Rice could help relieve vitamin A deficiency if countries ditch ‘misguided regulations’
[Editor's note: Justus Wesseler is a professor in the Social Science Department at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. David Zilberman is ...
Environmentalists pressure Canadian schools to drop food waste webinar because it mentions non-browning GE apple
[Editor's note: Read the GLP's profile on the genetically engineered non-browning Arctic Apple and the potential for genetic engineering to ...
Why hasn’t India embraced GM food as it did Green Revolution technologies?
[Editor's note: Vivian Fernandes is editor of Smart Indian Agriculture, a website devoted to promoting modern practices in agriculture including use ...
Switchgrass biofuel? New gene that makes plant sterile could ease contamination concerns
Switchgrass has been lauded as a promising source of biofuel.... Genetically modifying switchgrass could boost crop yields and its commercial ...
Cow eugenics: Colombian ranchers breed cattle to stand their ground against big cat predators
If big cats don’t kill livestock, farmers won’t shoot them. ... Panthera, a charity that manages “corridors” for jaguars that ...
Campbell’s Soup works with federal agencies to craft national GMO label
Drawing on extensive consumer research, The Campbell Soup Co.'s GMO disclosure labels on packs and online could serve as a ...
Swiss parliament backs extension of GMO crop ban to 2021
The Swiss parliament has approved a plan to extend the current moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture from ...
National Academies: Conflict of interest claims directed at GMO report ‘unfair and disingenuous’
[Editor's note: The following is a statement by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in response to ...
How CRISPR gene editing can speed up domestication to make crops more sustainable, nutritious
Out of the more than 300,000 plant species in existence, only three species – rice, wheat, and maize – account ...
Washington state judge fines activists on both sides of 2013 GMO law debate
A Washington state judge has ordered the Grocery Manufacturers Association on Wednesday to pay nearly $1.1 million in legal fees, ...
How genetically modified microorganisms could help humans farm on Mars
[A]s NASA gears up to touch down on Mars, research is turning to how astronauts will produce what they need ...
Is non-GMO label a ‘declaration of opposition to farmers, science?’
[Editor's note: Trevor Charles is a microbiologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada.] [M]y tweet about an example of a ...
Can farmers reduce pesticide use but maintain expected yields? Study of French farms says yes
A team of researchers with members affiliated with several institutions in France has found that lowering the amount of pesticides ...
How GM canola oil engineered with high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids could reduce over-fishing
The surging demand [for Omega 3 fatty acids] has pushed fish oil prices to a record high and presented the ...
New EPA head Scott Pruit poised to challenge ‘politics driven’ farm chemical regulations
[Editor’s note: Henry Miller is a physician and molecular biologist, and was the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology.] ...
Kenya puts the breaks on GMO corn field trial
Kenya is withholding approval for field trials of genetically-modified corn because some officials argue that a ban on GMO imports ...
UK farmers push back against ‘pseudo-science attack’ on herbicide glyphosate
Hundreds of farmers across Britain are coming together in a concerted effort to show politicians and the public why glyphosate ...
Massachusetts mulls restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides over bee safety concerns
A type of pesticide many beekeepers blame for mass bee die-offs would come under tighter regulation under a bill filed ...
African scientists developing GMO sorghum with higher levels of vitamin A to tackle childhood blindness
Up to half a million children around the world are going blind every year due to a lack of Vitamin ...
Tanzania’s first ever GMO field trial: Drought-tolerant, insect-resistant corn ‘shows promising results’
Tanzania's first-ever genetically-modified crop trial was planted only a 30-minute drive from the capital. ... A year ago the Tanzanian ...
Only 1 percent of US farmland is certified organic. Why aren’t more farmers making the switch?
There are two stories to tell about the state of organic agriculture in the US. The first is a success ...
5 non-GMO ‘frankenfoods’ that can carry organic label
One of the most common food myths of our time is that GMOs are “frankenfoods” while heirloom or organic varieties ...
Blight-resistant genetically engineered potatoes that cut fungicide use approved
Three types of potatoes genetically engineered to resist the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine are safe for the ...
How to stop fungi that infect, destroy crops? Target their ‘friends’
By itself, [the pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani] is responsible for the turfgrass disease called brown patch, sheath blight within rice, ...
