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.
Commercialization, research on ‘home-grown’ GMO crops backed by Kenyan lawmakers
Kenyan crop researchers are free to start commercial growing of Genetically Modified (GMO) cotton, the country’s lawmakers said on Tuesday ...
Genetically tweaked ‘seasonless’ broccoli may double yields
Scientists at the John Innes Centre are developing a new line of fast-growing sprouting broccoli that goes from seed to ...
Debunking Denialism: 5 environmental benefits from GMO crops
Editor's note: Emil Karlsson is a Swedish science communicator who runs the Debunking Denialism blog, which is dedicated to scientific skepticism ...
Winter harvest? Russian grass genes could hold key to developing cold-tolerant corn, sugar cane
Winters in eastern Russia are intensely cold, with air temperatures regularly reaching minus 30 degrees in some locations. It is ...
1 cigarette ‘more carcinogenic and toxic’ than a spoonful of glyphosate pesticide
[Editor's note: Matan Shelomi is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Entomology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical ...
Chickens genetically engineered to act as surrogates could protect vulnerable breeds from avian flu
In a radical plan to preserve rare varieties [of chicken breeds] such as the Nankin, Scots Dumpy and Sicilian Buttercup, scientists ...
GMO-free diet adds almost $3,000 per year to average US family food budget, study finds
[Editor's note: The following is a study by Barry Goodwin, Michele Marra, and Nicholas Piggott, from the Agricultural and Resource ...
EU may block import of GMO crops from Britain if country allows biotech crops post-Brexit
Plans to grow genetically modified crops in Britain could result in the EU blocking imports of the produce after Brexit, ...
Chinese scientist convicted of stealing GMO rice seeds from Kansas research facility
A federal jury on [Feb. 16, 2017] convicted a Chinese scientist in Kansas of conspiring to steal samples of a ...
Insect-resistant GMO cowpeas speed toward commercialization in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan African farmers will soon have access to improved cowpea varieties that will lead to increases in yield. This follows ...
Farmers in 10 states file lawsuit alleging Monsanto responsible for crop damage from drift of dicamba herbicide
[Editor's note: In November 2016, the EPA approved a formulation of dicamba that contains an additive that reduces volatility. This ...
Consumption of soy milk and herbicide glyphosate may alter your sperm? Horticulturist Kevin Folta says not so fast
[Editor’s note: Kevin Folta is a molecular geneticist and chair of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida.] Carey ...
What factors shape women’s perceptions of GMOs?
[Editor's note: Heather Bray is a senior research associate and Rachel Ankeny is a professor of history, both at the ...
Did EU abuse emergency authorizations of neonicotinoids?
The EU has been criticised after a new legal analysis showed it had allowed scores of “emergency authorisations” of banned ...
US producers struggling to keep up with rising demand for organic, non-GMO grains
Increasing consumer demand for organic and non-GMO foods led to a sharp rise in organic grain imports in 2016 — ...
‘Oregon prohibition on local GMO restrictions should remain’
[Editor's note: The following is an editorial by Capital Press, an independent news website that covers the agriculture industry in and ...
Indian farmers can benefit tremendously from planting GM crops, new book says
Former director of [the] Centre for Plant Molecular Biology at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University [in India,] S Sadasivam on [Feb ...
Corn catalog: Crop’s climate adaption genes identified to help breeders speed up improvements
Over many thousands of years, farmers have bred maize varieties so the crops are optimally adapted to local environments. A ...
Food, farm and anti-pesticide groups ask US attorney general to block 3 agri-business mergers
Nearly 325 consumer, food, farm and anti-pesticide groups sent a letter [on February 13] to newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions ...
Organic industry fears Republicans are targeting National Organic Program
Back in December [2016], the Freedom Caucus [a group of US House Republicans] released a "recommended list of regulations to ...
Pediatrician debunks claims that GMOs and chemicals used with them are bad for the environment
[Editor’s note: Emiliano Tatar is a pediatrician at the Einstein Healthcare Network Roxborough Plaza. The following is an interview with ...
Drought-tolerant genetically engineered maize poised to help African farmers adapt to changing climate
[Editor's note: Mark Lynas is an author and journalist who reports on crop biotechnology around the world.] Tanzania's first-ever genetically ...
‘Clean food’ is a marketing ploy and offensive to hard-working scientists, farmers
[Editor’s note: Kevin Folta is a molecular geneticist and chair of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida.] When ...
Europe appears poised to overturn neonicotinoid pesticides ban
[Editor's note: Matt Ridley is a columnist for the Times (UK), a member of the House of Lords and the ...
Former UK chief scientist: Europe’s opposition to GMOs ‘dangerously naive’ in the face of climate change
A former UK chief scientist has warned that politicians around the globe are ignoring science for the sake of short-term ...
Nigeria faces drought, famine, malnutrition and hunger, but GMOs offer hope
A report recently published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says a total of 8.1 million people ...
More nutritious and tastier vegetables? CRISPR gene editing could dramatically boost consumption
Spinach. Tomato. Watermelon. Broccoli. Besides being good for you, these four vegetables are just a few that could benefit — ...
