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.
Uproar over perceived gag order at Agricultural Research Service was ‘self-inflicted wound’
Don’t blame this one on the Trump administration. In a bungled attempt to anticipate the wishes of their new political ...
Kenya unveils first-ever GMO label, riling activists who want imports banned
The government has launched a genetically modified organism labelling mark that will be attached to food products on sale. Willy Tonui, ...
Non-browning Arctic Apple hit shelves February 1: Will they change consumers’ opinions about GMOs?
The fruit, sold sliced and marketed under the brand Arctic Apple, could hit a cluster of Midwestern grocery stores as ...
GMO mustard approval in India stalled by lawsuit alleging scientists deceived public on crop’s benefits
India’s long-standing push to approve genetically modified (GM) food crops has been controversially delayed, after an environmental campaigner launched a ...
Economists, in ‘predatory’ journal, challenge Syngenta study finding neonics pose ‘low risk’ to bees
Editor's Note: This article discusses the attack on a Syngenta study by economists published in the Environmental Sciences Europe titled "An experiment ...
Will release of GMO American chestnut trees have ‘unforeseen’ consequences for environment?
The [American chestnut tree]...fell victim to a [Cryphonectria parasitica fungus] disease introduced by a foreign chestnut species in the early ...
Agricultural Research Service rescinds order barring its scientists from contact with public
U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have rescinded an order that barred its researchers from releasing “public-facing documents,” ranging from news releases ...
Majority of farmers say GMOs allow them to minimize pesticides and conserve water, survey finds
Editor's Note: This article discusses a recent survey by the US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance and National Corn Growers Association. According ...
US withdrawal from Trans Pacific Partnership worries nation’s cattle producers
On [January 23], he signs [a Presidential memorandum that withdraws] the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. What’s more, he has ...
CRISPR, EXZACT technologies boost gene-editing efficiency in plants from 1% to 90%
The perfect seed doesn’t exist—but can it? Breeders have tried without success for decades to perfectly combine yield, disease tolerance ...
Agriculture Department: No gag order on its scientists
Employees of the scientific research arm at the Agriculture Department were ordered Monday to cease publication of “outward facing” documents and news ...
USDA’s GAIN report: China to grow its own GE crops by 2020
Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the US Department of Agriculture's Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) annual report ...
How GMO crops can help feed world’s growing population in time of climate change
Editor's Note: This article was written by Stuart Thompson, a senior lecturer in Plant Biochemistry at the University of Westminster ...
USDA, FDA proposals on gene editing aimed at ‘modernizing biotech regulations’
Editor's note: This story discusses proposed plans for new regulations for gene-edited plants and animals by the FDA and the USDA ...
Decoding wheat genome enhances production in the face of severe climate disruptions
Editor's note: Wheat rust and spot blotch are two fungal diseases that cause a devastating amount of crop damage around ...
Bill Gates: ‘Disease resistant, biofortified cassava one of reasons I’m optimistic about Africa’
A recent opinion poll found that the majority of Americans are optimistic about 2017. Although 2016 was a tough year ...
Will Trump cut funding of UN agency accused of ‘shoddy science’ for designating glyphosate probable carcinogen?
Editor's note: This article discusses the International Agency (IARC) for Research on Cancer, a sub-group of the World Health Organization ...
#GlyphosateIsVital: British farmers take to social media to defend herbicide’s environmental benefits
The Twitter campaign under the hashtag #glyphosateisvital has been backed by a number of British farmers, who have posted tweets ...
Science moms: Girl Scouts ‘cave’ to anti-science protests by introducing non-GMO cookie
… The campaign to pressure the GSUSA into dropping ingredients sourced from plants engineered with modern molecular techniques, better known ...
Kenyan scientists challenge government officials to lift GMO field trials moratorium
Scientists and students have been piling pressure on the government to lift the ban on GMOs that has been in ...
USDA will not regulate Scotts’ and Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant GMO grass
APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] received a petition from the Scotts Company of Marysville, OH, and Monsanto Company ...
How Israeli software improves crop yields through genetic analysis
NRGene is working with Syngenta Ag and Monsanto Co. to detect plant traits that can produce higher-yielding crops, and with ...
Insect resistant Bt corn losing effectiveness against earworm, study finds
Editor's Note: This article discusses a research paper called "Field-Evolved Resistance in Corn Earworm to Cry Proteins Expressed by Transgenic ...
Organic yields lag conventional by 20% in developed countries, 43% in Africa, meta-analyses find
In most regions of the world, row-crop farming is primarily conducted in [large] fields, but knowledge of processes and management ...
Bangladeshi farmers worry growing more GMO potatoes could hurt exports, particularly to Russia
After a recent initiatives to grow more resilient GM potatoes, the Bangladesh Fruits, Vegetable and Allied Products Exporters' Association worry ...
Trump claims credit for Bayer, Monsanto keeping jobs, biotech research in US
President-elect Donald Trump met with the chief executives of German chemical giant Bayer and agriculture company Monsanto [during the week of January 10] and discussed ...
Does Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list discourage Americans from eating fresh produce?
Editor's note: This article examines the potential influence of the Environmental Working Group's annual Dirty Dozen list of foods with the ...
