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.
Environmental, economic costs of EU neonicotinoid ban ‘devastating’, according to study
[A] potential ban or suspension of NNi [neonicotinoid seed treatment] technology would have tremendous economic implications.... To take few examples: over ...
Big Ag megamerger? Trump meets with Bayer, Monsanto CEOs
Top executives of Bayer AG and Monsanto Co. met with President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday in New York to pitch the ...
Computer scientist Stephanie Seneff proposes questionable theory linking glyphosate to autism
[Editor's note: Stephanie Seneff, co-author of this paper, is a controversial MIT computer scientist and anti-GMO critic who has advanced ...
USDA to certify farmland switching from conventional to help increase production of organic food
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on [Jan. 11] took a step toward increasing the production of organic foods — which has not ...
Rusty-patched bumble bee listed as endangered, neonic pesticides pose ‘particular threat’, says USFWS
The rusty patched bumble bee ... was listed on [Jan. 10] as an endangered species, becoming the first wild bee in the ...
Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts: Greenpeace, green lobby spread ‘lies’ about GMOs to raise money
Editor's Note: This article discusses a recent talk by Sir Richard Roberts, awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his contribution to ...
Democratic politicians’ mostly anti-GMO views lead list of liberal anti-science positions
... The liberal obsession with things that are “natural” or “organic” often also clashes with science...just because a product is ...
GM herbicide-tolerant crops reduce overall herbicide use
Editor’s Note: This blog by geneticist Anastasia Bodnar evaluates whether claims made by the biotechnology industry that GM foods decrease ...
Will gene editing promote ‘industrial farming’? Are there sustainable alternatives?
Editor's Note: This article was written by two members of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, an ...
Monsanto’s billion dollar gene-editing commitment may avoid restrictive GMO regulations
Agricultural behemoth Monsanto spent a whopping $1.5 billion on R&D last year, or about 11% of its revenue—a percentage that’s pretty much ...
New RNAi spray formulation protects plants from viral infection for 20 days
...[A] team at the University of Queensland in Australia has managed to achieve long-lasting gene silencing inside plant cells. They ...
Will economic protectionism prevent Europe from competing in crop gene editing race?
America and China are leading the development of new gene editing technologies via GMO production and bringing CRISPR to the ...
First genetically modified non-browning apples in Midwest stores by February
A small amount of Arctic brand sliced and packaged Golden Delicious, produced by Okanagan Specialty Fruits of Summerland, B.C., will ...
Nestlé moves towards high tech, genetically tailored nutrition
The modern food movement has brought us to a fork in the road. On one path are people who say ...
Elephant grass shown to be higher yielding biofuel than switchgrass
Scientists have confirmed that Miscanthus [elephant grass], long speculated to be the top biofuel producer, yields more than twice as much ...
Sri Lankan tea industry faces devastating crop losses following glyphosate ban
The Planters Association of Ceylon (PA), faced with devastating crop losses in excess of Rs. 15 billion in 2016, is ...
Biotech industry’s nutrition-related GM crops falling short of hopes
Editor’s Note: This blog by geneticist Anastasia Bodnar evaluates whether the biotechnology industry's nutrition-related claims about GM crops are true ...
Monsanto’s public relations stumbles partly responsible for GMOs bad reputation
... Despite the company’s chequered history, the general public was largely unaware Monsanto…[but t]hat all changed in 1996...when Monsanto attempted ...
Will the public be more accepting of next-generation gene-edited crops than GMOs?
A new generation of crops known as gene-edited rather than genetically modified is coming to the market. Created through new ...
Water Wars? High tech farming, genetic engineering could derail what seems inevitable
More than a billion people around the world have no reasonable access to fresh water. ...just 0.5% of the Earth’s ...
GMOs, nanotechnology losing ground in India because scientists not engaging public
Most reputed universities abroad have dos and don’ts for researchers on interacting with journalists when their papers are published. But ...
Hawaii state experts challenge anti-GMO myth: Pesticide threats not from farming but homes
The anti-GMO movement has succesfully established this false narrative: Seed companies in Hawaii are using unprecedented quantities of pesticides in ...
White House releases coordinated summary for all US biotechnology regulation
Editor's Note: The following is a portion of the coordinated summary released by the White House outlining the Coordinated Framework ...
GMO Bt corn contains fewer disease-causing mycotoxins than conventional corn
Editor's Note: This blog by geneticist Anastasia Bodnar evaluate whether claims made by the biotechnology industry that GM foods are free ...
Scotts GMO grass, nearing approval, under fire in Oregon for ‘contamination’ claims
[Scotts Miracle-Gro's unapproved genetically modified] grass has taken root in Oregon...the self-professed grass seed capital of the world with a ...
Insect resistance to Bt crops and weed resistance to herbicides rose in 2016
Insects and weeds pushed many chemical and genetic crop protection tools to their breaking point. A wealth of confirmed and suspected ...
Pro and anti-GMO activists’ goals for food and environment are not that different
I, too, am concerned about ... my children and grandchildren: will they have clean air and water? ... You’re frustrated by the ...
