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.
South Africans gradually embrace GMO foods as crop biotechnology boosts economy
The Department of Science and Technology Director General, Dr Phil Mjwara, says biotechnology or genetically modified (GM) crops have had ...
Three scientist-mothers explain why they avoid non-GMO products
[The Non-GMO Project] NGP leads consumers to believe that choosing non-GMO is consistent with values that consumers (including ourselves) seek ...
British consumer skepticism of GMO foods and crops appears to be softening
Public opinion has swung behind genetically modified crops for the first time after decades of opposition, according to a survey ...
German Plant Breeders Association says EU should not regulate gene-edited plants as GMOs
[Editor’s Note: The author, Petra Jorasch, is vice-secretary general of the German Plant Breeders’ Association.] A key issue, not only ...
GMO sugar beets offer 30% yield boost, but mandatory labels could devastate farmers
[F]armers began using genetically modified beet seeds eight years ago. Sugar extracted from ... beets shows no trace of genetic modification. It’s the ...
Pakistani scientist claims biotechnology key to feed undernourished nation
To overcome food insecurity in the country, it is direly needed to draw plans to start using biotechnology in the ...
Model predicts banning GMOs would spike greenhouse gas emissions and food prices
A global ban on genetically modified crops would raise food prices and add the equivalent of nearly a billion tons ...
Indian Supreme Court seeks public input on safety, benefit of GM mustard
A locally developed variety of genetically modified (GM) mustard seed is not swadeshi enough for the Swadeshi Jagran Manch... saying ...
Regulators to discuss whether gene edited crops should be allowed under organic label
[Editors note: Melody Meyer is the Vice President of Policy and Industry Relations for United Natural Foods(UNFI), a is a distributor of ...
SciBabe tackles ten GMO myths
According to the internet, GMOs are responsible for a lot of problems. You’ve heard that they cause almost everything, including ...
US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack: Future of food, farming lies in science
What if I told you a scientist had recently discovered a way to remove up to 98% of the allergens ...
Do GMOs boost yields? ‘Superwheat’ set for field trials boosts harvests by 20%
Genetically modified crops could help us grow more food on less land in a world struggling to cope with climate ...
Developing countries, universities beginning to develop genetically engineered crops
A very common criticism against genetically modified (GM) crops, whenever they are mentioned, is to automatically associate them with a ...
Farmers’ view: NYT’s GMO analysis ignores environmental benefits of GMO crops
[Editor’s note: A recent article in the New York Times claims that GMO crops have not lived up to their promises ...
New GMO could protect wheat and barley against deadly blight
Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium graminearum, is a devastating disease of wheat and barley that leads to reduced ...
EPA: Dow’s Enlist Duo combining glyphosate and 2,4-D herbicides poses no serious safety concerns
Enlist Duo containing the choline salt of 2,4-D and glyphosate was first registered in 2014 for use in Genetically Engineered ...
Former AAAS president Nina Fedoroff on Danny Hakim’s “disingenuous” NYT GMO ‘hit piece’
[Editor’s note: A recent article by Danny Hakim in the New York Times claims that GMO crops have not lived up to their ...
German cabinet backs law banning cultivation of GMOs
The German cabinet has approved a draft law banning cultivation of crops with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), government sources told ...
CDC investigating increasing foodborne illnesses and deaths linked to organic food
A newly published study of outbreaks linked to organic food concludes that while more data are needed to assess whether the ...
As food companies demand sustainability from suppliers, where will GMOs fit in?
...Increasingly, major food companies are raising the bar over what they consider to be “sustainable” agricultural practices around the globe ...
Nobel laureate Sir Richard Roberts: ‘Green activist opposition to GMOs hurts food-insecure developing countries
If the thought of genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs, brings to mind vague notions fraught with danger, Nobel laureate and Distinguished ...
Does the Chinese public really oppose GMOs as strongly as media suggest?
The story line that pops up again and again from Googling "China" and "GMO" is that China's citizens loathe genetic ...
Waitrose, major UK grocery chain, reducing use of GMO fed animals in its supply chain
Waitrose has received its first shipment of soya grown in the Danube region of Europe as it attempts to bring ...
Mother Jones: New York Times report on GMOs used misleading statistics
[Editor's note: A recent article in the New York Times claims that GMO crops have not lived up to their ...
Agricultural economist: GMO crops have benefits, otherwise farmers wouldn’t grow them
[Editor's note: Jayson Lusk, a food and agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, responds to Danny Hakim's recent article in ...
Zimbabwean scientists develop drought and heat-tolerant maize
Scientists in Zimbabwe say they have developed new heat- and drought-tolerant varieties of maize that may be ready for sale ...
Insect-resistant GMO Bt eggplant in development in Philippines does not harm beneficial insects
The first-ever field level study of the effects of insect-resistant genetically modified Bt eggplants on non-target arthropod species, carried out in the ...
