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.
Monsanto says Bayer merger will help company tackle climate change challenges
"We're going to have 3 billion more people join the Middle Class, which along with the growing population is a ...
How will agriculture industry mergers, China’s GMO policies affect small farms?
How will the mega-mergers of Dow Chemicals and Dupont, Bayer and Monsanto and Syngenta and China National Chemical Corp. — ...
European Food Safety Authority will release glyphosate assessment data
EFSA is to release the raw data used in the recent EU safety evaluation of glyphosate, saying the move is ...
Four expert panels say data don’t support IARC’s classification of glyphosate as carcinogenic
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published a monograph in 2015 concluding that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to ...
Large supplement maker adopting DNA testing to verify ingredients
NBTY, one of the nation’s largest makers of popular supplements like ginkgo biloba and ginseng, has agreed to conduct advanced ...
Why rice, but not corn, requires genetic modification to produce beta-carotene
Much like the ancient form of rice, the ancient form of corn (teosinte) is not eaten. Much like rice, maize ...
Conspiracy theories and food safety crises feed GMO opposition in China
...In 1992, China became the first country to introduce a GMO crop into commercial production... virus-resistant tobacco... Since then, the government has ...
Toyota develops DNA analysis technology to increase biofuel yields
Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announces that it has developed a new deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis technology called Genotyping by Random ...
Dietary supplements may be subject to federal GMO labeling law
Dietary supplements, too, are subject to GMO ingredients. For example, in many nutritional supplement products, soy lecithin is a common ...
Endangered species listing for bumble bee could intensify neonicotinoid debate
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on [Sept. 21] proposed listing the rusty patched bumble bee... for federal protection as an ...
Nobel laureate: EU politicians bow to uninformed public in opposing biotech crops
Sir Richard Roberts is an English biochemist and molecular biologist. A Nobel Laureate, he is the signatory of the 100+ Nobel Laureates letter supporting ...
Monsanto’s licensing of CRISPR will allow faster, more accurate, cheaper crop modification
...[U]ntil last week Monsanto was operating with a very noticeable omission in its research and development arsenal. It's a wonder it took ...
GMO proponents may have overstated benefits of herbicide-resistant soy on environment
[M]any people... have talked about how glyphosate tolerant crops allowed replacement of more toxic herbicides. ...[B]ut that trend seems to ...
Should regulators consider CRISPR crops GMOs?
...What could be born of a union between...Monsanto..., and... Gene-Editing Tool, CRISPR/Cas9? Well, what it won’t be is a genetically modified organism, or ...
CRISPR editing of multiple plant genes results in almost no off target effects
A team that includes a Virginia Tech plant scientist recently used life sciences technology to edit 14 target sites encompassing ...
Class action suit against Syngenta over China’s 2014 rejection of GMO corn will proceed
A U.S. district court judge in Kansas... said lawsuits brought by U.S. farmers against seed company Syngenta AG over sales ...
IARC accused of selectively excluding ‘best’ scientists from glyphosate review
To scientists... what was really alarming was [the IARC] finding that the pesticide glyphosate, the main ingredient in the common product ...
Former anti-GMO campaigner Mark Lynas: Green movement should support crop biotech
Former anti-GMO campaigner Mark Lynas discusses what changed his mind about GMOs. He addresses why the green movement is so threatened ...
Will new GMO labeling law apply to CRISPR crops?
...Earlier this year, the USDA gave the greenlight to CRISPR mushrooms engineered to not brown. It wrote that because the new mushroom ...
Iranian GMO opponents gain support from top clerics to ban GMO as ‘Zionist plot’
Iran is seeing its most vociferous outcry yet over the use of genetically-modified ingredients in food production. Opponents of food ...
No evidence that GMO mustard would harm India’s honeybees
Contrary to the unsubstantiated... rumors on the ill-effects of barnase-barstar GM mustard technology on honey bees, the South Asia Biotechnology ...
GMO opposition, regulations encouraged crop biotechnology industry consolidation
The mergers and acquisitions in the agricultural input sector are a response to a changing environment. The new developments in ...
‘Industrial farming’ and crop biotechnology benefit the environment
...[Since the mid-20th century], farm sizes have risen significantly... [T]his large size that is often criticized... in the belief that ...
Organic and conventional farmers lambaste non-GMO milk label
There’s a new food category that is gaining popularity with shoppers, but that’s also becoming an enemy of farmers — ...
RNA could replace toxic chemical spraying to protect fruits and vegetables from mold
Botrytis cinerea [or gray mold is] , a fungal pathogen that can infect... almost every fruit and vegetable... A team of researchers, ...
NY farm organic activists ask Cornell to shut down Alliance For Science because of ‘pro GMO bias’
A letter arrived on Cornell University Dean Kathryn Boor's desk lastweek... Sixty-seven people from New York's farming community requested that the ...
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein says ‘GMOs not good for the planet or people’
Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, spoke to a crowd of supporters at Wilkes University on Wednesday, Sept. 22 ...
