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.
From ‘lifeless dust’ to livestock farm: Farmer credits regenerative agriculture for soil transformation
In 2010, when Barry Meijer bought Meijer’s Rust near De Rust in the Klein Karoo, the soil was bare and ...
Video: Organic, non-gmo, gluten-free, keto? How food labels mislead us about health benefits
Dr. Mike Isratel of Renaissance Periodization explains how food labels can mislead consumers on the health benefits of eating their ...
‘Insufficient evidence that glyphosate causes cancer’: Australian court tosses 800-person class action lawsuit
There is insufficient evidence to prove the controversial weedkiller Roundup causes cancer, the Australian Federal Court has ruled ...
Viewpoint: Eating organic to help the environment? Think again
Organic food has become increasingly popular over the last several decades, and sales of organic food hit an all-time high in 2023 ...
State-of-the-art pig farm aims to pump out 125 pig organs for human transplant a year
The first gene-edited pig organs ever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge ...
Why organic food costs so much: Hand weeding
Organic food sales nearly doubled between 2013 and 2022, to more than $61 billion. The top seller, according to the Organic ...
Viewpoint: ‘Is your favorite clothing brand plundering ancient and endangered forests?’
You might think that wearing a top made from wood pulp would give instant eco-credentials – it is renewable, biodegradable, ...
Are cell-cultivated animal meat substitutes healthy for pets?
CULT Food Science Corp. announced that its subsidiary Further Foods Inc. plans to submit its feeding trial design protocol to ...
Viewpoint: ‘Clean eating’ trend — Does it make sense to rebuke all ‘processed foods’?
A new study demonstrates that eating primarily minimally processed foods, as they are defined by the NOVA classification system, does not automatically ...
‘Carcinogen of the day’: Steven Pinker on the irrational opposition to genetically engineered crops
In the book “Blank Slate: The Contemporary Denial of Human Nature” Steven Pinker writes that the widespread fear of all ...
Assisting evolution: Gene drives increase crop climate resilience while preserving diversity
Chinese scientists have reportedly engineered a way to use gene-editing technology to bypass natural plant behavior and force crops to inherit genes ...
Viewpoint: Why is the World Economic Forum waging war against modern agriculture and hurting developing countries?
The World Economic Forum says the world faces a new crisis, “One-third of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from food ...
Mistrust in experts? How the ‘unpasteurized milk movement’ ballooned among conservatives
During the 2000s, after decades of highly processed food and skyrocketing obesity rates, consumers began to favour natural, organic food, said ...
Key to creating tastier cultured meats and animal-free dairy? Fungi
With animal-free dairy products and convincing vegetarian meat substitutes already on the market, it’s easy to see how biotechnology can ...
Infographic: 800 million people worldwide are hungry and a third of the population food insecure. These 3 tech innovations could help
It’s 2050. The global population has increased to nearly 10 billion, and while we’re still working to ensure every person ...
A robot you can… eat? Robotic food could ‘reduce electronic waste, deliver drugs, monitor health’
Robotic food could reduce electronic waste, help deliver nutrition and medicines to people and animals in need, monitor health, and even ...
Butter substitute made from CO2? Carbon-capture technology could help us replace unsustainable palm oil
A new type of dietary fat that doesn’t require animals or large areas of land to produce could soon be ...
What’s better for the environment: Organic foods from far away or local conventional foods?
Consumers buy food, whether organic or not, without paying attention to its origin and therefore without knowing the cost to ...
Tomatoes are thirsty crops. Here’s how CRISPR gene-editing could help them thrive with less water
Researchers have figured out how to grow tomatoes that consume less water without compromising the yield, quality, or taste, Phys.org reported ...
Viewpoint: Organic foods more expensive, less sustainable, and no healthier than conventional. So why do some consumers choose them?
Every time you walk into your favorite grocery store, there is a competition happening. Its contestants include all sorts of food and ...
Hoe-wielding robots? Solar-powered ‘robo-weeders’ use AI to combat pesticide-resistant weeds
In a sugar beet field a few miles east of Moorhead Minnesota, small four-wheeled robots are rolling up and down ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR roadblocks? The ethical issues that could slow the global embrace of gene editing in farming
Researchers are exploring how advancements in gene technology can improve everything from food security to public health ...
This desert moss can survive freezing temperatures and intense radiation. Might it be the first plant to grow on Mars?
A future civilization on Mars could be accompanied by one very special and resilient little plant ...
Viewpoint: ‘Regenerative agriculture could be seen as a dangerous distraction from farmers’ core mission: Feeding the world’
Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the need for change in how the world’s food is produced. The ...
Politics of lab grown meat: Democrats open to innovation, Republicans mostly oppose it
Florida officially banned cultivated meat, making it a felony to sell, manufacture, produce or distribute these proteins in the state ...
Republican legislators push bill that would prohibit low-income families from accessing cultivated meat
In the House Representatives, a group of politicians have co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit the US government from investing ...
Protecting crops from unpredictable weather, restoring soil health, and removing carbon from the atmosphere: Three ways seaweed is transforming agriculture
Ascophyllum nodosum is also known as rockweed in many areas of the world. It’s been used for centuries by local ...
