Daily Food & Agriculture 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.
Strawberries, threatened by disease, look to pesticide-avoiding genetic solution
Delectable strawberries are highly sought after — and not just by humans. Rodents, insects, fungi and bacteria all like to pig ...
How does synthetic biology, including genetic engineering, work?
Nature has always been the world's best engineer. That’s because there’s always been a divide between technology — the inanimate stuff ...
GMO chicken could solve avian flu crisis, saving millions of birds, if only if….
The solution to avian flu, the virus responsible for the devastating eradication of chicken and turkey flocks across much of ...
GMOs are a touchy subject at the dinner table. Is thoughtful debate possible?
The subject of GMOs can whip pleasant dinner conversation into an ugly froth. It’s a complicated issue, produced with complicated science. Worse, many ...
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow lectures Congress on science and safety of GMOs
Gwyneth Paltrow lent a touch of Hollywood glamor Wednesday to a campaign against legislation that would prevent the labelling of ...
Golden rice paper retracted over ethical concerns, not quality of science
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article from the Retraction Watch website: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is retracting a paper that ...
Farmers need better communication with public on GMO issues
Farmers and ranchers are honest men and women who have been known to seal a deal just with a handshake ...
Opinions on GMO labeling cross partisan divide—for now
Unlike issues such as gun control or universal healthcare that fall neatly into "Red" and "Blue" territories, divisions over GMO ...
Nationwide mandatory GMO labeling bill won’t reduce food costs or address global farming challenges
An attempt to pass a new law preempting efforts in several states to mandate GMO labeling is not only doomed ...
Are plants sentient beings with rights? What would this mean for conservation and agriculture?
Plants are intelligent. Plants deserve rights. To most of us these statements may sound, at best, insupportable or, at worst, ...
Boston Globe Editorial: GMO state labeling bills misguided, exaggerates illogical fears of food and Big Ag
Congress created mandatory nationwide food labels, and it is Congress that has a responsibility to ensure they don't stray from ...
Anti-GMO critics claim Big Ag out lobbies “good food” organic supporters
The leaders of the so-called good food sector — including Chipotle, Whole Foods and Applegate — are winning big in ...
Do activists claiming pesticide Beemageddon really care about bee survival or is it tactical ploy?
We know that activist groups really care about bees. In 2013, about 200 activists held a funeral for 50,000 bumblebees that ...
Can genetic engineering resurrect extinct plant species?
The subject of extinction and de-extinction are much in the news at the moment, but discussions tend to focus on ...
Asia poised to overtake anti-GMO Europe in farming innovation
If current economic growth trends persist, the “Great Divergence” between Western Europe and East and South Asia in per capita ...
Obama declines to answer whether US supports GMOs in Ethiopia
During his official visit to Ethiopia, President Barack Obama toured Faffa Foods highlighting why one of his signature policy initiatives ...
Would mandatory GMO labeling help consumers understand what they’re eating?
The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that prevents states from requiring GMO labels, despite the fact that nine ...
Glyphosate carcinogenic? WHO clarifies conflicting declarations
A statement by the World Health Organization's cancer research branch, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), classifying the ...
GM moths may be eco-safe way to curb pest
Scientists from the Oxford University spin-off company Oxitec say they have developed a way of genetically modifying and controlling an ...
Has farm-to-table movement become a marketing sham?
Today, chefs can’t shut up about where every morsel that went into every dish got its start in life. No ...
Neil Young’s anti-GMO campaign is sham
Neil Young is a perennially pissed-off legend of rock, a toe-tapping lyricist who has used his songs to protest a ...
India’s moratorium on GM eggplant not based on food safety
Years after the government imposed an indefinite moratorium on the commercial release of Bt Brinjal, genetically-modified for resistance to the ...
Study concludes consumers would not view GMO label as warning
There is an economic and political battle taking place in America over the labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods. As ...
Organic agriculture ‘unscientific, heavily subsidized marketing gimmick’
Consumers of organic foods are getting both more and less than they bargained for. On both counts, it’s not good ...
Have humans manipulated ‘natural’ foods before modern GMOs? Look at a Renaissance painting
Over time, we've bred watermelons to have the bright red color we recognize today. That fleshy interior is actually the ...
Farmers now planting generic GMO soybeans as Monsanto patent expires
Billy Maddox planted 100 acres of Roundup Ready soybeans this year. The big news is he didn’t pay Monsanto a ...
WHO’s IARC’s new target: Red meat, which may be classified, along with glyphosate, as carcinogen
In March, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) made headlines when it declared that glyphosate, ...
