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.
Corn? Yes. Importance of corn in feeding planet
There’s a strong case that field corn, used as a grain, is the single most important food crop on the ...
Microbes and insects could boost plant health, improve farm yields
A plant may be rooted in place, but it is never lonely. There are bacteria in, on and near it, ...
Food industry adapting to non-GMO product trend
At the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists tradeshow, a supplier of non-GMO ingredients told me that the “non-GMO tsunami is ...
GM labeling proponents target glyphosate use in farming
Proponents of mandatory labeling of food products targeted U.S. agriculture's increasing use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide ...
Anti-GMO activists claim Canada allowing import of potentially dangerous GM foods
After three years of discussions, Canada is close to finalizing its new policy on genetically modified (GM) foods that would ...
Genetic analysis of sorghum predicts best varieties for drought, stress
Differences in a crop plant's genes can help predict how a particular variety will respond to a drier or hotter ...
Safety has little to do with restrictive GMO regulations in developing countries
In the debate surrounding GMOs, a statement that is often made is that many countries have banned transgenic crops, which ...
GMO cereal plant that produces omega-3 fish oil, which could promote healthier diet, successful in landmark trials
A genetically-modified cereal crop that produces fish oil in its seeds has been grown successfully for the first time in ...
Challenging myths that hold Europe back from using GMOs
It is now four decades since the first experiments with recombinant DNA that led to a brief voluntary moratorium. It ...
Invoking ‘Monsantan’ and conspiracy theories pollutes GMO debate
The majority of modern Americans—and modern Christians—do not believe that Satan walks among us, preferring instead to identify the great ...
Organic label does not guarantee food is GMO or pesticide free
New York Times nutrition and health columnist Jane Brody recently penned a generally good piece about genetic engineering, “Fears, Not Facts, ...
Farmers caught in political debate whether herbicide glyphosate, used with GMOs, causes cancer
When Ron Krahn heard that a branch of the World Health Organization announced that glyphosate — the popular herbicide he ...
Despite anti-GMO claims, herbicide use is not rising
USDA-NASS recently published the most recent corn herbicide use data (from 2014). I’ve been looking through the data, because, well, free ...
How do polyculture cover crops in agriculture compare to monocultures?
Planting cover crop mixtures is very popular right now. The practice has a feel-good aspect about it and, buoyed by ...
Sensationalist news on bees, neonicotinoids, ‘junk science’ leads to bad policy
Next to Congress, the least-trusted institutions in the United States include newspapers, television and Internet news, according to Gallup. But ...
Gene editing to avoid GMO regulations could be solution for food security
According to the World Food Program, some 795 million people – one in nine people on earth – don’t have ...
Seralini study another scientific outlier meant only as anti-GMO fodder
Seralini, author of the infamous study alleging to show increased rates of tumors in rats fed GM food, the one ...
White House taking steps to reassure wary public about GMO safety
The White House has a message for America: There's nothing dangerous about genetically modified food that makes it to your ...
GMO animals face expensive regulatory hurdles before approval as food
No one eats genetically modified animals. That is to say, human beings have modified almost every domesticated foodstuff, plant, and ...
Agriculture economist Jayson Lusk on why public is wary of GMOs
Just as more Americans grow wary of GMOs, the scientific community is moving in the opposite direction. There is now ...
Monsanto’s Robb Fraley invites Neil Young to tour company
I believe that Neil Young has a heart of gold. The singer/songwriter has been one of my favorite artists ever ...
Video: UN goals for reducing hunger best achieved by investing in agricultural research
Bjørn Lomborg, director of non-profit think tank Copenhagen Consensus, says that investing in agricultural research and development is one of the best ...
Monsanto rep engages Skeptic Society
Around the world there are “Skeptics in the Pub” events that gather folks from the local community who are interested ...
GMO or not? Is new genetically edited herbicide tolerant canola oil a GMO?
Cibus is a San Diego-based biotech company developing new ways to genetically engineer crops, without producing so-called GMOs. They're hoping ...
‘The End of Plenty’ author Joel Bourne, Jr: No GMO ‘damages’ but ‘no great benefits’
By 2040, the world’s population is predicted to rise to nine billion. More than 800 million people are malnourished. Another ...
Why farmers are offended by buzzwords like ‘sustainable agriculture’
The Risk-Monger spent the day on a large Belgian farm having the opportunity to see the challenges and opportunities farmers ...
Genetics suggest wheat gluten allergies mostly imaginary
Some of the anti-glutenists argue that we haven’t eaten wheat for long enough to adapt to it as a species ...
