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.
Cattle breeders develop genetically superior embryos for countries with less productive cows
Cows, like humans, take about nine months to carry a calf to term. But in the 1970s, American cattlemen began ...
Researchers look for genetic clues to combat herbicide resistant weeds
On Colorado’s eastern plains, increasingly resilient strains of kochia have created a headache for both researchers and farmers. At Colorado ...
Will organic farmers embrace precision gene editing if ancient wild traits are restored?
What’s in a name? A lot, if the name is genetically modified organism, which many people are dead set against ...
Critics decry synbio vanillin for its perceived impact on poor farmers
On its journey from the fields in Madagascar to your ice cream, sponge cake and chocolate, the vanilla plant is ...
Why aren’t there any studies proving GMO safety?
When discussing transgenic crops, I regularly get asked to provide a paper that “proves” that GMOs are safe. Whether you ...
Non-GMO labels promote superstition; Scan code labels would provide context
A couple of weeks ago I was deeply disappointed to read that the USDA might get involved in an aspect ...
Seed savers bank on genetic diversity for resilience in face of climate change
Hundreds of seed exchanges—in which hobbyists and professional green thumbs share the most resilient plants from their crops—have sprung up ...
Non-GMO Similac baby formula to appear in stores soon
The maker of Similac Advance, the top commercial baby formula brand in the United States, says it will begin selling ...
Hungary may be first in Europe to ban GMOs in agriculture
The growing anti-GMO movement has gained traction in Europe as Hungary aims to be the first European Union nation to ...
Indian prime minister breaks silence, calls for introduction of GM crops
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday pushed for technology-driven agriculture, including genetically engineered crops such as pulses, to boost farmer ...
Why a mother changed her mind on GMOs after Monsanto tour
On April 25, I was fortunate enough to tour Monsanto’s research center in St. Louis, Missouri, with a group of ...
GMOs and other agri-tech can help meet increasing global food demand
There’s a dichotomy running through Western society today when it comes to eating food, and producing it. On the one ...
War on Big Food: ‘Natural’ and organic vs. pesticides and GMOs?
Try this simple test. Say the following out loud: Artificial colors and flavors. Pesticides. Preservatives. High-fructose corn syrup. Growth hormones. Antibiotics ...
Pest developing resistance to phased out variety of GMO Bt corn, cotton
A new study from North Carolina State University and Clemson University finds the toxin in a widely used genetically modified ...
Using genetic solutions to make stronger bee
In 2007 reports of “colony collapse disorder”—swift, terrible deaths of entire colonies—suddenly mushroomed across Europe and the Americas. News reports ...
What’s so unnatural about GM foods?
Chipotle hit the headlines last week when the company announced it would no longer serve customers genetically modified foods. Yet ...
Interview: Mary-Dell Chilton on her pioneering work on GMO crops
Mary-Dell Chilton pioneered the field of genetic engineering in agriculture. She has spent most of her decades-long career working for Syngenta, ...
Arctic apple founder proves GM crop can be developed on small budget
The Arctic apple is the creation of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, a eight-person company in Canada that scrimped and saved over ...
Chipotle’s GMO-free decision could be beginning of end of GMO era
The decision of the Chipotle restaurant chain to make its product lines GMO-free is not most people's idea of a ...
Overwrought debate over GMOS diverts Africa from addressing food crisis
Say the words “green revolution,” and people take sides. ... As polarizing ideas go, though, the green revolution’s got nothing on ...
March Against Monsanto activists: ‘Do not use my disability to promote your agenda’
Ignorant people say the recent rise in autism diagnosis is not because of revised diagnostic criteria, or the result of ...
Protesters March Against Monsanto in over 400 cities around the world
Thousands of people across the world have joined together in a global movement, protesting against American biotech giant Monsanto. Activists ...
Socialist magazine rejects elites disdain for ‘industrial agriculture’
The Luddites’ fable of disaster, of a fall from grace, smacks more of wishful thinking than of digging through archives ...
DuPont closes Kauai operations under pressure from anti-GMO activists
DuPont Pioneer, the seed company that sells corn, sorghum, alfalfa, etc. and was considering expanding Kaua'i operations just a few ...
Lack of genetic diversity in coffee could lead to end of morning cup
Two billion cups of coffee are drunk around the world every day and 25 million families rely on growing coffee ...
GMOs distract from legitimate concerns about food
Walking the floor of the National Restaurant Association Show that just ended in Chicago, the claim I saw most often ...
What scientific consensus on GMOs actually means
Over and over, I’ve read comments on the internet (obviously, my first mistake) that there is no scientific consensus about ...
