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.
Honeybee deaths increase over past year
More than two out of five American honeybee colonies died in the past year, and surprisingly the worst die-off was ...
Politics of Indian farmer suicides
If the National Crime Records Bureau of India (NCRB) data is to be taken seriously, on an average over 15,000 ...
Removing antibiotics from food makes a difference, removing GMOs doesn’t
A lot of food companies are jumping on the transparency bandwagon. Panera, Chipotle, and Pepsi are labeling foods and removing ...
India changes tune and permits GM crop trials but states still block research
Five years ago, India was a hostile place for researchers testing genetically modified (GM) crops. Its government barred the commercial ...
Decades of research lead to new soybean diversity, rust-resistant soybean
It took decades of painstaking work, but research geneticist Ram Singh managed to cross a popular soybean variety ("Dwight" Glycine ...
Hungary poised to become first EU nation to block GMOs under new regulation
“Hungary could be the first to introduce the new European Union regulations allowing countries to ban the cultivation of GMO ...
Parsing ‘anti-science’ argument of GMO proponents
Currently, labeling foods containing GMOs is purely voluntary. The Non-GMO Project coordinates an effort to label foods that do not ...
In defense of Chipotle: GMOs may be safe to eat but they aren’t safe to grow
Critics of Chipotle’s new GMO-free menu claim the restaurant chain is pandering to paranoia and that GM foods are perfectly ...
Wheat genes could help revive American chestnut
Blight has made the American chestnut, once "the dominant tree in the canopy," a rare sight in the forests of the East ...
Why does public have selective hearing on scientific opinions?
How come we sometimes listen to scientific arguments, but sometimes disregard them entirely? Pew Research Center has done a survey ...
Video: Bill Nye explains conversion to GMO supporter
Bill Nye made waves last March when he changed his views on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) following a visit with ...
Science Babe is back! New target: Natural Food Movement
A few weeks ago, the website The Naked Label published a picture of a vibrant, colorful mushroom. It was captioned ...
Kauai residents win lawsuit against DuPont for property damage from farm test fields
A federal court jury has awarded more than $500,000 to 15 Kauai residents who say they can’t enjoy their homes ...
Big Ag funds ‘grassroots’ groups to campaign for GMOs
How did a California initiative requiring the labeling of genetically engineered food (Prop 37) get defeated in 2012 despite the ...
6 reasons why I changed my mind about Monsanto
Seed manufacturer Monsanto Company has been the target of a lot of criticism over the past few years, including a ...
Celebrity mom’s Mother’s Day video demonizes GMO foods as dangerous
Malin Akerman, Frances Fisher, Constance Zimmer, Sharon Osbourne. These Hollywood A-listers have one big thing in common: They’re mothers who ...
If not anti-science, what’s in the heads and hearts of GMO opponents?
For years, supporters and opponents of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) have debated questions ranging from the safety of engineered crops, to ...
Why GMO-giant Monsanto made offer for Syngenta’s chemical-focused company
Over the last two decades Monsanto has cast off its century-long history as a chemical company and refashioned itself as ...
In wake of IARC carcinogenic warning, Colombian president urges end to spraying herbicide on coca plants
Authorities in Colombia have been told they must stop using Glyphosate the controversial herbicide, that is more commonly known by ...
GPS, drones, robots: Precision agriculture transforming food and farming
Thanks to what is known as “precision agriculture,” farmers can now collect precise data about their fields and use that ...
Dow Chemical’s Enlist Duo weed killer—designed for use with GMO seeds—tied up in lawsuit
A court fight over use of a new Dow Chemical herbicide on genetically engineered U.S. corn and soybean crops is ...
Amid review of glypohsate, EPA official said he favors biopesticides
The Environmental Protection Agency has wrapped up its review of the world's most widely used herbicide and plans to release ...
Under pressure to manage both weeds and pollinators, Midwest farmers face perfect storm
Since the onset of spring, one kind of game-changing news after another has reached Iowa farmers. These announcements will affect ...
Ugandan ruling party greenlights vitamin A enhanced GMO “super bananas”
Uganda's ruling party has approved a bill that will give the green light to super bananas and other genetically modified ...
Panera latest consumer-senstive food company to ditch controversial ingredients
I think 2015 will go down as the year that food manufacturers and restaurants started ditching ingredients based on consumer ...
Agroecology can ‘save the world’ from GMO-led industrial agriculture
Imagine the scenario: world food production has become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite who, backed by powerful ...
African rejection of hybrid and GMO seeds in favor of heirloom varieties promotes food crisis
Africa’s seed industry is complex and can be inefficient, with most farmers using the same seeds they have been planting for generations, unlike farmers ...
