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.
Stonyfield founder Gary Hirshberg leverages ‘Vandana Shiva Affair’ to promote GMO labeling
Michael Specter’s essay in The New Yorker against labeling genetically engineered food is fraught with factual errors, and it misses ...
Brazilian transgenic eucalyptus trees that produce more wood target of global activists
Viewed from above, Brazil’s orderly eucalyptus plantations offer a stark contrast to the hurly-burly of surrounding native forests. The trees, ...
10 myths and controversies of GMOs by I Fucking Love Science
Genetically modified crops are a topic of intense debate that have sparked a lot of controversy over the years, fueled ...
Reflections on overturning of Kaua’i’s anti-GMO and pesticide restriction law
“So are you happy with the decision?” my sister asked as I fielded phone calls, emails and texts yesterday after ...
Why we should be concerned by anti-GMO conspiracy theories
Contrails are the wispy white clouds of frozen water vapor that streak across the sky in the wake of jet ...
Why I used to support mandatory GMO labeling and now don’t
I am opposed to government mandated GMO labels, though I started of in favor of them. In fact I helped ...
Michael Specter discusses his profile of Vandana Shiva
In last week’s The New Yorker magazine, Michael Specter wrote about the work of the environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who has, for ...
Do GMO seed companies control the world food supply?
Note: This is a summary of the publication Taking stock of the genetically modified seed sector worldwide: market, stakeholders, and prices ...
BBC: Science can improve the nutrition of millions
The word ‘malnourishment’ conjures images of natural disasters, droughts and children with swollen bellies. But malnourishment is not just a ...
Vandana Shiva responds to Michael Specter’s New Yorker profile
I am glad that the future of food is being discussed, and thought about, on farms, in homes, on TV, ...
China GMO-Leukemia link debunked: How anti-GMOers scaremonger, twisting facts, manipulate Internet
The anti-GMO believers have learned that the constant release of tenuous, unconfirmed, even fake, information is critical to their misinformation ...
GMO critics say modified food is not ‘substantially equivalent’
Genetically modified Arctic apples from Okanagan Specialty Fruits in British Columbia, Canada, are awaiting deregulation by the USDA’s Animal and ...
Environmental Working Group exaggerates toxic hazards in latest anti-chem/anti-GMO campaign
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) recently released a blog post titled “Thousands Of Schools Would be Close To Toxic Spray ...
Former director at UCLA School of Medicine Gregory Stark debates anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith
The Vail Symposium held a debate on GMOs and the future of food. The debaters: Gregory Stock is a biophysicist, best-selling author, and the ...
Should GMOs be grown in national wildlife refuges?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service did a huge disservice to science, wildlife and modern agriculture last month, when it ...
GMOs cannot be contained, endanger bees
When you boil them down, fights over what we eat — whether it's the antibiotics in livestock, or taxes on soda ...
Oregon independent citizens review panel says ‘no’ to GMO labeling
A 20-member citizens panel has narrowly voted against recommending passage of the Oregon Mandatory Labeling of GMOs initiative. The Citizens Initiative ...
What’s the future of Hawaii anti-GMO legislation in wake of rejection of Kaua’i ban?
A federal judge has struck down Kauai County’s ordinance requiring more disclosure from biotechnology companies about pesticide use and genetically ...
China GM revolution in low gear as anti-GMO activists spread ‘paranoia’ about infertility, safety
One of China’s major genetically modified food projects is now to all intents and purposes dead and buried. The expiry on ...
Liberal mag Nation on food fight: GMOs can provide sustainable food
In about 40 years, relentless dry spells may be more frequent across the Southwest, say climate scientists, and California may have ...
Why Vandana Shiva is so right and yet so wrong
Romantic environmentalists tend to get the big-picture problems right, while fudging the details. Rationalists nail the details, but sometimes become ...
Marxist Counterpunch calls Specter New Yorker Shiva profile ‘meretricious hatchet job’
Perhaps nothing symbolizes the decline of the New Yorker magazine more than the hatchet job on Vandana Shiva that appears in the latest ...
Monsanto likely to appeal Mexican ruling blocking GMO soy planting
A small group of beekeepers in Mexico has inflicted a blow on biotech giant Monsanto, which has halted the company’s ...
Tom Philpott on genetically engineered ice cream: Synbio-created vanilla bean improves flavor
In an article in Mother Jones, food writer Tom Philpott reports on the use of synthetic biology to make vanilla ...
Meet Brett Begemann, the ‘evil wizard’ behind Monsanto
Before you can finish typing "Monsanto employees" into Google, the search engine suggests "Monsanto evil." The world's largest-grossing seed seller ranks between one ...
On GMOs, Union of Concerned Scientists skips the science
Several weeks ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists posted a hard-hitting rebuttal to a famous environmentalist, someone who is normally an ally ...
Indian government decides to allow GM crop field trials
The NDA government has decided to allow scientific trials of some GM crops, which it had put on hold, but ...
