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.
GMO controversy ‘more cultural than scientific’
Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, remain controversial, but like so many other politically hot topics, the controversy is more cultural ...
Politics alert: Is Obama Administration holding up approval process for AquaBounty GM salmon?
The mood at AquaBounty Technologies a year ago was buoyant. Regulators had released a draft assessment of the company’s genetically ...
Public fears stall approval of GM crops for commercial planting in China
Despite recent research advances, such as a new strain of wheat that resists destructive mildew, commercial planting of genetically modified food ...
Kansas tea partier finds common cause with liberals on GMO labeling
Todd Tiahrt is a proud former member of the House tea party caucus. He claims to have a “100 percent pro-life ...
Reflecting internal rift, Indian government puts field trials for 15 GM crops on hold
The battle over testing of genetically modified crops in India took a new turn this week with the Bharatiya Janata ...
‘Level playing field’ needed for biotech in agriculture
The use of biotechnology is big within the health industry, the area of industrial envrionment and agriculture, but while it ...
Bt cotton helped Indian farmers, but success not uniform
Cotton is a light and breathable fabric but it sure does get itself into some very contentious debates. It has been a central ...
India should not rush to decide on GM crops without rational public debate
The public debates on GM began with the unannounced entry of Bt cotton in Gujarat, where the farmers had grown 21,000 acres ...
Safeway shareholders reject GMO labeling, garners only 10 percent support
Shareholders at Safeway have rejected a proposal from the Green Century Equity Fund calling for mandatory GMO labeling on its ...
Vermont raised over $160,000 in private donations to defend GMO labeling law
Vermont has raised more than $160,000 in private donations to help defend what would be the nation's first GMO labeling ...
‘Big Oil’ can’t ‘buy’ science organizations on climate change, neither can Monsanto on GMOs
Would you eat a plant that makes its own toxic pesticides, contains DNA from viruses and bacteria, sports genes that ...
China insists on GMO-free corn exports from U.S.
U.S. corn supplies will be even bigger next year if China keeps import curbs on a genetically modified variety of ...
Africa losing opportunities to reduce poverty because of ‘dysfunctional’ GM debate
Opportunities to enhance crop yields and reduce poverty in Africa are being lost because of a “polarised public debate” on ...
‘All hell will break loose’ for Molokai if proposed GMO ban on Maui passes
If you’re looking for an entertaining way to spend your day, a trip to hear testimony given to the Maui ...
Food industry spent $9 million lobbying against GMO labeling laws in first quarter
The food industry spent $9 million lobbying Congress to oppose laws requiring labeling for genetically modified products in the first ...
Indian government delays approved GM crop field trials following pressure
The Centre has put on hold field trials of genetically-modified (GM) crops following pressure from the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) ...
GM corn no longer resistant to tropical pests in Brazil
Genetically modified corn seeds are no longer protecting Brazilian farmers from voracious tropical bugs, increasing costs as producers turn to ...
Label this: Anti-GMO activists’ stance posing ‘actual threat’ to public health
This spring, Vermont passed a law requiring any food that includes genetically engineered ingredients - otherwise known as "GMOs" for ...
What’s it’s like to be on NaturalNews’ Mike Adams’ ‘kill list’
Name a wacky conspiracy theory (chemtrails, anti-vax, 9/11 trutherism) or a quack cure (juicing, homeopathy, metabolic therapy), and Mike Adams ...
Latest Chinese restriction on GM corn ‘de facto embargo’ for U.S. grain exports
The biggest U.S. grain export association called on China on Thursday to rescind its latest restriction of a GMO corn strain, saying ...
Chinese researchers edit genes to make fungal-resistant wheat
Advanced genome-editing techniques have been used to create a strain of wheat resistant to a destructive fungal pathogen—called powdery mildew—that ...
Term ‘genetic modification’ loaded with baggage, undermining rational debate
With food security firmly on the international agenda, there's a growing appetite to look again at the opportunities promised by ...
Anti-GMO activist Vandana Shiva has long history of rejecting science
Vandana Shiva is a chain reaction that cannot be stopped. It can only be witnessed from a safe distance. The ...
Shouldn’t anti-GMO activists be known as ‘Whole Food shills’?
Until recently, I was only vaguely aware that empty accusations of shilling were used as arguments in sensible lines of ...
GM critic says biotech proponents perpetuate African dependency and poverty
The recent article, GM scaremongering in Africa is disarming the fight against poverty, published in the Guardian’s PovertyMatters Blog on ...
Anti-GMO groups seek to remove Europe’s chief scientific adviser
If you can't change the science, change the scientists. This is what nine groups opposed to genetically modified organisms want ...
Fast-growing AquaBounty GM salmon ‘precedent-setting’, offers sustainability advantages
A genetically modified salmon, called AquAdvantage, is awaiting FDA approval, and, when it does, the fish should be available for ...
