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.
Oregon wheat contamination still a mystery
On Monday, investigators working with the US Department of Agriculture's plant inspection agency APHIS released the first progress update in ...
Argentine scientists develop virus resistant GM potato
Argentine scientists have developed potato plants resistant to Potato Virus Y (PVY), a disease that reduces crop yields from 20 ...
Lab-grown burgers cannot provide a secure future for Africa
Sergey Brin, the billionaire American businessman who co-founded Google, pays a Dutch scientist to develop a burger from stem cells ...
Kloor: Critic of pseudoscience = defender of industry?
If you follow the public debate on genetically modified foods, you know it’s become unhinged from reality. This is because ...
Hawaii: Big Island council withdraws GE bill after discussion
No decision on the GMO prohibition bill at the Hawaii County Council’s Committee on Public Safety and Mass Transit. Bill ...
Overcoming the “ick” factor key to understanding GMOs
One of the greatest obstacles to technological progress, especially but not only in areas such as food and medicine, has ...
UK debate: Is opposition to GM food really just superstition?
Green party leader Natalie Bennett and Johnjoe McFadden, a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey, debate the ...
Canada: 14-year-old debates GE with TV personality
Rachel Parent is 14 and believes GE food should be labeled. The young activist has been making public speeches about ...
Ghana: GE promoters winning as major opponent switches to pro-GE camp
It could be described as a battle to control food security. It could even be seen as a game in ...
Natural products producers: Let the consumer market decide on GE labeling
It’s the most contentious issue for industry since the passage of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 or the ...
Kauai Council delays decision on modified crops
The Kauai County Council will wait for legal opinions before deciding whether to approve a measure that would require agricultural ...
Philippines: Golden rice rice approval ‘edging closer’
Scientists in the Philippines are weeks from submitting a genetically modified variety of rice to the authorities for biosafety evaluations ...
Bruce Chassy: None of the animals and plants we eat today exist ‘in nature,’ they are all GMOs
What precedent might it set if firms are forced to label foods made using new technologies, even if the end ...
Hawaii’s paradise is being threatened by fear-mongering, threats, and witch-hunting
Is Hawaii, Paradise being Poisoned? AbsoFreakinlutely by fear, threats, fear mongering a witch hunt conducted by those who don’t trust ...
Keith Kloor: The GE labeling debate
There are two camps that favor labeling genetically modified [GM] foods: 1) The “Right to Know” people, who say they ...
Polyploidy: Multiple genomes at core of mystery of plant evolution
A new understanding of the evolutionary history of plants has been revealed by University of Aberdeen scientists. The findings – ...
Papaya farmers struggle amidst Hawaii GMO debate
Hawaii native Alberto Belmes is worried his Papayas will likely rot on the trees of is 100-acre papaya farm, as ...
European fear of GMOs may disrupt trade deal talks
The U.S. and EU want to strike a trade deal. The two economies make up 45% of the world's GDP ...
Fight over labeling delays Uganda GMO bill
Northern Uganda farmers are seeking to petition Parliament over the bill promoting the use of Genetically Modified Organisms. This was ...
GMOs don’t hurt anyone, but opposing them does
How do you demonize scientists who added 3 genes to the 30,000 in rice in order to stop vitamin A ...
Nigeria: Biotechnology is a key platform for sustainable economic growth
Since the advent of biotechnology, the number of countries that cultivate genetically engineered (GE) crops continues to increase globally. While ...
India’s farmers wait as Bangladesh embraces biotech eggplant
Many people in India view their neighbors in Bangladesh with a measure of pity. They inhabit an overcrowded, less-developed country ...
Oregon farmers cheer Japan’s decision to resume purchases of GM wheat
Drought, crop prices, and equipment breakdowns are still on the list of troubles for Oregon's wheat farmers, but Japan's agricultural ...
French president to keep ban on GM corn despite court ruling
French President Francois Hollande said Friday that a ban on growing GM corn sold by US giant Monsanto would remain ...
Hawaii’s Bill 2491: Prohibitive GM regulation assumes the worst
The debate over Kauai's anti-GMO bill has drawn huge interest and more than 1,000 people to a raucous public hearing last ...
Foodie Michael Pollan roundly criticized for baseless “industry talking points” tweet
Michael Pollan of the University of California-Berkeley School of Journalism has had quite a week – and not in a good way ...
Tanzania: Formerly anti-GMO journalist Mark Lynas speaks out in favor of crop biotech
“In my view the controversy over GMOs represents one of the greatest science communications failures of the past half-century,” [Lynas] ...
