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.
Viewpoint: Why we should be skeptical of ‘climate-friendly’ grocery store claims
Meat eaters are about to have a new option in the beef aisle. Along with cuts of meat labeled as ...
Nocturnal farming: How climate change might force farmers to rethink their early-to-rise schedule
Rising temperatures in key agricultural regions across the United States are leading more farmers to harvest in the middle of ...
‘Industrial’ seed oils are killing you? Here’s the health story behind cooking oils
There’s a new bogeyman in the nutrition world: vegetable oil, especially so-called “industrial seed oils” like canola, corn, and soybean ...
Viewpoint: ‘Activists are tireless’ — 30 years of global genetically modified crop use has proven they are safe and sustainable, but GMOs remain under assault
Literally trillions of animals have been fed with GMO feed without any detectable negative health effect ...
Can lab-grown fruit reduce hunger and methane-generating waste?
Scientists in New Zealand are attempting to create lab-grown fruit from plant cells, without the parts that are usually thrown ...
GMOs aren’t increasing food allergies? 10 common misconceptions about genetic modification, debunked
Confused about GMOs? There is no question GMOs (Soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa, papaya, squash, apples, potatoes) are ...
Rediscovering lost Indonesian rice varieties: Hundreds of indigenous crops at risk of extinction could resist climate change
For three months in 2006, Mdm Hilman visited one remote village after the other, providing free consultations to farmers who ...
Viewpoint: Uganda drags its feet while other African countries begin embracing genetic revolution in food and farming
It is still a mystery why it has taken so long for agriculture in Uganda to have a clear regulatory ...
Viewpoint: Why fellow moms shouldn’t succumb to anti-GMO information when making family food choices
One comment I hear over and over is GMOs are poison. But when you look at the research, over 2 trillion meals ...
German Liberals break from Green Party, advocate for anti-biotechnology policy rethink as coalition totters
The Greens, a partner in Germany’s three-party coalition, must tear down internal walls to overcome the tug-of-war over genetic engineering ...
Podcast: How synthetic biology can tweak DNA in viruses, plants or even animals to improve the environment, health, agriculture and industrial processes
Welcome back to Dirt to Dinner: Digging In, where we dig into what’s going on in the food and ag world ...
‘It’s now a jungle’: Take a look at what happened after an English seaside town banned glyphosate
Brighton has become the perfect example of how quickly nature reclaims the street if weeds are left unchecked ...
Where did wheat come from? Uncovering the grain’s genetic genesis at the dawn of agriculture
From the dawn of agriculture, about 10,000 years ago, to modern genetic improvement techniques, wheat has been a key witness and ...
Sustainable fashion’s next frontier: Fabric made from bacteria, waste, and carbon
Scientists are hoping to start a fashion trend: making clothes from materials that reduce environmental harm ...
Environmentally-friendly GMO bioplastics favored by consumers despite prevailing negative sentiment on GMO foods
The technology of genetically modified organisms (GMO) and especially genetically modified plants (GMP) applied in agriculture is a key element ...
How Ginkgo Bioworks leverages synthetic biology to shape future of food
Patrick Boyle is currently the Head of Codebase at Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based synthetic biology company that makes and sells ...
Viewpoint: In debate over ‘dangerous’ chemicals — from aspartame to glyphosate — advocates cash in peddling pseudoscience
What if you were told, on good authority, that drinking a glass of diet Cola is a serious cancer hazard? ...
Fertilizers are critical for farming — but they are often environmentally costly. Synthetic biology may offer a solution
Almost everything about synthetic fertilizer sucks. It sucks for the climate, generating 2.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than ...
Pakistan case study: Illness and famine follow in wake of climate-induced weather disasters
To document one of the most widespread threats — extreme heat — The Post and CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that develops publicly ...
Viewpoint: ‘All-natural’ animal meat misnomer designed to make plant-based foods look bad
The culture war pitting plant-based meat against its animal-based counterpart rages on, it seems. Plant-based alternatives are called “ultra-processed,” “fake” ...
Another GMO approval: Philippines approves commercial growing of Bt insect resistant cotton
The Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry issued a Biosafety Permit for the Commercial Propagation of Bt cotton (GFM cry1A) developed by the Philippine ...
Viewpoint: ‘California’s plan to choose politics over science on pesticides will dump millions more tons of carbon and threaten food security’
Pesticides undergo a rigorous evaluation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It takes an average of more than 11 ...
America needs food: Why do presidential debates ignore agricultural policy?
Much of the presidential debates involve rehashing points of the last two presidential terms. Gun rights, immigration, and the conduct ...
As grocery store prices rise, consumers open to experimentation opt for animal meat over more expensive plant-based versions
In a survey of more than 1,200 US adults, Purdue University found that consumers largely preferred beef from cattle over ...
Viewpoint: Finding optimal crop traits using traditional breeding is like finding ‘a needle in a haystack’. Here’s how precision breeding can help
Finding the best genetic characteristics of a crop one season at a time through traditional plant breeding was like finding, ...
What’s behind recent surge in ‘magical’ health regimens? Getting to bottom of diet and nutrition science
Public health messaging is often a difficult tightrope walk (see: COVID-19) and that is especially true for anything related to ...
Talking Biotech Podcast: Kevin Folta talks with a crime lab expert on how DNA can solve cold cases
DNA has been an invaluable tool to make certain matches between a suspect and a crime. Since its early use ...
