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: LEGO’s ‘The Organic Garden’ — Exclusive promotion of organic farming provides a misleading picture of agriculture
My brothers and I loved playing with LEGOs growing up. We would make little farms and towns. We had houses ...
Unlike most of the rest of the world, the European Union uses 30-year old ‘precautionary principle’ to regulate GMOs and gene editing, effectively banning them. Here is a primer
The European Union (EU) has been at the forefront of the debate around genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with the region implementing a ...
Dietary bogeyman? Is oxalate the root of dozens of food-related diseases — as alternative medicine advocates claim?
You will hear oxalate demonized by Sally K. Norton, who has just published a book about her theory. It’s called Toxic ...
Viewpoint: Rejecting CRISPR-edited crops is ‘one of the biggest shortcomings of the European legal system’
Some countries, such as the United States, Canada or Japan, are beginning to regulate CRISPR, which is postulated as one ...
Podcast: Preventing crop damage from pests, diseases, and weeds? Here’s why South African farmers ‘can’t afford to overlook biotech seeds’
On this week’s episode of Farmer’s Inside Track, Chantel Arendse, the lead for plant biotechnology at CropLife SA, joins us ...
Video: Darling 58 American chestnut tree — Tik Tok video addresses deploying genetic modification to restore one of America’s most ecologically valuable keystone species
A genetically modified American chestnut tree is being reviewed for deregulation! The public comment period is open until 12/27/22 ...
European Council of Young Farmers: Why the European Parliament should approve use of CRISPR and other New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) in plants
Based on the strong belief that there is no single pathway to sustainability in agriculture, new genomic techniques (NGTs) – ...
‘Making sci-fi a reality’: CRISPR gene editing can dramatically lower cost of cell-based lab-grown meat
Most companies are trying to create lab-grown meat with little to no genetic engineering, which despite shifts in attitude is ...
427,000 global deaths a year? Study claims bee decline stunts yields of fruits, vegetables and nuts
The global decline of bees and other pollinators is stunting yields of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Scientists estimate that the ...
Survey on consumer acceptance of CRISPR and other plant-breeding biotechnologies: Would consumers pay higher prices for tastier and fresher grapes?
Since genetically engineered crops were first introduced in the mid-1990s, they have faced considerable barriers to market acceptance. In these ...
Will climate change lead to future food crises?
All the world organizations have already grasped the importance of this climate change, and they have rolled up their sleeves ...
Viewpoint: American agriculture is far more efficient — and sustainable — than in Europe. Here’s why
Toward the end of the 1980s, the divergence between Europe and the United States in terms of agricultural output became ...
‘Challenge the poultry mafia’? Criticism of Pakistan’s food security minister who claims GM soybeans are toxic and linked to cancer mounts
Some statements deserve to be ridiculed. Earlier this week, the honorable Federal Minister for Food Security in Pakistan made one ...
Should you start fasting? What does science say about autophagy and ketosis?
Autophagy (which directly translates to self-eating) is a term that is often associated with fasting and longevity. This is a ...
Viewpoint: Why an EU ban on crop pesticide exports based on the misguided precautionary principle will hurt global farming
In France, on September 10, 2020, Le Monde headlined: ”The EU has authorized the export of more than 80,000 tonnes of ...
Everything you need to know about lab-created, climate-friendly cultivated meat
Cultivated meat is known under many names: cultured meat, synthetic meat, slaughter-free meat, and lab-grown meat, to name a few ...
Drivers of food security: European Commission report concludes chemical pesticides pose challenges to EU farmers
An intensive agricultural model “based on chemical pesticides” is likely to pose a food security threat due to a loss ...
How can we ‘climate proof’ our global seed system to increase yield and cut down on chemical usage?
We’re in a race against time to climate-proof our seed systems. Some estimates indicate that in countries faced with serious ...
Plastic pollution epidemic: Microplastics have found their way into our fruits and veggies
Unwittingly, we may be consuming tiny fragments of plastic with almost every bite we take. In 2022, analysis by the Environmental ...
Podcast: Behind the fungus-resistant chestnut that could save American forests
The American chestnut was a dominant tree in many of the forests of the eastern United States. In the early ...
Viewpoint: Anti-biotech advocacy group opposition to forest-restoring GM chestnut tree mimics their disingenuous rejection of nutrition-enhancing GM Golden Rice
Critics of scientists and science writers who speak plainly usually note it is better to be more neutral in tone, ...
‘Investing in a net zero economy’: Can ‘smart farming’ help steer us from climate disaster?
There is a strong investment case for including climate-smart agriculture and food security among a broader portfolio of net zero ...
Video: ‘Media bashing of pesticides is hysteria wrapped around a kernel of truth’: Rethinking essential crop protection tools
Headlines about agriculture chemical use aren’t always the most kind to the industry. And while these headlines may be flashy ...
Anti-biotech Canadian NGO ETC Group claims ‘precision agriculture’ would ‘further break’ global farming system
“We have a food system that is broken in so many ways — and this is even recognized by the ...
Viewpoint: ‘We take farmers for granted’ — The public doesn’t recognize the hard work and innovation of the farmers who grow our food
Farmers are using all kinds of technologies and innovations to grow your food. You’ve read about some of them here ...
Soaring butterfly levels: California county sees highest monarch numbers in two decades
More than 129,000 western monarch butterflies were counted in the San Luis Obispo county by Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation ...
Viewpoint: 7.4 quadrillion calorie shortfall by 2050 — Why we need to eat less meat and stop wasting food
If we are serious about cleaning up the mess we’re making for less influential species, there are four things individuals ...
