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: Are regulations on genetically modified crops too lenient?
Chantel Arendse, plant biotechnology lead at CropLife SA, gives insight into plant biotechnology, and the importance of quality and safety ...
Is global food security a realistic goal? UN FAO report details CRISPR gene editing’s role in building a more promising future
In the decade since CRISPR genome editing emerged, scientists have developed a toolkit to tackle the most pressing issues facing ...
Why are walnuts considered a new ‘brain food’?
A new clinical trial of undergraduate students during their university studies has shown positive effects of walnut consumption on self-reported ...
Viewpoint: Not a single peer-reviewed study supports the EU’s politically-induced pesticide bans — Why Africa should avoid the disastrous restrictions imposed and then rescinded by Sri Lanka
NGOs funded by Germany’s Green Party distribute rounds of videos starring local celebrities holding up tomatoes and sukuma wiki stating ...
How cultured seafood can transition from ‘technological delicacy’ into a sustainable protein source
Startups like BlueNalu and Wildtype have their sights set on first cracking into the high-end sushi market, with hopes of ...
99%+ of 10,127 foods test below EPA pesticide benchmarks, USDA reports
USDA’s Pesticide Data Program has just released its report for calendar year 2021. The PDP surveys pesticide residues in food ...
Viewpoint: Why investing in ‘climate smart’ precision agriculture is critical to promote sustainable farming
More farmers are transitioning to climate-smart practices and the U.S. is recognizing the critical role agriculture plays in driving climate ...
Viewpoint: ‘Adapt, or starve’ — Misconceptions that power vaccine rejectionism turn the public away from science-based food policy
There were a number of key takeaways: adapt or starve, help poorer countries help themselves, find out what works and ...
Is your festive Christmas tree damaging the planet?
Every year, millions of Christmas trees are grown and harvested in the United States and Europe. These are often fir trees cultivated ...
Viewpoint: ‘Unless we want to cut down our forests, we need to improve our crop yields’ — Practical biotech-based sustainable solutions are right in front of us
To feed a hotter and drier planet, Stanford scientists are building a smarter plant. The team has genetically reprogrammed plants, ...
Sustainable metrics: How much carbon, land and energy does your dinner require?
So, what would a protein-rich, low-carbon diet really look like? Just how bad for the climate are meat and dairy? ...
Viewpoint: Why it’s harmful for regulators and consumers to trust cancer designations by the UN sub-agency IARC
IARC‘s hazard identification scheme, which assesses the carcinogenic potential of a chemical in a simple binary manner, is now obsolete ...
‘Rock star of the eco-movement’: Why does the media love anti-biotech activist Vandana Shiva despite her history of spreading misinformation?
"Rock star of the eco-movement", "Monsanto's nightmare", "Gandhi of the grain": Many media are not lacking in superlatives when they ...
How a genetic tweak boosted ethanol production and serendipitously yielded beef and dairy sustainability benefits
Enogen corn was developed using genetic engineering to add a gene for the enzyme alpha amylase which breaks down starch ...
‘Space seeds’: First rice seeds grown and harvested in orbit return to Earth
With the return of the Shenzhou-14 crew on December 4, the third batch of space science experiment samples that arrived ...
Misinformation has stymied conversation on genetic innovations in food. Here’s how climate change, the war in Ukraine and rising scientific literacy are changing people’s minds
On the Dec. 7 episode of Seed Speaks, we're addressing the myths surrounding gene editing and how those misconceptions can ...
Viewpoint: ‘Less starvation and less malnutrition are a priceless benefit of GM crops’
Over the past 20 years, academics have analyzed the yield effects following the adoption of GM crops in every market ...
Preventing billions of rooster chick deaths annually: Here’s how gene editing could end the culling of male chickens
Dr Yuval Cinnamon from the Volcani institute near Tel Aviv, who is the project's chief scientist, told BBC News that ...
GM crops safe and viable option for Africa, say African science academy experts
Agricultural scientists from across Africa have jointly added their voices to the ongoing debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which ...
Precision agriculture, satellites and drones critical to feed 800 million food-insecure people
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragilities in our agri-food systems and the inequalities in our societies, driving further increases ...
Addressing the plague of invasive mice: This gene drive solution could totally remove island pests
After five years of research, University of Adelaide scientists have now developed t-CRISPR, a technology that builds on a gene ...
Natural, plant-based air purifiers? This bioengineered houseplant can clean pollutants from the air
A startup in Paris has developed a plant that could take over the work of 30 houseplants — and it’s just the ...
As plants fight each other for access to sunlight, shorter crops with ‘unselfish’ genes could be more productive
Identifying genes that make plants “cooperate” with their neighbours rather than compete with them could enable breeders to develop more ...
Challenging misconceptions: Global managed honeybee population increasing, not decreasing, finds Nature study, but not keeping up with population growth
We conducted a retrospective study to examine the long-term trends for the global honey bee population and its two main ...
Genetically modified crops are key to resisting climate change, US embassy in Pakistan says
The United States is proud of its long and fruitful agricultural trade relationship with Pakistan. This relationship has grown stronger ...
Viewpoint: Philippines’ food security crisis will continue to deepen without disruptive biotechnology innovations
A major yield breakthrough in corn has occurred due to the introduction of hybrid seed which can be further galvanised ...
Bioactive compounds from potatoes and tomatoes could help us create new cancer drugs
Vegetables such as potatoes could someday help us fight cancer, according to a study completed at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland and published ...
