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.
A ‘dazzling, eggplant-colored’ genetically-modified tomato slated for US rollout. Here are its prospects in Australia
Last month, the US Department of Agriculture issued a statement on a dazzling eggplant coloured fruit ...
Targeting sustainable farming: Here’s how much money low and middle-income countries are missing out on if they reject genetically-modified crops
GM crops produce higher farm incomes plus reduced land tillage practices and lower insecticide use, bringing substantial environmental benefits. While ...
Rice paddies in the desert? How China is creating productive farmland and growing ‘seawater rice’ using heat-tolerant biotech crops
In a bid to finally ensure that nobody ever needs to go hungry in China again, researchers there have been ...
Carbon removal breakthrough: Genetic tools that have created climate resilient crops could capture carbon dioxide as well
To understand just how powerful genetic tools can be in agriculture, take a look at [Pamela Ronald, a plant geneticist ...
If you want cell-based meat pioneered in the Netherlands, you should… head to Singapore? Outdated regulations hold back Europe’s slaughter-free cultivated meat industry
Singapore’s regulatory landscape, diverse population, and openness to emerging technologies have created an attractive test ground for cultured meat. Dutch ...
Getting over GMO food fears: Inside Japan’s slow but progressive march towards embracing genetic modification
Japan has been conducting studies on GM food crops including soybeans and rapeseed since 2006, and the latest 2020/2021 report ...
Next generation biofuel: Genetically-modified duckweed can grow in wastewater, and it yields seven times more oil than soybeans
While plants such as corn and soybeans are major sources of biofuel, they're grown on land that could otherwise be ...
Underground farms, aquatic meals and more: What would our food system evolve into if an asteroid hit Earth?
Imagine a giant asteroid strikes the Earth a few years from now, blocking out the Sun and collapsing agriculture worldwide ...
Viewpoint: Europe’s ‘Green’ activists wield McCarthy-era tactics by promoting ideology over science, undermining the push for sustainable food
Calls for realistic and workable regulation of “new genomic techniques” (NGT or new breeding techniques, “NBT”) for plant breeding cannot be heard. Those ...
Uganda’s challenge: Climate change, crop disease and pests are crippling agriculture. Here’s why new solutions are so desperately needed
Climate change has come along with incurable crop diseases and insurmountable pests and our main cash and food crops are ...
Organic vs natural: How food grown from genetically engineered seeds can address growing consumer expectations
What is a ‘natural’ food product? Depending on who you ask you’ll likely receive a different answer. As regulators, processors, manufactures ...
Australia approves trial run of high-yield herbicide-resistant GM canola and mustard seeds
Australia's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has issued license DIR 188 to Nuseed Pty Ltd., for the limited ...
Viewpoint: Part 2 — ‘Superstitious and medieval’ GMO beliefs inform New Zealand gene editing regulations, keeping country’s ‘predator-free’ goal out of reach
Amid fears of unintended consequences, the idea of unleashing gene tech on pests ravaging our native wildlife has unsurprisingly found ...
Biofortification of staple crops: How the mundane pearl millet grain was transformed into a ‘hunger fighting’ gladiator
Pearl millet has long made up the bulk of diets of rural communities in drought-prone regions of India and Africa ...
Viewpoint: Part 1 — ‘We’re moving away from a binary choice, GM-free or not’: New Zealand debates CRISPR gene edited crops and medicines 20 years after GMO scandal
Twenty years after the Corngate scandal when illegal GMO corn crops may have been accidentally released turned genetic modification into ...
Viewpoint: EWG’s Dirty Dozen scares parents away from buying fresh produce. Here’s why you should keep serving your kids grapes, guilt-free
Grapes, strawberries, apples, and peppers make their way into carts and baskets all over the country as parents give themselves ...
Viewpoint: Sri Lanka’s ban on synthetic crop chemicals put ideology ahead of science. Here’s a rethink on sustainable agriculture
In April 2021, the Sri Lankan president announced that the import of synthetic fertilizers was banned and no more would be procured ...
Video: Kenyan crop geneticist examines myths and truths behind country’s decision to end ban on GM seeds and foods
The Kenyan government banned the importation and growing of GMO crops and products following a 2012 study by Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini of ...
India approves first genetically-modified crops in 20 years: Herbicide-tolerant cotton and mustard
The commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops may get approval in the country after 20 years. These crops are ...
‘Globally we are no longer innovating’: Agricultural productivity is faltering — and that’s why we need to streamline regulations of new technologies
The recently released 2022 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report tells a disturbing story: Growth in global agricultural productivity is in steep ...
‘Healthy fat is not about the amount of fat’: Exercising improves the health of fat cells, helping them clean debris from your bloodstream
Many of us may not realize that body fat can be metabolically healthy — or the reverse — no matter ...
Viewpoint: Plants are ‘carbon sequestration factories’. It’s time to capitalize on their natural ability to address climate change
Could plants be created that have higher rates of photosynthesis to improve growth and yield? The short answer is yes ...
Viewpoint: ‘Chaos is coming’ — Cost of food staples like tortillas, chicken and eggs will skyrocket if Mexico follows through with its GM corn ban
If the food shortage is already high, hold on because it will get worse — because chaos is coming with ...
Will ‘biological push notifications’ from weight loss gadgets keep people on track with their diets?
I felt a special kind of awe, then panic, watching my glucose levels skyrocket for the first time after relishing ...
How CRISPR gene editing is emerging as powerful tool to counteract climate change
CRISPR technology could be deployed in a wide array of food and agriculture applications. One major issue that CRISPR could fight is ...
Blight resistant gene-edited potatoes now third genetically-enhanced crop approved in once anti-biotech Ethiopia
Ethiopia has given the green light to carry out observation field trials for genetically modified potatoes that are said to ...
Bacon-flavored algae and spirulina salmon? Here’s how aquaculture might provide enough protein to satisfy humanity’s growing appetite
A new paper published in the journal Oceanography speculates future global food production problems could be solved by growing protein-dense microalgae in ...
