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.
Winning streak: After losing first 3 glyphosate-cancer cases, here’s how Bayer has convinced juries in 5 recent cases that the weedkiller is not harmful to humans
Bayer is on a winning streak as it battles the remaining cases targeting its Roundup weedkiller, a change after several ...
Study: ‘Avoiding regulatory bottlenecks’ — Here’s how countries around the world are advancing climate-friendly gene editing in farming
We looked at how countries selected from a sample of geographical regions globally are currently handling applications involving GEd organisms ...
Future fruit: Meet the farmers painstakingly developing colorful and tastier new apple varieties
Imagine reaching up to a tree branch and plucking an apple that’s unusually tall and narrow — a variety called ...
With soaring costs and rising inflation, 50% of small US farmers plan to use new technologies like robotics to boost crop yields
With US inflation worsening, the research found that 80 percent of farmers now cite rising input costs as the biggest ...
Mexico’s anti-GMO corn decree threatens relationship with US and promises billions in economic damage
Farmers in the United States are urging their government to challenge a looming Mexican ban on genetically modified (GM) corn ...
Infographic: Just one mosquito species can spread 54 viruses. Here’s how genetic modification can help us conquer this disease-spreading, destructive powerhouse
Aedes aegypti is one of the most common mosquitoes in the U.S. that can spread disease. One of the best-known ...
Viewpoint: Sweeping advances open door to biotechnology innovation in the UN, US and Africa
At the United Nations on September 21, 2022, President Biden announced $2.9 billion in assistance to address global food insecurity and urged ...
Viewpoint: ‘Darwinian beekeeping’ — Bees have adapted for over 100 million years. Maybe saving them from parasites could be as easy as leaving them alone
Bees have been around for about 120 million years... says Brenda Kiessling, a retired physician and an Eastern Apicultural Society ...
Hungry for a lab-grown burger? These are the countries where you can find a cell-based meal
There is currently one market where consumers can eat cell-based meat — Singapore. Following approval being granted by the Singapore ...
Viewpoint: European Greens defend organic policy, claim genetic engineering causes ‘uncontrollable, unintended and unsafe mutations’ in food — but this does not hold up to decades of evidence
A very dry summer alongside a low supply of fertilizer and energy spikes have created the perfect storm for the ...
‘Shockwaves in the global food chain’: Spain, Poland, Hungary beg European Commission for impact assessment on Farm to Fork plan pesticide cutbacks in face of Ukrainian invasion
EU member states have called for a new impact assessment on the European Commission’s proposal to slash the use and ...
Viewpoint: Lawyers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on pushing ‘inaccurate and baseless claims’ about common products like Roundup and talcum powder
Plaintiffs’ lawyers are relying more and more on traditional and social media to bolster litigation, often pushing inaccurate and baseless ...
Viewpoint: Daily Wire’s Candace Owens rolls out ludicrous conspiracy diatribe vilifying mainstream media, COVID vaccines and Bill Gates’ biotechnology advocacy
Candace Owens: This is a headline in Evie magazine. The World Economic Forum wants to make you allergic to beef ...
Viewpoint: The UK could be CRISPR crop pioneers — but only if ‘overly restrictive and outdated’ gene-edited crop ban falls
In May, the United Kingdom introduced a bill that would allow the commercial cultivation and sale of gene-edited crops, which are functionally banned under ...
62% less pesticides: What could be the consequences if Italy follows Europe’s mandate to cut use of crop protection chemicals in half?
Encouraged by the circle-beating attitude of politics, industries and associations, the European Commission is asking Italy to reduce pesticides by 62 ...
Viewpoint: Toxicologist explains why we should be grateful for chemicals — and the safety labels that come with them
Everyone needs to drink dihydrogen monoxide (yep that’s water) or at least drink other fluids that contain a lot of ...
Viewpoint: European farm groups raise alarms about unrealistic and unscientific EU targets to dramatically cut back on pesticides
The draft of the EU plant protection regulation contains two specific reduction targets: The first target is to reduce the ...
Kenya lifts 10-year old ban on importation and planting of GMOs
Kenya's Cabinet lifted a ban on the importation and planting of genetically modified crops and animal feeds that had been ...
CRISPR-pedia: Everything you need to know about gene-editing our way to a lower-carbon, more productive farming future
The world population is growing. At the same time, climate change is making it more difficult to grow many important ...
Viewpoint: European Commission must prioritize agricultural biotechnology or ‘the 2050 zero carbon emissions target will remain a mirage’
"Without further investments and simplification of procedures, the zero emissions target will remain a mirage. To achieve this, the European Commission must ...
Viewpoint: Facing unprecedented drought, Europe debates embracing sustainable, climate-flexible, insecticide-reducing genetically modified crops
Europe’s summer of drought has been impossible to ignore. Rivers dried up, exposing the skeletons of warships and ancient buildings. Images captured by ...
EU bans food imports with neonic pesticide residues starting in 2026
The European Commission announced [September 27] that imports of products containing residues of harmful insecticides known as neonicotinoids will be ...
Environmental Protection Agency denies Center for Food Safety petition to ban neonicotinoid pesticides
The Environmental Protection Agency denied a petition September 28 that asked the federal agency to more closely regulate a group ...
Viewpoint: Splenda scare? Should we be concerned about reports linking artificial sweeteners to strokes?
I’ve learned to allow my patients to have strange tastes in beverages. Should I be tolerant towards their drive to ...
China’s Syngenta pushes the edge: Can technology-driven agriculture promote a new view of sustainable farming to a world still wary of biotechnology?
China has very small farms; there hasn’t been a lot of infrastructure put in place in terms of knowledge or ...
Viewpoint: Media hypocrisy — ‘What makes oil companies’ climate change disinformation different from ‘backward progressives’ GMO rejectionist campaigns?’
The media often has difficulty deciding what counts as obvious disinformation or falsehoods. But supposed disinformation about climate change is ...
Case study: What happens if Europe bans glyphosate? Increased tillage, higher greenhouse gas emissions, less biodiversity — and billions in losses for farmers
Following the introduction of glyphosate in 1974, its efficacy against a vast range of weeds and its low price has ...
