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.
‘Mind-boggling’ fruity craft beers produced with GMO yeast finds rapturous fans
About 250 breweries throughout the country have used Berkeley Yeast’s genetically modified strains, and some insiders herald its scientific breakthroughs ...
European Parliament: Global meat consumption has doubled in two decades, exacerbating climate change. Sustainably growing animal protein with yeast and bacteria could help
The amount of meat consumed per capita levels has nearly doubled since 1990 and meat production has more than quadrupled ...
Orange and grapefruit growers devastated by citrus diseases have new hope: CRISPR gene editing
In the past few decades, two bacterial diseases — Huanglongbing (HLB) and citrus canker— have decimated the Florida citrus industry ...
‘Lose-lose situation’: Mexico’s ban on genetically modified corn worsening food security and increasing inflation
A new economic impact report shows Mexico’s looming ban on GM corn and agricultural biotechnology policy will harm economies on both sides ...
How biotechnology can protect indigenous ‘orphan crops’ from disease and boost economic growth
Despite their critical local importance, orphan, underutilized, and neglected crops tend to receive relatively limited attention in agricultural R&D initiatives ...
Survey: Younger consumers open to trying foods crafted by gene editing
Consumers under age 30 and consumers with incomes above $125,000 a year are less likely to avoid gene-edited foods, meaning ...
Viewpoint: Millions face food insecurity. Following ‘green hysteria’ in rejecting pesticides and fertilizers will make this crisis worse
From 2023, the European Union will allocate 25 per cent of its direct agriculture payment budget to “eco-payments” for carbon ...
Viewpoint: Cost of misinformation — Nigeria spends over 40 million dollars a year importing cowpea. A GMO insect resistant version could save money and lives
Nigeria spends almost 40 million USD annually on the importation of cowpea. Beans farmers have been struggling with how to ...
Fighting climate change: How modifying this one plant gene could help crops absorb 30% more CO2
Plants already pull significant weight in removing carbon dioxide from the air, but a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison ...
Mexico’s glyphosate and GMO corn ban overturned by federal judge
A federal judge declared the 2020 Presidential Decree to eliminate the use of the herbicide glyphosate and transgenic corn in ...
Nigeria is ready to meet strong farmer demand for GMO cowpea seeds
Nigerian farmers should have ample access to insect-resistant genetically modified (GM) cowpea seeds for this summer’s planting season, scientists say ...
‘Oversimplification or outright falsehood?’: ‘Banned in Europe’ and 9 other anti-pesticide factoids that are short on science
Organic activist group Slow Food recently released its list of “10 Key Facts on Pesticides," a post designed to “raise awareness about ...
Viewpoint: What the war in Ukraine tells us about global limitations of organic farming
The nascent food crisis now reveals a hard truth: organic agriculture cannot feed the world and could even worsen future ...
Viewpoint: ‘Microbes and plants can be altered to increase to carbon capture’ — Biophysicist lays out pathway for net-zero emissions
The same genetic engineering tools used for climate change adaptation are now being used for carbon capture ...
Nigeria moves to import GM wheat to lower local food prices
In a bid to drive down high food prices, Nigeria has launched the process to permit the importation of genetically ...
Viewpoint: Environmental Working Group’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ scaremongering — Consumers reject fear-based environmentalist disinformation
Consumers encounter so many mixed messages on produce, ranging from the Dirty Dozen‘s disinformation to the just-eat-your-veggies slogan. How do we ...
Viewpoint: ‘Optimizing nature’ — How gene editing can help grow crops in unstable climates using less water
As global policy conversations continue to shine the spotlight on sustainability, the scope of these discussions also focusses on agriculture, ...
Video: Erratic weather from climate change is biggest threat facing Kenyan crops. Gene-editing technology could help, farmer says
How do farmers define sustainability on their farms? Find out how Kenyan farmer Felix Kili views the issue, and how ...
Viewpoint: ‘Depression and now anarchy’ — How rejecting agricultural technology and vanity of ‘green’, organic farming led to Sri Lanka’s collapse
The anarchic scenes in Sri Lanka are enough to make the blood of any world leader run cold. President Gotabaya ...
Viewpoint: Solved! Busting pro-organic, anti-GMO myths
Over the years, we have experienced a massive increase in the consumption of organic foods, with many people painting conventional ...
Viewpoint: Will Biden and the ‘progressive left’ muster independence to embrace agricultural gene editing and its carbon-capture potential?
Carbon capture has often been touted as an alternative to dealing with climate change that does not involve laying waste ...
Viewpoint: Organic milk requires expensive feed and labor. Not even huge subsidies can save this supposedly sustainable market from scams and inefficiency
US organic dairy export volumes have consistently fallen since 2017. Since that year, organic fluid milk exports have fallen 76%, ...
Viewpoint: Why Rwanda and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa need to embrace genetically modified crops
According to the recent publication “Plant biotechnology: A key tool to improve crop production in Rwanda” intensive and appealing discussions ...
Dicamba drift: Court upholds judgement against Bayer but orders new trial to assess damages
Monsanto Co. and BASF Corp. are liable for the herbicide dicamba’s damage to a farmer’s peach orchards, the Eighth Circuit ...
How genetically engineered crops could super-charge efforts to address climate change
You can create a stable carbon capture system by genetically engineering plants to grow more extensive roots and pump more carbon ...
World Economic Forum: How genetically engineered crops can fight climate change
Food systems account for over one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Any successful strategy for reaching the ambitious — and critical ...
Facing rising pesticide and labor costs, Bangladesh poised to approve sustainable insect-resistant Bt GMO cotton
With Bangladesh likely to approve commercial cultivation of genetically modified Bt cotton varieties sourced from an Indian company soon, seed ...
