Food & Ag Features
The GLP explores the role of genetic engineering in food production and the polarized debate surrounding it. We highlight the work of our own writers, as well as that of contributors from around the Web. The GLP does not take a position on genetics-related issues; any opinions expressed belong to the authors.
Categories include:
- Chemicals and pesticides
- Organics
- Conventional crops
- New breeding technologies
- Animal biotechnology
- Food systems
- Sustainability
- Regulations
- Politics
- Ideology
Utopian fantasy or realistic tools? Deploying synthetic biology to jump crop yields sustainably
As the climate crisis accelerates, there’s a desperate need to rapidly reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, both by ...
Activist claims that U.S. crop yields are in decline are mostly propaganda
For years, climate activists have pointed to the threat of declining crop yields as a reason to pass the most ...
Beautiful and delicious mutants on your plate: The misunderstood world of crop improvement
When most of us hear the word mutation, the images that come to mind are not positive. We think of ...
Viewpoint: TB served in a glass—The legislative rush to legitimize raw milk
Once, pasteurization helped conquer “The White Plague”, saving millions of lives from TB and other diseases. Now, legislators across the ...
From creating healthy menus to eliminating food waste, AI is transforming the link between food and health
Across the food system, AI is being harnessed for good—helping consumers make smarter nutritional choices, waste less food, and even ...
Viewpoint: The U.S. Congress needs to dramatically and quickly overhaul its regulation of agricultural biotechnology
Since the 1986 release of the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology almost 40 years ago, there have been two ...
Viewpoint: Misrepresentation by journalists and activists of the science of chemicals, processed food, and fossil fuels is corroding America’s future
In 50 years from now, our great-grandchildren will study how affluent societies in the 2020s willfully threw out advanced technologies ...
Our ancestors balanced eating and fasting as a survival mechanism. It still has benefits today
Ever worried that skipping breakfast might leave you foggy at work? Or that intermittent fasting would make you irritable, distracted ...
GLP podcast: Cookies addictive like heroin? Toxicologist dismantles ‘food addiction’
Enjoying delicious food is a fundamental part of the human experience. Few of us would deny the enjoyment we get ...
How tasty does dinner look? How healthy? Our brains work this out faster than conscious thought
Imagine you’re at the grocery store, standing before a selection of snacks. Seemingly without thinking, you skip over the rice ...
Power, culture, and identity: How did milk get caught in the crosshairs of the culture wars
Milk is one of the most familiar things in the world – comforting, wholesome, ordinary. But beneath this common perception ...
Viewpoint—Toxic Narratives: The lucrative environmentalist–tort lawyer-media disinformation network driving drug and chemical scares
Is aspartame, used in thousands of products, from Diet Coke to Trident Gum to Log Cabin Sugar-Free Syrup, potentially cancer-causing? ...
Can you really become addicted to food?
People often joke that their favorite snack is “like crack” or call themselves “chocoholics” in jest. But can someone really ...
The emerging state-by-state patchwork of food additive bans raises concerns among food regulatory scientists
A coalition of major food companies and industry associations launched Americans for Ingredient Transparency (AFIT), aimed at stopping the growing trend ...
Viewpoint: Newly-formed non-profits are the ‘dark money’ foundation of the activist environmental movement
Time was that non-profits were funded by their membership dues or individual donations, loose change drums at airports and clipboard ...
California takes on the thorny challenge to define what constitutes a nutritious lunch for school children. How is it doing?
California has once again stepped to the front of the regulatory line—this time in the school cafeteria. While Washington dithers ...
Viewpoint: Europe’s precautionary principle guiding science regulations is broken. Here’s what needs to be done
Precaution is common sense. We don’t run blindly into a busy street or touch a hot flame. When a toddler ...
Viewpoint: Environmentalists claim farmers can forego chemicals and genetically engineered crops and grow bumper crops with less environmental impact. If only farming was that easy
At the end of the 20th century, the United Nations (UN) launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were a list of ...
Why scare stories about crop chemicals outlive the science
For years, glyphosate has been the world’s most litigated molecule. The herbicide, first brought to market in 1974 under the ...
Viewpoint: Frost season is nearing in Florida’s citrus-growing region. Here’s how backward science at the EPA has closed down a protective solution
“That morning I squeezed every orange and it felt like a wet sponge – I knew I lost the whole ...
‘Deficient, Unreliable, Corrupted’: Independent EU food science watchdog agency eviscerates junk studies weaponized by NGO activists to manufacture microplastic crisis and litigation
Not a day goes by where some study isn’t published on some micro or nanoplastic found in the environment, humans ...
Viewpoint: Organic fantasies—Why rejecting industrial agriculture for regenerative farming would be a big mistake for food security and sustainability
Last year, Scientific American published a short but ominous article titled “Only 60 Years Left of Farming if Soil Degradation ...
Farming in poorer countries suffers from poor weather forecasting. AI is poised to change that
For farmers, every planting decision carries risks, and many of those risks are increasing with climate change. One of the ...
“It’s raining neonicotinoids in Japan!” How the French media, environmentalists, and activist scientists conspired to distort science and severely damage the farm economy
Based on only eleven rain collections, researchers from Tokyo and Hokkaido Universities detected five neonicotinoids in Japanese rainwater at sub-nanogram-per-liter ...
Understanding the recent boom in ‘regenerative’ food labels
Stroll through a grocery store and you’ll likely spy the word “regenerative” on everything from cocoa powder to hot dogs. ... But this seemingly ...
Viewpoint: Why de-extinction efforts should be redirected at classical habitat conservation or improving agricultural production
“In considering the risks of recombinant DNA, we shy at kittens and cuddle tigers.” Thus James Watson, co-discoverer with Francis ...
Viewpoint: MAHA’s chemophobic agriculture recommendations take a back seat to industry and science as Republican farm policy comes into focus
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has courted controversy his whole life. Since becoming the Trump administration’s top health official, Kennedy’s outlandish ...
