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
‘Local food cannot simply be equated with sustainable food’: Independent study challenges conventional wisdom of always ‘buying local’
If there's one thing everyone should know about science, it's this: what the evidence shows about a topic and what ...
Viewpoint: IARC — International Agency for Research on Cancer — tries to regroup after blunders on glyphosate and chemical evaluations undermine its former independent reputation
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in France was once one of the most respected epidemiology groups in ...
GMO social media battleground: Scientists and farmers using activist tactics to push back on disinformation deluge
Social media has fundamentally changed how we communicate with each other. Much has been written about the negative consequences of ...
10 key facts about Golden Rice, a GMO that can save the lives and sight of millions of children
"This rice could save a million kids a year," read a famous Time magazine cover from July 2000. The report ...
10% — not 75% — of crop yield is pollinator-dependent: Our World in Data charts raise doubts about claims that global food supply is imminently endangered by ‘disappearing’ insects
It’s unfortunate that the wildlife we care least about provides us with the most functional value. We favor the bears ...
Viewpoint: How proposed legislation billed to ‘save the bees’ will actually harm them — and the economy
The myth about endangered, disappearing honeybees lives on — with potentially dire implications. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, just ...
Wineries in California have been under siege for decades. There’s finally hope that grapevines can be saved from bacterial disease
In 1961, Adam Tolmach planted a five-acre vineyard on land he had inherited from his grandfather in the wine-growing region ...
Viewpoint: Carbon-preserving regenerative agriculture inextricably linked to CRISPR and gene edited crops
As governments and industries work toward a net-zero future, the food system remains a stubborn source of one-third of total global emissions ...
‘War on glyphosate’ and the unintended negative environmental consequences of the demonization of a safe and effective herbicide and its removal from the garden market
Across social media they celebrated. The electronic victory laps commemorated Bayer’s decision to remove the herbicide Roundup from the residential ...
Crop Chemophobia II: When activist journalists twist science in support of ideology
Attacking pesticides is sexy. Many activists, lawyers and journalists have made careers out of propagating a simple, compelling narrative about ...
Drought tolerant, disease resistant GMO corn that produces 3 times the yield of conventional or organic? It’s a reality in a Nigerian trial
Data from the third confined field trial of the TELA Maize project, that is being carried out at the Institute ...
Crop chemophobia I: Pesticides are vital to organic and conventional agriculture — but they can be misused. Here’s how to distinguish between legitimate concerns and anti-science propaganda
It seems not a month goes by without an “investigative reporter” somewhere on the internet warning about the dangers of ...
Seed treatment overload? Are there unintended consequences from a popular practice?
For the first time in nearly a decade, Dan Hesterberg poured a few bags of untreated corn seed into his ...
African agricultural scientists cite continent-wide double standard in embracing GM COVID vaccines while blocking GM crops
Most African countries are still in the early stages of COVID-19 vaccination dissemination, if they’ve begun imports of the shots ...
Gene-edited crops made in Latin America, for Latin American needs
In recent years, precision biotechnologies have appeared on the Latin American horizon, introducing new ways to modify genomes affordably easily ...
Viewpoint: It’s time for a reassessment of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)’s role in sabotaging glyphosate, one of the world’s most popular — and safest — herbicides
As we’re in the midst of a reevaluation of whether the Virology Laboratory in Wuhan, China was the true source ...
Podcast: By focusing on biotechnology breakthroughs, have scientists overlooked simpler solutions to our food security problems?
Gene editing could revolutionise agriculture, with some scientists promising healthier and more productive crops and animals, but will consumers want ...
Viewpoint: Stanford is a world-class science institution … except when it comes to critical thinking about the ‘sustainability myth’ of organic agriculture
Stanford, which consistently ranks among the top U.S. colleges and universities, is one of the great research institutions in the ...
Viewpoint: How the anti-GMO movement devolved from dangerous to irksome to irrelevant
Introduced in the 1990s, crops genetically engineered (GE) to withstand exposure to the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup) were a game-changer ...
‘What isn’t an endocrine disruptor?’ Silent Spring Institute claims hundreds of common chemicals cause breast cancer — but the science is lacking
A study by the Silent Spring Institute (1), with funding from the politically sympathetic National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences ...
Podcast: Trash transformation — Here’s how researchers are turning plastic waste into vanilla flavoring
We have two major problems. Vanilla is mostly produced in a narrow set of unstable economies and the supply chains ...
Viewpoint: How COVID has altered the future of US agriculture and the role of biotechnology
The past year has been a doozy. Being locked up for a year and watching half a million Americans die ...
Activists and ‘celebrity figures’ are turning public opinion against crop biotechnology in Mexico
On New Year’s Eve 2020, the Mexican government announced its plan to ban GMO corn and phase out GMO corn ...
Viewpoint: Why the federal government should subsidize high risk, early stage research into alternative meats and other proteins
A record-breaking $3.1 billion was invested in alternative proteins — plant-based and cultivated meat — in 2020. However, we and other ...
Lab-grown meat promises to cut water and land use by more than 96%. Why are US regulators dragging their feet in approving this ‘sustainable innovation’?
Future Meat Technologies announced [recently] that it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale ...
Viewpoint: Warning to Sri Lanka — Tunnel vision embrace of an organic-only farming model sets country up for economic and environmental backwardness
An Open Letter to Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa: Your recent endeavor to ‘rush’ the country from conventional farming to ...
Viewpoint: Here’s why activist environmentalists’ promotion of a ‘binary organic vs conventional/good vs evil dichotomy’ is bad for sustainable agriculture
Due to successful fear-based marketing campaigns, the demand for organic food in many affluent countries is rising far faster than ...
