Sustainability / GreenGenes
Food production needs are expected to roughly double over the next 35 years as the world population grows and people in under developed countries become more affluent and demand more calories. Healthy ecosystems are vital to the survival of all organisms. How can we grow crops without harming the environment? How can we balance technology and global food security? What is the right balance of organic and conventional farming? What role can genetics and biotechnology play without compromising the needs of tomorrow?
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Organic vs conventional food fight: Focus on pesticides distracts from real environmental problems
Has GMO use really led to a “flood” of pesticide use, as critics contend? That’s not what the data show ...
Mythbusting gone wrong: How the ‘dangerous’ organic pesticide myth began
One of the things that surprised me in researching this story was that I could not find a single organic-approved ...
Indigo Agriculture’s microbial seed treatments aim to replace synthetic pesticides
Indigo Agriculture CEO David Perry grew up raising corn and cows on his family's farm in Arkansas. While he wasn't the ...
A behind the scenes look at pesticide use in organic orchards, vineyards and fresh produce
This is part three of a four-part series attempting to separate fact from fiction regarding pesticide use on organic farms ...
How GMO crops help farmers, communities and the environment
1. Genetic engineering can be good for farmers.“GE crops are cultivated to help food grow better,” says [Dr. Tamika Sims, director of food ...
Talking Biotech: What’s keeping disease-resistant GMO bananas from Ugandan farmers?
Ugandan researcher Nassib Mugwanya: GMO bananas are the best tool we have to save bananas from bacterial wilt, but Uganda's ...
Viewpoint: EU’s GMO crop regulations should ‘evolve’ to recognize history of safe use, benefits
From [early draft legislative texts on GMOs in the EU], it is clear that the intentions were to have an ...
Cayman Island government scientists dispute Oxitec’s claim that GMO mosquito project was a success
A British biotech company seeking federal approval to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes at 12 sites in the Florida ...
Are we done bleeding horseshoe crabs for pharmaceutical use?
Contemporary humans do not deliberately kill the horseshoe crabs—as did previous centuries of farmers catching them for fertilizer or fishermen ...
Can wild seeds from Syria save American wheat from climate change?
When a team of researchers set loose a buzzing horde of Hessian flies on 20,000 seedlings in a Kansas greenhouse, ...
Podcast: What it means to be a ‘sustainable’ farmer
Tim Hammerich sat down with journalist Marc Brazeau, founder and director the Food and Farm Discussion Lab for his Future of Agriculture Podcast. His question ...
Blight-resistant GMO potatoes reduce pesticide use 80% in Ireland field trial
The environmental impact of potato production can be reduced by 95% by using a genetically modified (GM) blight-resistant potato in ...
UN food group: Sustainable bioeconomy can help tackle hunger, poverty and climate change
If done right, in particular with and for family farmers, bioeconomy can help efforts to tackle pressing global problems such ...
Once-promising field of advanced biofuels is in ‘shambles’—can it be revived?
[Jay Keasling, a synthetic biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and chief executive of the Joint BioEnergy Institute] did ...
How GMO crops can benefit Nigerian farmers
The application of modern Biotechnology in an integrated multi-disciplinary approach can be a valuable ‘tool’ for addressing the several challenges ...
Viewpoint: European organic industry’s obsession with ‘natural’ threatens CRISPR innovations and hurts the environment
What is nature? What is natural? Philosophers have been arguing about this since antiquity. Supporters of organic farming seem to ...
Viewpoint: Legal certainty, public support needed to unlock biotech’s potential in Europe
A new age is dawning in Europe, one that offers an opportunity to fully realize the power of biotechnology to ...
Ugandan farmers struggling with cassava viruses await GMO solution
Cassava is a major staple food for millions of people in the tropical regions of the world. In Uganda it ...
Can CRISPR and gene editing save our ‘devastated’ coral reefs?
Coral reefs have been devastated in recent decades by "bleaching" events caused by overheating oceans and other factors that kill off ...
‘Ecomodern Eating’: Why agricultural productivity and innovation are key to sustainable food and farming
Sunday, April 22nd, marked nearly 50 years since millions of people gathered for the first Earth Day. Their celebration raised awareness ...
Viewpoint: 8 things Vandana Shiva needs to know about US farmers and GMOs
In mid-April, famous anti-GMO activist Vandana Shiva was paid nearly $20K by my hometown university to speak on campus. While I can appreciate her ...
Is monoculture a bad thing? It’s time to revise simplistic ideological narrative
Biotech critics frequently claim that conventional agriculture and GMOs promote monoculture farming, which is harmful to biodiversity. A closer look ...
Genetic engineering has ‘enormous potential’ to solve environmental problems in Africa, scientists say
[S]cientists and government officials, in a series of exclusive interviews with the Alliance for Science, opined that biotechnology is one ...
The ambitious effort to sequence the DNA of earth’s 1.5 million animals, plants and fungi
In what will undoubtedly be the largest genomic sequencing effort of all time, an international consortium of researchers is organizing ...
Viewpoint: David Suzuki’s views on GMOs ‘well outside the scientific mainstream’
Mr. Suzuki is known by most as a twinkly-eyed old sage with a harmless message about living in tune with ...
Agricultural biotechnologies that improved safety, yields, food security in developing nations
This is the third in a three-part series making the case that the development of the biotech traits for insect ...
Delving into the GMO traits that cut back pesticide impacts globally
This is the second in a three-part series making the case that the development of the biotech traits for insect ...
Let’s recognize Roundup Ready and Bt crops as major contributions to sustainable farming
This is the first in a three-part series making the case that the development of biotech traits for insect resistance ...
