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.
Viewpoint: GMO, CRISPR-edited crops can cut pesticide use—if environmental activists do not block them
Anti-GMO activists should take a step back and look closely at some of the benefits that new genetically modified crops ...
Video: Crops engineered with nanoparticles could survive bleak environments—including space
A family of nanoparticles known as metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, can absorb harmful UV radiation. Joseph Richardson is a nano-engineer ...
Bacterial leaf streak disease can slash corn yields 20%—will science stop it?
Bacterial leaf streak, a foliar disease in corn, has only been in the United States for a handful of years, ...
GMO crops and insects help stem overfishing, protect vulnerable marine ecosystems
For the first time in history, humans are poised to harvest more fish and seafood from farms than they catch ...
Flood-tolerant crops could survive intense rainfall as climate change accelerates
Global warming has resulted not only in increased incidences of drought and heatwaves but also increased rainfall which brings higher ...
Sequenced pea genome aids effort to improve global nutrition, boost sustainable farming
An international team of researchers has assembled the first genome of the field pea, providing insight into how Mendel's original ...
Taco Bell rolls out vegetarian menu without Beyond, Impossible meat options
As more fast-food chains double down on menu items with meatless alternatives from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, Taco Bell ...
Pesticides don’t pose acute health risk to honeybees foraging on farmland, two-year study finds
Honey bees forage across a large area, continually scouting the local landscape for ephemeral food resources. Beekeepers often rely on ...
Plant breeding innovations required to weather climate change, report says
The world needs plant breeding innovations to address challenges of climate change and a growing population ...
US soybean and corn farmers fear plant-based burgers and glyphosate lawsuits signal uncertain future
I’m flat busted. My Missouri corn and soybean farm is bankrupt, financially incompetent, a lousy credit risk, upside down--you pick ...
We need phosphorus to fertilize crops and feed the world—can we mine it sustainably?
If you wanted to really mess with the world's food production, a good place to start would be in Morocco ...
Animal proteins from GMO microbes: More synthetic food ingredients to launch in 2021
The first three proteins from Motif FoodWorks’ fermentation-based food ingredient platform will be ready for launch in early 2021, says ...
Consumers largely prefer ‘real’ beef, despite plant-based burger’s surging popularity, survey shows
With all the news about Beyond Meat’s stock price and the rolling out of the Impossible Burger at Burger King, ...
Chemical-free pest control tools on the way thanks to novel gene silencing strategy
In insects, rapidly evolving primary sex-determining signals are transduced by a conserved regulatory module controlling sexual differentiation. In the agricultural ...
Can indoor farming surmount agriculture’s biggest challenges?
A car park opposite the infamous New York City housing estate where rapper Jay-Z grew up seems an unlikely place ...
Growing some crops under solar panels boosts water efficiency, electricity generation
Solar panels might seem like they’re in direct competition with plants. One is catching sunlight to do photosynthesis, the other ...
Viewpoint: We need intensive agriculture to combat climate change and feed 10 billion people
There is an unforgiving math at the interface of agriculture and the environment ...
Podcast: Turning mushrooms into bacon (and other cool stuff) to boost sustainability
Today John Cumbers [founder and CEO of SynBioBeta] talks with Eben Bayer, CEO and Co-Founder of the biomaterials company Ecovative ...
Funnel web spider venom kills a human in an hour—can we use it to battle deadly honeybee pests?
A bite from a funnel web spider delivers neurotoxins that can kill an adult in hours, or a child in ...
Hormel, Kellogg launch ‘non-GMO’ plant-based meats to compete with Beyond, Impossible
Hormel said [September 4] it will launch its own plant-based meat brand, following Kellogg’s announcement of a similar addition to ...
Podcast: The story of a grape disease that decimated vineyards for 200 years—and how science helped stop it
When Europeans began to colonize North America 400 plus years ago, they brought along the crops they knew how to ...
Podcast: Food snobbery vs the Impossible Burger: A skeptical look at health claims about plant-based meat
"Natural food" advocates have blasted Impossible and Beyond as unhealthy. Let's look at their arguments ...
Cloning tool spots ‘foreign DNA,’ minimizes off-target changes with CRISPR gene editing
Researchers from Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain and Durham University in the UK developed a tried and tested cloning system ...
Viewpoint: Myth debunked—GM crops haven’t radically changed our food supply
[In August] South Australia announced it would be lifting its ban on the growth of genetically modified organisms (GMO) ...
Podcast: South Australian farmers battle for access to GMO crops. Will they win?
Australia has welcomed the use of genetically engineered (GE) crops, and farmers have found particular benefit from broad acre canola ...
Can we stop stupid politics from ruining carbon farming?
It seems like every Democratic presidential candidate wants to get farmers sucking carbon out of the air and sticking it ...
Climate change boosted banana production for 60 years, but hotter temperatures could finally cut yield gains
Climate change could negatively impact banana cultivation in some of the world’s most important producing and exporting countries, a study ...
Viewpoint: Developing world farmers see GMO crop adoption as path to prosperity
Farmers on the frontiers of prosperity are choosing GM seeds. They’re embracing this technology so much that 54 percent of ...
