Sustainability/Climate Change
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.
Why does America grow 90 million acres of corn every year?
The U.S. is the No. 1 producer of corn in the world. Planted on over 90 million acres, it is ...
Sunflower pollen may protect bees from deadly diseases
[A] new study offers hope for a relatively simple mechanism to promote bee health and well-being: providing bees access to ...
Video: Organic vs conventional farming—do we have to pick one or the other?
The public debate over the costs and benefits of organic and conventional farming continues unabated. But what exactly separates them? ...
Will ‘precautionary mindset’ at UN biodiversity meeting threaten agricultural innovation?
Some 196 countries may decide to limit access to the benefits of pioneering new biotechnological applications at an upcoming international ...
GMO plants could boost production of earth-friendly biofuels
A study at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory identifies new details of how a sugar-signaling molecule helps ...
Scientists engineer bacteria-hunting virus to kill E. coli in drinking water
To rapidly detect the presence of E. coli in drinking water, Cornell University food scientists now can employ a bacteriophage ...
Will lab-grown burgers succeed where ethical arguments against meat eating failed?
[O]ne-sixth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are directly attributable to raising livestock, and the figure is rising as more ...
Hybrid corn could eradicate harvest-destroying disease in Africa
A centralized maize lethal necrosis disease screening facility established in [Kenya] five years ago has released 15 disease-resistant hybrid maize ...
Viewpoint: New glyphosate study suggesting danger to honeybee microbiota is detailed, sophisticated—and wrong
Erick Motta and colleagues at the University of Hawaii just published a paper in PNAS entitled "Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees." ...
Sustainability advantage: ‘High-yield’ intensive agriculture outpaces organic farming, large study shows
Opposition to “high-yield” agriculture has taken many forms: Accusations of corporate takeover of the idealized family farm; preference for organic ...
Climate change could accelerate demand for robot farmers
It’s harvest season in the Northern hemisphere, so farmers head into the fields to gather the fruit of their hard ...
$5 lab-grown burger could be ready by 2021
Back in 2013, the emerging biotech field of lab-grown meat products held a tasting of a lab-grown burger which cost a staggering ...
Do biotech crops boost yields for organic farmers?
Nutrition, the environment and worker’s wellbeing are the banners of the green crusade. But, with organics charging an average of 50% more ...
Record-high yields suggest climate change no threat to coffee production
For roughly the last two years, the media has been warning us that climate change is threatening the world's supply ...
Is ‘factory farming’ an accurate description of modern agriculture?
I’ve lived in four states on the East Coast and Gulf, and I’ve never found myself wanting come harvest time ...
Could green benefits of biotech crops win over ‘ideological’ environmentalists?
A new study in Nature Sustainability reports that “[e]xtensive field data suggest that impacts on wild populations would be greatly reduced through boosting yields ...
Can we grow clothing textiles from living organisms?
[A] small but growing group of innovators is turning to the genius of nature in an attempt to put wastefulness ...
Will ‘regulatory red tape’ cost India its status as world’s top cotton producer?
Delivering his fifth Independence Day speech on August 15, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he wanted to add ...
Opportunity lost: Has Uganda paid a price for not embracing GMOs, biotechnology?
It has been more than two decades since the commercial introduction of GMO crops. They have delivered a range of ...
Dogs trained to sniff out bacterial diseases could protect bee populations
A new approach in the fight against American foulbrood – a disease effecting beehives across the world – is the ...
Anti-GMO activists can’t be allowed to ‘have their way,’ African farmer warns
When I was a little boy, what I feared most were the masqueraders .... human beings wearing masks or ...
Mushroom-based biopesticides could cut environmental damage from synthetic chemicals
.... In the year 2012 — the last time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) published a report on the subject — chemical ...
Low yields, high costs stop India from embracing organic agriculture
Nearly 25 years ago, an event held at the American Center Auditorium in Chennai on the topic of the Green Revolution witnessed ...
Educating farmers key to biotech crop success in developing world
African countries and the Philippines have made significant progress in developing genetically modified (GMO) crops, adding impetus to the drive to ...
New Age Meats lab-grown sausage passes first taste test
On [September 17th], the startup, called New Age Meats, let a handful of journalists and prospective investors taste its prototype product ...
Talking Biotech: There’s a worldwide vanilla shortage. Can science save our favorite food flavoring?
Vanilla is the world's favorite food flavoring—but there's not enough to go around. Thankfully, scientists are developing new ways to ...
Novel uses for plant hormones could boost crop yields to ‘new limits’
Amidst the growing interest in soil health and soil-plant interactions is a fledgling collective of newer concepts and products, from ...