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.
Did anti-GMO groups plant ‘rogue’ GMO wheat in Canada to deliberately disrupt markets to manipulate public opinion?
In the summer of 2017, a contractor applied the popular weed-killer glyphosate (brand name Roundup®) to clear some weeds along ...
Viewpoint: There’s no one ‘butterfly-killing bogeyman’ to blame for declining monarch populations
“When you look at the 25-year trend, it seems quite dire,” [Anurag] Agrawal, a Cornell University professor of ecology and ...
Could commercial herbicides made from fungi bridge sustainability gap between organic and conventional agriculture?
Nature is not just out to kill us, it is out to kill itself, in the interest of surviving over ...
Public sorting through what labels shoppers want on sustainable, lab grown meat, Consumer Reports finds
Consumer Reports, published by the 7 million-member nonprofit Consumers Union, [recently] reported on survey results showing the public expects laboratory-produced ...
Why we don’t all need to be vegans in the pursuit of sustainability
Humans are unique in the degree to which they can manipulate their surroundings. And agriculture is one enormous way to ...
Viewpoint: Consumers with special dietary needs forced to buy overpriced, less nutritious ‘non-GMO’ foods
Because of a tick-borne disease I contracted last year, I am no longer able to eat beef, pork, or dairy products ...
Viewpoint: ‘Regenerative agriculture’ could reverse soil degradation and save our farmland along the way
New technologies and genetically modified crops are usually invoked as the key to feeding the world’s growing population. But a ...
Viewpoint: We should just retire the whole ‘feed the world’ thing when it comes to promoting GMOs
How often do we hear something along the lines of "We won't be able to feed 10 billion people by ...
Viewpoint: Republicans signal support for Obama-era global agricultural aid bill that could usher in higher tech African Green Revolution
The Global Food Security Act, an Obama-era piece of legislation that marshals foreign aid to speed up agricultural growth and reduce ...
Déjà vu all over again: Germany’s ‘regulatory stranglehold’ on New Breeding Techniques mirrors its policy on GMOs 20 years ago
Biotechnology applied to agriculture is beginning to yield all manner of products, including fruits and vegetables that are disease-resistant, more ...
Talking Biotech: How barley gave us pregnancy tests, beer and helped launch an agricultural revolution
Dr. Sheila Adimargono joins Kevin Folta on this week's podcast to discuss barley's role in plant domestication and the development ...
Lab-grown meat debate stirs ethical questions about the future of food and synthetic biology
More than a century ago, dairy farmers sounded the alarm on margarine, insisting that it wasn’t really butter, and it therefore ...
‘Farmbots’: Precision farming with agricultural robots could boost crop yields, cut chemical use
According to both the Government and farmers, the future of farming is one in which small robots will have a ...
‘Clean meat’: How lab-grown foods can feed us in the future
For long enough, I have been fascinated with the idea of growing stuff in the lab whether it’s milk, egg ...
FDA vs. USDA: FDA makes public pitch it has the most expertise to regulate cell-based meat
Food and Drug Administration officials and executives from companies that plan to make meat and seafood from animal cells made ...
‘Dirty Dozen’ list of ‘pesticide-poisoned’ fruits, vegetables used to be her bible, but Huffington Post food writer now sees it as more scare than science
It’s that time of year again, when the nonprofit advocacy organization Environmental Working Group publishes its annual list of the ...
Genetic beacon could detect ‘invasive scourge’ of stinkbugs before they ravage crops
If a farmer can grow it, a brown marmorated stinkbug can destroy it. This invasive scourge has ravaged apples, peaches, ...
How to change consumer perception of crop biotechnology and GMO foods
Genetically modified (GM) foods for human consumption have long been a subject of intense public debate, as well as academic ...
Viewpoint: For consumers concerned about food safety, proposed USDA GMO label is a dismal failure
The USDA just ended their public comment period on their proposed execution of the terrible Federal GMO labeling law passed in 2016. The ...
China embraces artificial intelligence-driven agriculture, emerges as global technology hothouse
China is facing a number of growing pains, but one in particular has proved more taxing than most: How can ...
20 years of biotech crops generated $186.1 billion in economic, ecological and health gains, studies show
The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) and PG Economics Ltd. released new studies highlighting the continued ...
Is the world facing ecological collapse? Not if we ‘engineer our environment’ more productively
In a recent Nature Sustainability paper, a team of scientists concluded that the Earth can sustain, at most, only 7 billion ...
Gene-drive off-switch addresses concerns of releasing ‘genocidal’ mosquitoes into nature to control pests and disease
Researchers in the UK have developed the first ‘switchable’ gene drive system, potentially addressing fears that the use of gene ...
GMO, non-GMO or organic? Comprehensive look at ecological costs and benefits of crop production
Labels on food are everywhere — organic, free range, no antibiotics, non-GMO, made with Genetic Engineering, etc. What do these ...
Gene edited tomatoes could produce natural colorings to replace dyes used to colorize farmed fish
In the wild, fish such as salmon or trout eat crustaceans or insects with natural pigments that lend their flesh ...
Viewpoint: With yield boost over organics of 33 percent, genetic engineering offers developing world chance at food security
Hunger and population outgrowing food supply have been an age-long issue. The English scholar and cleric, Thomas Malthus raised the ...
Viewpoint: Organic milk offers no nutritional or safety advantages over conventional counterpart and is more expensive
While fewer people are drinking milk overall these days, organic milk is holding steady in Canada’s $5-billion organic industry, with ...