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.
Revamping ‘woefully out of date’ biotech regulations easier said than done
Depending on whom you talk to, the CRISPR’d mushroom isn’t strictly defined as synthetic biology. Still, genetic technology exists on ...
Dow Chemical asks Trump administration to ‘set aside’ government studies pesticide maker says are flawed
Dow Chemical is pushing a Trump administration open to scrapping regulations to ignore the findings of federal scientists who point ...
Did Bill Nye err when discussing Monsanto, GMOs in new Netflix series?
Bill Nye comes out swinging in the first season of Bill Nye Saves the World, his new Netflix series. ...
Sustainably grown meats hitting markets, but public perception of technologies may hinder benefits
Americans love protein. Each year they eat an average of 210 pounds of meat per capita, more than double the ...
Costly delays: Australia’s sluggish adoption of GMO crops carries a hefty price tag
The nation lost out on $431 million in economic gains, while also missing a chance to cut greenhouse gas emissions ...
Funding for USDA’s National Organic Program tripled under Obama. What will Trump do with it?
[Editor's note: Mischa Popoff is a policy advisor at The Heartland Institute, and is the author of Is it Organic? Jay Lehr ...
Spider silk from plants? GMO tobacco could provide new generation of tough, lightweight clothing
Scientists have revealed they can generate the fine but strong threads used by spiders to make their webs by growing ...
Sweet success: Genes identified that could lead to sucrose-boosting GM sugarcane
Scientists in Brazil are taking steps towards genetically modifying sugarcane so it produces more sucrose naturally, looking to eventually boost ...
International Monsanto Tribunal: Fake trial distracts from real food, farming problems
[Editor's note: Kavin Senapathy is an author, public speaker and science advocate.] The verdict I predicted has landed—agri-giant Monsanto has ...
After months without a secretary of agriculture, former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue confirmed to post
After months without a secretary of agriculture, the Senate voted Monday evening [April 24, 2017] to confirm former Georgia Gov ...
Are neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments endangering wild bees?
Environmentalists often blame neonicotinoid insecticides for the plight of wild bee species. But the science doesn't support this hypothesis, and ...
Why I changed my mind about the need to feed my kids organic food
[Editor's note: Jenny Splitter is a writer, storyteller and mother of two.] A few years ago I learned that most ...
Malawi moves towards commercialization of GM cotton, cowpeas and bananas
[Editor's note: Katherine Chaweza is a 2016 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellow and the communication and outreach coordinator for the Programme ...
Cargill under fire: ‘We don’t agree’ GMOs unhealthy; biotech crops ‘key tool for sustainability’
Cargill is attempting to satisfy both ends of the spectrum by acknowledging the growing group of people against genetically-modified organisms ...
Wide range, high levels of pesticides found in apple orchard honeybee colonies
Honeybees - employed to pollinate crops during the blooming season - encounter danger due to lingering and wandering pesticides, according ...
‘Thirsty plants’ to land conservation: How biotechnology helps address developing world’s agricultural challenges
[Editor's note: Sarah Evanega holds a doctorate in plant biology from Cornell University, where she is the director of the Alliance ...
Fish farm problem? Salmon diseases evolving more virulently in farms
Fish farming is one of the fastest growing food production sectors in the world, but infections caused by bacteria, viruses, ...
How US NGOs are exploiting Europe’s precautionary chemophobia to ban glyphosate and GMOs
Environmental NGOs have a harder time influencing the evidence-based US regulatory system, so they're taking the fight to Europe — ...
‘Wouldn’t help much’: What would a ban on neonicotinoid insecticides do for bee health?
“Everyone knows insecticides can kill bees,” says honeybee biologist Francis Ratnieks at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. “The ...
Non-GMO breeding changes the makeup of crops more than genetic engineering
The composition of GM breeding stacks was more similar to the composition of iso-hybrids than was the composition of nonGM ...
Can you be a skeptic and anti-GMO?
[Editor’s note: Myles Power is a chemist in Manchester, England.] Over the past year, I have been giving a talk to ...
Talking Biotech: What’s blocking GMO crop adoption in Africa?
Sociologist Matthew Harsh: Poor communication between Kenyan scientists, policymakers, farmers and anti-biotech activists slows GMO adoption ...
March for Science: Agony and ecstasy of a Malaysian agricultural biotechnology science communicator
In many ways, communicating science can be more difficult than scientific research. As advances in biotechnology speed up, scientists around ...
Will corporate mergers in agriculture spur innovation?
[Editor's note: Ed Wiederstein is a former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau and a farmer in Iowa.] When funding was more ...
‘Glyphosate is vital’: Scottish farmers launch campaign to support herbicide’s reauthorization
As the EU decision on whether or not to re-authorise the herbicide glyphosate approaches, a farming union has called on ...
‘Backlash’ against GMOs may be more about corporate power than science
Much of the backlash against GMOs is less about genetic engineering and more about the business practices of the corporations ...
There are no GM oranges — So why is Tropicana deceiving consumers with Non-GMO label?
[Editor's note: Greg Jaffe is the Director of the Project on Biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public ...