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.
Tree vaccine: ‘Weaponized’ GM virus could save Florida citrus industry from greening disease
Florida’s citrus growers are running out of time. Since 2005, when a deadly disease called citrus greening first showed up ...
How Cargill flubbed its non-GMO labeling partnership, angering farmers and consumers
As soon as Cargill announced that an outside group had certified more than a dozen of its ingredients as non-GMO, ...
Hobbyist beekeeping practices and rejection of chemical treatments major driver of bee-killing Varroa mites and disease
Hobby beekeeping is very common. A European Bee Health Report found that in many countries, the majority of beekeepers pursue the activity ...
Hawaii documentary claims presence of Big Ag GMO test facilities forces islands to import food
Did you know that the state of Hawaii imports between 80 and 90 percent of its food? This is, among ...
Tomatoes resistant to fungus and blight developed by 94-year-old West Virginia scientist
Mannon Gallegly, West Virginia University professor emeritus of plant pathology, has made it his mission to develop a disease-free tomato ...
Autonomous robot cornfield scanner reveals how individual crops respond to climate change
Allow me to introduce you to Vinobot, the little rover on a mission to make sure crops weather global warming ...
Should Trump scrap USDA’s National Organic Program?
Federal subsidizing of organics has health as well as economic consequences. Many consumers now believe that organic food is healthier, ...
Video: CRISPR-created seedless tomatoes could eliminate need for bee pollination
Don’t like the seeds in tomatoes? You might be pleased to know that seedless ones have been created by gene editing ...
Will CRISPR plant breeding be used for good — Or mostly to drive corporate profit?
This rapid-fire timing [of agribusiness mergers] may have been a coincidence, but it also may be a sign of what’s ...
Will rusty patched bumble bee’s endangered listing become a legal weapon for anti-development activists?
[Editor's note: Paul Driessen is a policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.] Trump’s Interior Department opened a ...
Biodiversity on the farm: It’s more complicated than you might think
[Editor's note: William Price is a statistician in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Idaho ...
How to address skeptical concerns about GMOs and ‘violating nature’
The main concern with GMOs seems to be rooted in a disgust for the artificial — “synthetic” has become synonymous ...
Monsanto is changing the way people eat — Using traditional breeding to make better fruits and vegetables
Monsanto is no one-trick GMO pony. Founded in 1901, the agricultural biotech company has fueled innovations in herbicides, pesticides, and ...
Agriculture’s Big Data revolution increases efficiency, reduces food waste from farm to table
[A]bout a third of food produced is lost or wasted every year. Globally, that’s a $940 billion economic hit. Inefficiencies ...
Infographic: The history of modern crop breeding — And how biotech seeds fit in
Biotech crops are an important milestone for agriculture as it continually improves to keep pace with the growing demand for ...
Herbicide use has increased more for non-GMO crops than genetically engineered varieties
[Editor's note: Andrew Kniss is a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Wyoming.] Herbicide use is ...
After warning label victory, California activists push for a glyphosate herbicide ban
[A]fter a yearlong legal battle, California’s environmental health agency has announced that it will list it as a known carcinogen ...
Agricultural biotechnology regulations are a mess — Here’s how Trump can unshackle innovation
For ideological or political reasons unsupported by data, and drawing on risk paradigms decades out of date, the US imposes ...
Glowing trees, no more colonoscopies and other wonders of synthetic biology
Synthetic biology offers the opportunity to create a wide array of novel life forms, products and approaches to medicine -- ...
‘Refuge planting’: How farmers could help slow developing insect resistance to GMO Bt crops
To date ... Bt crops have been remarkably successful. However, insect pests have shown the ability to evolve resistance to ...
President of Senegal bucks anti-biotechnology pressure: ‘I am for the use of GMOs’
President Macky Sall of Senegal has thrown his weight behind the adoption of agricultural biotechnology in the country. .... President ...
Microbiomes could help plants grow, resist disease and make agriculture more sustainable
Feeding a growing world population amidst climate change requires optimizing the reliability, resource use, and environmental impacts of food production ...
Ayman Jallad: Mysterious Syrian-Lebanese businessman funds anti-GMO activist network in Europe
Ayman Jallad has two battles on his hands. The Syrian-Lebanese businessman is in the challenging business of selling imported Caterpillar ...
How ‘human bees’, biotechnologists and Gates Foundation are rescuing the African cassava staple
Neither conventional breeding nor genetic engineering alone can solve the viruses threatening Africa's key crop. Add some Gates' funding and ...
Our food system isn’t broken, it’s flourishing — and GMO crops are a big reason why
[Editor's note: Randy Krotz is CEO of the US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.] Activists and others [say] the food system [is] broken, ...
GMO sugarcane: Dual-purpose bioenergy crop produces oil for biodiesel, more sugar for ethanol
A multi-institutional team led by the University of Illinois have proven sugarcane can be genetically engineered to produce oil in ...
Inexperienced hobbyist beekeepers ‘major driver’ of honey bee colony losses in Europe
Reports of honey bee population decline has spurred many national efforts to understand the extent of the problem and to ...
