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?
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Greenwashing or greening agriculture? Food companies developing efforts to prevent carbon in soil from leaking into the atmosphere
Jason Johnson, Stonyfield Organic’s farmer relationship manager, fires up the AgriCORE soil sampling tool in a pasture with sweeping views ...
America needs food: Why do presidential debates ignore agricultural policy?
Much of the presidential debates involve rehashing points of the last two presidential terms. Gun rights, immigration, and the conduct ...
As grocery store prices rise, consumers open to experimentation opt for animal meat over more expensive plant-based versions
In a survey of more than 1,200 US adults, Purdue University found that consumers largely preferred beef from cattle over ...
Viewpoint: Finding optimal crop traits using traditional breeding is like finding ‘a needle in a haystack’. Here’s how precision breeding can help
Finding the best genetic characteristics of a crop one season at a time through traditional plant breeding was like finding, ...
Is lab-grown meat environmentally harmful?
U.C. Davis researchers concluded that producing cell-cultured meat could actually be more burdensome to the environment than its traditionally farmed ...
How heirloom seeds help preserve genetic diversity
Safeguarding heirlooms may be more important now than ever, as the full scope of our current biodiversity emergency continues to come into ...
Sequencing the watermelon family tree reveals ‘lost’ disease-resistance genes that were bred out generations ago
As autumn looms, we’re enjoying the last bites of sweet, juicy watermelon ...
Quixotic vision: Why advocates’ obsession with agroecology will prolong poverty in Africa and the rest of the developing world
Like in the rest of the world, the vision for the future of agriculture in the developing world is highly ...
Kenya looks to GMO cotton to jumpstart textile industry
Kenya recently said it will leverage adoption of Bt cotton to revitalise the textile and apparel industry. The government is ...
How a ‘foreign invasion’ contributed to Hawaii’s devastating wildfires
After a catastrophic wildfire that killed more than 100 people in Hawaii, eyes have turned toward an unexpected culprit: invasive ...
Can we ‘vacuum carbon dioxide from the atmosphere’ to fight global warming?
In August, the Biden Administration granted $1.2 billion in federal funding to kickstart a project intended to vacuum carbon dioxide up ...
Viewpoint: ‘What would a future without the weed-killer glyphosate look like?’
Glyphosate helped end the reign of the weed once it was approved in 1974. Then, when combined with genetic modification ...
Grasshoppers under siege: Here’s how climate change depletes insect populations and threatens the global food supply
It’s tough out there for a hungry grasshopper on the Kansas prairie. Oh, there’s plenty of grass to eat, but ...
Viewpoint: Claiming a ‘slippery slope’, Non-GMO Project opposes synthetic palm oil, which would protect biodiversity, limit climate change and reduce pollution
Palm oil is ubiquitous, in part because it has a higher yield and lower cost of production than any other vegetable ...
Cost of GMO bans: Global crop assessment finds GMO restrictions limit food production to ⅓ of potential, with poorer countries hit hardest
How costly are GM bans? To find out, we calculate by how much yields would have been higher in 2019 ...
Canadian farmers abandon organic certification because approved ‘natural’ chemicals can’t control devastating grasshoppers
Organic growers may have decisions to make after grasshoppers chomped their way through prairie fields this summer ...
Genetically-modified crops poised to revolutionize sustainable farming in Nigeria
One of Nigeria’s standout accomplishments is the commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) crops, a significant milestone that has garnered attention ...
How gene editing can keep melons fresher for longer
The gaseous plant hormone ethylene has been long known to promote fruit ripening and play a certain role in shelf-life ...
Lab-grown meat: This may be the only way to sustainably boost global meat production
Some may baulk at the idea of meat originating in a lab, but the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ...
Could beanless brews redefine the coffee industry and sharply reduce its carbon footprint?
The link between coffee and climate change is well-documented. The industry has been hit with low harvests, uneven yields and uncertainty ...
Green transition: How agriculture can drive climate change solutions
It is widely recognized that we must transition our energy economies to a greener, more sustainable state. This will only happen ...
Viewpoint: Collapse of Sri Lankan organic-only farming experiment remains warning about putting ideology ahead of science and common sense
Having put an end to a bloody guerrilla war that had been dragging on for three decades, Sri Lanka had ...
By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. Here’s a ‘natural’ solution — genetically-modified plastic-eating microbes
“Recycling is basically a myth. Nothing really gets recycled—it ends up in the landfills and oceans and leads to toxic ...
Reconstructing the ‘perfect’ watermelon: Returning ‘lost genes’ from wild relatives to modern fruit
Could farmers soon be growing and harvesting the perfect watermelon? It is no secret — delivering juicy, delicious “summer smiles” is no ...
Pesticides and Food: It’s not a black or white issue — Part 5: Soil health ― When synthetic pesticides are more sustainable than ‘natural’ organics
Most consumers believe organic farming avoids pesticides and prioritizes the health of the environment more than conventional farming. However, this ...
Cutting-edge fashion: From bacteria-dyed fabric to algae-based textiles, green fashion is experiencing a technological boom
A crop of scientists and fashion tech pioneers are increasingly looking to nature for clues as to how to develop ...
Climate-smart genetically-engineered seeds may be Nigeria’s only viable way to confront farming disruptions brought on by climate change
Climate change has been a major menace in agricultural production especially for Nigeria that is fighting hard to produce enough ...