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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Viewpoint: Modern farming, economic growth don’t cause biodiversity decline—they prevent it
Driven perhaps by envy at the attention that climate change is getting, and ambition to set up a great new ...
Higher CO2 emissions, pesticide use raise doubts about sustainability of organic wine
The popularity of organic food and wine is not going away anytime soon. Yet as the European viticultural debate increasingly ...
Genetically engineered trees could save our forests—but it won’t be an easy fix
A biotech tree could simultaneously increase and decrease the wildness of a forest ...
Video: Fine-tuning beneficial mutations breeds higher yielding tomatoes
Unexpected interactions between mutations can be a thorn in the side for plant breeders, especially when they’re trying to promote ...
When lab-grown meat hits the market, success will hinge on consumer preference, not price
Demand for plant-based options, such as the Impossible Burger, is rising quicker than companies can keep up with. However, for those ...
May election offers Europe chance to embrace gene editing and ‘smart agriculture,’ boost sustainable farming
On May 26, Europeans will be able to vote to elect new MEPs. This election will no doubt provide an ...
Podcast: From anti-GMO journalist to crop biotech advocate—Alliance for Science managing editor Joan Conrow
For many years, the developing world has been at the center of a heated debate between mainstream scientists and anti-GMO ...
‘Silent crisis’? UN report warns agriculture, overfishing accelerate biodiversity declines
The world's most comprehensive, and damning, report on the state of nature [was released May 6] in Paris. The UN's ...
Patricia Nanteza is Uganda’s agricultural biotechnology communications queen
You go to the annual National Agricultural Show in Jinja and she is there. You go to the Harvest Money ...
Uganda’s anti-GMO activists blamed for stonewalling nation’s new biosafety rules
A campaign by non-governmental organizations is determined to keep Uganda free of GMOs ...
Steep prices push lab-grown meat makers to pitch products as ‘humane luxuries’
[M]akers of cultured meat, such as Memphis Meats, New Age Meats and Aleph Farms, face several barriers to bringing their ...
Indian farmers grow illegal insect-resistant Bt eggplant to control destructive pests, as government lags on approval
Farmers in Haryana and experts fear widespread contamination of genetically modified (GM) brinjal or eggplant in the state with a ...
Kenya reconsidering GMO crop ban to support food security
Kenya is reconsidering its 2012 import ban on genetically modified maize as more than 1 million of its citizens require urgent humanitarian ...
Podcast: ‘Are we all going to die?’ Entomologist breaks down the ‘bee-pocalypse’ that ‘threatens the global food supply’
Bees are important crop pollinators and reduced bee numbers have been described by farmers overseas as a bee crisis. Global ...
USDA endorses G-20 commitment to science-based policy, sustainable farming technology
USDA officials signed on to a G-20 statement backing the development of climate-smart technology and promoting science-based decision-making. Top USDA ...
IBM, Yara International announce digital platform to optimize crop production for individual farms
Yara International, a leader in crop nutrition, and IBM announced [April 26] an agreement to build the world’s leading digital ...
Neonicotinoid insecticides threaten birds? Friends of the Earth botches the science, entomologist says
Usually the Friends of the Earth emails are about some environmental cause that makes me chuckle. They’re always on the ...
Genetically modified Arctic Fuji apple headed for grocery stores following FDA approval
Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc., developer of genetically modified non-browning apples, on April 26 received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval ...
From prosthetic limbs to lab-grown meat, technology can drastically improve animal welfare
While it's easy to think about all the ways technology has benefited humans, major technological advances have improved the lives ...
Soil erosion accelerates climate change, impacting 3.2 billion people, UN report claims
There's three times more carbon in the soil than in the atmosphere – but that carbon's being released by deforestation ...
Burkina Faso cotton production plummets after phasing out insect resistant Bt GMO crop
Cotton production in Burkina Faso is continuing its downward slide three years after the nation phased out the use of ...
African farmers look to genetic engineering in fight against plant diseases and pests
The benefits of genetic engineering will not come to fruition in Africa if the opponents of the technology continue to ...
‘Sticky’ pesticides could protect crops, cut harmful agricultural runoff
A problem with many pesticides is that rain washes them off plants and into the soil and groundwater. Now, researchers ...
‘Road map’ of pollen development could help breed more desirable food crops
....Sexual reproduction has evolved as nature's way of shuffling the genetic deck of cards, so to speak. That shuffling actually ...
Alternative protein market gets competitive as startup Beyond Meat preps for IPO
Wall Street is going vegan. At some point in the next four weeks, Beyond Meat, a pioneering plant-based meat alternative ...
Viewpoint: Ironically named ‘Saving America’s Pollinators Act’ would harm bees, hinder sustainable farming
Some old ideas for bad laws are endlessly recycled. Take the case of the Saving America’s Pollinators Act, a nearly six-year-old ...
Attempts to CRISPR gene edited cassava plants to fight off viruses resulted in mutated viruses, study finds, raising concerns
Using gene-editing technology to create virus-resistant cassava plants could have serious negative ramifications, according to new research by plant biologists ...
