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.
Drought-tolerant corn adoption jumps 20% in four years as US farmers strive to protect crop yields
Droughts have been among the most significant causes of crop yield reductions and losses for centuries....To date, little has been ...
Video: Tomorrow’s crops could be grown indoors, without soil or pesticides
As the world's population grows and climate change accelerates, farmers are increasingly turning to biotechnology, engineering and data science to ...
Grasses that genetically modify themselves could help prevent spread of GMOs in nature
Scientists have discovered that grasses are able to short cut evolution by taking genes from their neighbors. The findings suggest ...
Nigera’s approval of GMO cowpea signals Africa’s willingness to embrace biotech crops
Nigeria is on the path to becoming the first country to cultivate biotech cowpea after the country’s biosafety agency granted ...
Gene-edited disease-resistant animals could reduce poverty in Africa’s most vulnerable communities
A researcher in Edinburgh is leading efforts to develop gene-edited farm animals for poor farmers in Africa. Prof Appolinaire Djikeng ...
‘Most foods are GMOs’ and other popular anti-biotech myths debunked
Despite being heavily researched, genetically modified organisms—commonly called GMOs—have many myths and falsehoods surrounding them. Most of these myths are ...
Lab-grown meat may boost climate change more than cattle farming
Currently proposed types of lab-grown meat cannot provide a cure-all for the detrimental climate impacts of meat production without a ...
Federal regulators ask biotech experts if GMO trees should be deployed to save ‘dying’ US forests
Plans are under way to plant swathes of genetically engineered trees across the ailing forests of North America in a bid to save them ...
How global climate change makes it harder to farm: Higher CO2 levels, warmer temperatures may spur glyphosate resistance in some weeds
Herbicides are the most commonly used means of controlling weeds. Recently, there has been growing concern over the potential impacts ...
Talking Biotech: Ethos Chocolate—the pro-GMO candy brand winning over biotech skeptics
Ethos chocolate hypes its use of GMO ingredients to promote crop biotechnology ...
‘Eco-friendly’ fungus capsules could help potato farmers fight destructive wireworm pest
An EU-funded INBIOSOIL project has developed a new, eco-friendly method to control wireworm in potatoes that can be used in ...
Crop diversity worldwide is growing, but wheat, maize (corn), soy, and rice cover almost 50% of farmland worldwide
Global agriculture is increasingly dominated by just a handful of crops with limited genetic richness, says a group of researchers ...
Video: How Bt insect-resistant eggplant helped farmers in Bangladesh beat back an invasive pest
A new study confirms that genetically modified, pest-resistant Bt eggplant (brinjal) has helped smallholder farmers in Bangladesh greatly reduce their ...
Viewpoint: Here’s why we don’t have to worry about a world without insects
Recent headlines about the coming collapse of the insect world are another case of extrapolation from inadequate data ...
Researchers hunt for heat-tolerant rice, wheat varieties as global temperatures rise
A group of Arkansas State University educators and students are studying effects of heat on rice crops in a three-university ...
Silent majority? Most Americans may embrace biotech, but vocal anti-GMO minority dominates the conversation
[Citrus greening disease] is threatening to topple the multibillion-dollar citrus industry in the U.S. by infecting millions of acres of ...
Neonicotinoid insecticide clothianidin unlikely to harm healthy honeybee colonies
Interactions between multiple stressors have been implicated in elevated honeybee colony losses. Here, we extend our landscape-scale study on the ...
20 plus years of data show Bt insect-resistant crops to be ‘powerful,’ sustainable pest management tools
Genetically engineered (GE) crops producing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) (mainly Cry proteins) have become a major control tactic for a ...
Pro-organic groups petition USDA to exclude hydroponic farming from organic certification
The Center for Food Safety filed a petition with the Department of Agriculture Jan. 16 urging the agency to exclude hydroponically grown ...
Modern farming isn’t driving insect declines, agricultural industry says
A new piece of research, carried out by Francisco Sánchez-Bayo and Kris Wyckhuys, reviewed 73 historical reports of insect declines from ...
New DNA sequencing technique offers ‘unprecedented’ look at molecular changes in GMO plants
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are one of the most contentious topics in science today. But a study from the Salk Institute, ...
Cattle industry fights to preserve ‘meat’ label as plant-based meat-like products proliferate
The cattle ranchers and farm bureaus of America are not going to give up their hold on the word meat ...
Egypt poised to again lead Africa in agricultural biotechnology innovation
When will Egypt again lead Africa in agricultural biotech innovation? That question kept running through my mind when I visited ...
Plant scientists: Anti-GMO activism has warped the public’s understanding of biotechnology
Public perception of genetically engineered (GE) crops is being manipulated by organizations that purport to represent the interests of consumers ...
Potato breeding ‘revolution’ aims to safeguard spuds against proliferating pests and climate change
In Peru and around the world, enhancing the potato has become a high priority. It is the most important food ...
Argentina delays commercial release of drought-tolerant GMO wheat, assessing trade disruptions
Although the new drought-tolerant transgenic wheat developed by an Argentine company has the support of President Macri, the Minister of ...
Intensive agriculture driving insects towards extinction, threatening “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems,” study claims
The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems,” according to the ...
