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.
What role could GMOs play in achieving sustainable biofuel?
One of the primary benefits of using GMOs in biofuel production is the potential for increased crop yields. By engineering ...
With climate disruptions increasing and bans on most genetically-engineered crops, African crop yields remain among lowest in the world
Africa has a huge population with by far the least sophisticated food production and processing systems. Any improvements would have the ...
Viewpoint: Food upcycling — Maybe the key to food sustainability isn’t growing more crops, but cutting back food waste
[The Salt and Straw] ice cream chain is among those at the forefront of the upcycling movement, the process of ...
Why India’s government-subsidized, organic farming experiment hasn’t worked out well
On a cold winter’s day in January 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared Sikkim as the first organic farming state in India ...
Russia banned GMOs years ago to distinguish itself from the United States. What’s its current stance toward genetic engineering, CRISPR and other New Breeding Techniques?
Russia's decision to ban importation and cultivation of GMOs made sense from a political perspective. But it's a decision the ...
Is a split developing between the European organic establishment and the farmers it claims to represent over the regulation of CRISPR and other New Genomic Techniques?
Anti-GE activists spin a narrative that large agribusiness companies have seduced farmers into planting GMO crops where it’s legal, such ...
Viewpoint: ‘It’s time for transparency’ — How promoting alleged benefits of organic food misleads shoppers and undermines our farm system
Rather predictable howls of protest from organic lobbyists greeted the recent decision to allow the temporary use of neonic seed ...
What’s trendy isn’t always best: Why land-sharing and rewilding risk driving up food imports and accelerating biodiversity loss
Numerous studies show that some of today’s most popular conservation policies are doing little to help those species most affected ...
Multi-country effort helps develop gene-edited rice that both boosts yield and resists disease
Researchers from the University of California, Davis, and an international team of scientists used the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas to create ...
Flipping the script: Gates Foundation funds ‘farmer-centric’ approach to developing next-generation agricultural technologies in the developing world
Across the world, agricultural scientists are starting to work backward. For years, they’ve seen how improved crop varieties — which ...
Video: Do pest-resistant GM crops harm workers? Kenyan farmers say no, tout benefits of Bt cotton grown harvested in semi-arid region
Farmers from Kenya's semi-arid Mbeere region have embraced Bt cotton, a genetically modified variety, despite the discussions on the dangers ...
‘We live in a changed climate’: Here’s what may happen to wheat crops as number of heat waves and droughts increase
The world is getting hotter, causing shifts in seasonal patterns and increasing the amount of extreme weather such as severe ...
Can regenerative agriculture live up to its hype and help feed a globally growing population?
Decades of industrial agriculture have caused environmental and social damage across the globe. Soils have deteriorated and plant and animal species are ...
‘It’s the only way we’ll have Cabernet Sauvignon in 50 years’ — Disease-resistant gene-edited ‘SuperGrapes’ can help farmers control pernicious powdery mildew that’s destroying vine crops
Powdery mildew comes from a fungus called Erysiphe necator that’s native to eastern North America. While America’s native grape species have developed ...
Viewpoint: Climate crisis forces Europe to reconsider technology-rejectionist food and farming policies
Experts are advocating the use of new strains of gene-edited crops that are capable of surviving the punishing heat waves ...
22% yield increase: How non-photochemical quenching, or NPQ, could dramatically boost corn production
Awash in a rowed sea of its brethren, a corn leaf relegated to the lowest rung of its stem spends ...
East African Community member states urged to harmonize policies on waste management
East African Community member states should harmonize their policies on waste management because there is more value in tackling the ...
Podcast: Gene-edited avocados in development could stop quick browning and reduce food waste
The global consumption and trade of avocados have seen remarkable growth, but commercial challenges exist. A natural enzymatic process in ...
Viewpoint: ‘No magic wand will answer the grim tidings of climate change’’ — Asian farming experts urge wider adoption of technology in agriculture
The father of India’s green revolution, M.S. Swaminathan, once famously said: “If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance ...
Faster growth, higher yields, heat and drought resistance — Is there anything gene-edited seeds can’t do?
Israeli agtech start-up BetterSeeds distinguishes itself by its focus on a burning issue of the day that affects all crops ...
Viewpoint: Here are 10 misconceptions about reforestation benefits. There’s a better alternative
Public dialogue has emphasized potential benefits of tree planting while downplaying pitfalls and limitations that are well established by social ...
Viewpoint: Protectionist food trade policies — ‘EU’s obsessively unilateral embrace of organic farming is intransigent, impractical, and inconsiderate of other nations’
As the World Trade Organization is meeting in Geneva... Biden administration officials have taken aim at Europe’s protectionist trade policies ...
Viewpoint: Genetically-modified mustard is key for India to reduce expensive imports of oilseed, a ‘prime guzzler of foreign currency’
India’s dependence on edible oil imports to meet its growing domestic demand has been cause of concern over the years ...
Climate-induced ketchup shortage? How AI and other advanced technologies are helping farmers navigate global warming
Three summers’ worth of unprecedented high heat in the world’s key tomato-producing regions—Australia, Spain, and California’s central valley—have led to ...
Viewpoint: ‘Elites are reprogramming us to tolerate poverty’ — Green ‘degrowthers’ lobby against carbon-free nuclear power and high-production farming
Political elites throughout the developed world are embracing the ideology of ‘degrowth’. They now seem to believe that shrinking our ...
Will AI-optimized solar farms finally open door to more ‘clean’ energy — or are companies just angling for the next government green subsidy?
With the rise of ChatGPT and other artificial-intelligence chatbots, AI is everywhere, from your doctors office to your brokerage account. It’s also poised ...
Viewpoint: Do you really want a sustainable food system revolution? Let’s expand the definition of regenerative ag to include all the tools in the farmer’s toolbox
Climate change and land and nature lost to settlement and agriculture were not important topics then. When students of today ...
