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.
Gene editing targets pathogens that limit rice yields
As global food insecurity climbed to a perilous high in 2022, scientists ramped up their efforts to perfect best practices ...
A plant pandemic is destroying wheat crops across the globe. Here’s how we can use genetics and fungicides to stop it
Wheat, the most important food crop, is threatened by a blast disease pandemic. Now a new study, conducted by an ...
Breeding ‘green’ cows? CRISPR poised to reduce climate-polluting methane gas emissions
Scientists and companies are coming up with plenty of ways to curb cow methane, from simply changing their food source ...
Scientists say East Africa’s farmers need improved seeds to counter pests and effects of climate change
About 12 kilometers from Uganda’s Kampala City, along the Bombo-Gulu Highway, fleshy and dark-green banana plants thrive on a farm ...
Video: World’s first climate-resistant strawberries developed in steamy Singapore
The strawberries growing at Singrow’s indoor farm at the Science Park are derived from a Japanese varietal, but have been ...
Moth sex pheromones: Tweaking plants with gene editing can replace some pesticides
By using precision gene engineering techniques, researchers at the Earlham Institute in Norwich have been able to turn tobacco plants ...
Anti-biotech activists claim biotech crops promote “unsustainable” monoculture? Let’s separate facts from ideology
Biotech critics frequently claim that conventional agriculture and GMOs promote monoculture farming, which is harmful to biodiversity. A closer look ...
Here’s how drones can optimize harvests and save on labor
Drones are being used for an ever widening range of agricultural applications enabled by new technology and diminishing regulatory constraints ...
United States promises Africa 7 billion dollars to tackle climate crisis and food insecurity
United States vice president Kamala Harris’s nine-day visit to Africa saw her discuss with leaders measures to tackle the continent’s ...
Biodiversity collapse? How ancient fossils can help signal future threats
Over the past 500 million years, five large-scale extinctions have taken place, with current predictions indicating that humans are rapidly ...
Plant microbiomes: Humans are not the only organisms that need healthy biomes. Here is how to grow safer and more nutritious food and feed
A “physical examination” is the standard way to track human health. It involves a variety of measurements such as blood ...
Adult Monarch butterflies not threatened by neonicotinoid insecticides, independent university study finds
Numerous studies have documented the negative effects of neonicotinoids on bees; it remains crucial to examine how neonicotinoids affect other ...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to detect crop diseases are on the way
Swarms of locusts devastating crops in East Africa, corn rootworms wreaking havoc in the Midwestern US. Blights destroying rubber trees in Brazil and ravaging potatoes in South India ...
A French startup has engineered houseplants that scrub toxins from the air. Could it make a difference?
Nestled in a jelly-like growing medium, it looks like a canapé—or, possibly, the future ...
Forbidden meatball: Genetically-engineered wooly mammoth meat illustrates future of food
Australian cultured meat company Vow unveiled a meatball made of wooly mammoth meat and grown entirely in a lab. But ...
Viewpoint: GMO crops are key to sustainable farming — why are some scientists afraid to talk about them?
A shallow piece in the journal Science downplaying the importance of GMO crops belongs in a New Age publication ...
Nations agree on a compromise for biodiversity, what happens next is up to all of us
Around 200 nations attended the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal at the ...
Video: From scorpion-venom cabbage to human breast milk from cows, here are 9 of the most unique genetically-engineered products likely to come to market
In this video are some of the strangest genetically modified products. We know that these products aren’t handcrafted by Mother ...
Zimbabwe smallholder farmers struggle to match climate science with practice
Justin Mlalazi’s crop is only knee-high, and this being the month of March, other smallholder farmers across the country are ...
GLP podcast and video: ESG undermines sustainable farming? Top-10 anti-biotech propagandists; FDA’s ‘healthy’ food labels
Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) metrics are supposed to help promote sustainable industry, but could they actually undermine efforts to make farming more ...
Viewpoint: Why the EU’s Farm to Fork policy doesn’t measure up to tech-driven sustainable US agriculture
Recently, the USDA hosted the Agricultural Outlook Forum, and as someone who covers food and trade policies in Europe, the ...
Agriculture and climate change: Taking the best of all farming systems could tip the carbon scale in the right direction
Agriculture contributes a significant portion of the world's climate-changing greenhouse gases. In turn, changes in climate will reduce agricultural yields ...
Here’s how synthetic biology can support eco-friendly agriculture
Methane from cattle and livestock accounted for 37.5% of greenhouse gases in 2020. Added to this is the carbon footprint from gas ...
Crops that tolerate droughts and climate change? Here’s how cactus genes could help
This past summer, a widespread drought across the United States lowered crop yields by as much as one-third as corn, ...
Clear plastic from slimy seaweed? Wild algae poised to become packaging alternative of the future
There’s seven million square kilometres of seaweed already growing around the world — about the same size as the Amazon ...
How do plants respond to stress? Noisily
Stressed plants make audible sounds that can be heard many feet away, and the type of sound corresponds with the ...
GLP podcast and video: ‘Clean’ cosmetics aren’t so clean; England embraces CRISPR crops; Gene-edited animals produce 30 percent more meat
So-called "clean" cosmetics have become a big business in recent years. But as with food fads like "Non-GMO," clean cosmetics ...
