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.
CRISPR gene-edited rice could help soil bacteria produce nitrogen fertilizer. Here’s how it works
Researchers have used CRISPR to engineer rice that encourages soil bacteria to fix nitrogen, which is required for their growth ...
Video: Lessons from Sri Lanka — Embracing organic farming methods from the 19th century collapsed an entire economy
Whether it's agriculture or industry, production systems will never go back to the past. Sri Lanka, the small island country, ...
Viewpoint: GM vs organic crops — How to feed the world without destroying it
There are more and more people in the world who are getting richer and are therefore eating more and more ...
Viewpoint: Great Green Leap… backwards — Europe’s ideological obsession with old solutions
I have too often warned that Western affluence and prosperity can disappear in a heartbeat through irrational policies. Europe has ...
Viewpoint: Ordinary African farmers should not be blocked from technologically-advanced agricultural solutions helping the rest of the world
Besides the long drought making food production difficult there are crop pests and diseases that are steadily wiping out staple ...
Kenyan farming experts urge permanent lift of GM ban to address animal feed shortage
Punitive local tax regimes, technical restrictions, challenges in access to foreign currency and logistics disruptions — most of these exacerbated ...
Viewpoint: ‘We need to reduce imports’ — Colombian food security proponents urge expanding GMO crops to reach food sovereignity goal
During his inaugural speech, President Gustavo Petro stated that “Colombia is a country that must and can enjoy food sovereignty ...
Dutch farmer viewpoint: ‘Green activists want to destroy the ability of farms to produce high-quality, abundant, clean, and inexpensive food’
Over the past few months, thousands of Dutch farmers have blocked highways and staged protests. Hundreds have been arrested, and ...
Europe’s climate change-induced droughts endanger food security, spur calls to embrace biotechnology and other sustainable measures
The scientific community has preferably dealt with studying drought in regions or countries ( Sahel , Horn of Africa, South Africa, Australia...) ...
Glyphosate re-approved for Sri Lanka import as country attempts to recover from failed organic-only experiment
The Finance Ministry has lifted the import ban on the popular weedicide glyphosate with effect from August 5 while allowing ...
Gene-edited rice can naturally fix nitrogen in the soil, vastly reducing the need for chemical fertilizers
Renowned botanist Eduardo Blumwald, professor at the University of California, and his team have found a new way to give cereal crops ...
Analysis: Assessing sustainable food production — Certifications like ‘organic’ tell us very little. It’s time to shift focus to outcomes
In 80 years—during which our knowledge of farming’s environmental impacts has grown profoundly—the federal government’s basic approach to agricultural sustainability ...
Investigation Part II: Fraudulently marketing ‘organic food’ offers huge illegal rewards for growers
Over the roughly six years Anderson bought conventionally grown grain and fraudulently sold it as organic at a huge profit, ...
Investigation Part I: Growing fraud threatens trust in organic food industry, says South Dakota News
Kent Duane Anderson of Belle Fourche made $71 million in fraudulent income by selling thousands of tons of conventionally grown ...
Viewpoint: ‘Regenerative agriculture’ could lead the way in feeding the world — but to fulfill its potential it needs to embrace biotechnology
The use of technology - such as AI - in regenerative agriculture is key. Biotech is also increasingly creating potential ...
How scientists are genetically tweaking cotton to make it more sustainable
Scientists can use good genes from other organisms to replace the defective ones in cotton, yielding cotton plants with all ...
Exotic animals are off our plates for ethical reasons, but cell-cultivated meat could make cruelty-free substitutes a reality
London-based company Primeval Foods focuses exclusively on cultivating exotic meats, such as lions, tigers, and zebras. Similarly, the Australian company Vow Foods ...
Viewpoint: For centuries, grain yields remained stagnant — but they have tripled since 1960. We can thank biotechnology innovations
For centuries, yields for crops like corn remained relatively steady. Everything changed in the middle of the 20th century ...
Selling a myth: Former OXFAM development expert on why agroecology cannot address global food security
Agriculture shares with education the dubious honor of being a field of knowledge where everyone feels empowered to give their ...
Viewpoint: Could a GMO herbicide-resistant milkweed help save the Monarch butterfly?
Sobering news broke this month for those of us who love monarch butterflies – and who doesn’t? Those black and ...
Study: Why plant-based meats are healthier for you and better for the planet
There are increasingly strong reasons to move away from industrial animal agriculture for the good of the environment, animals, our ...
‘Feed Your Mind’: FDA releases guide on GMOs, emphasizing their safety, sustainability and occasional nutritional advantages
GMO foods have been available to consumers since the early 1990s. Since then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ...
Are robot bees a viable solution to pollination problems?
Every so often a headline will shout about the coming of the robo-bees, with the vision of a dystopian future ...
GM seeds likely to be in the hands of Ghanaian farmers by next year, scientists say
Ghanaian scientists say genetically modified seeds will most likely be in the hands of farmers by the start of the ...
Maci Mueller: Pioneering revolutionary changes in livestock breeding through gene editing
Scientific innovator Maci Mueller is using gene editing to revolutionize the way that ranchers and dairy farmers perpetuate their herds ...
‘Solving Africa’s food challenges’: Will anti-GMO activists and other market obstacles block adoption?
“We're living on borrowed time,” says Wijnand Swart, a plant pathologist at the University of Free State (UFS) in South ...
Viewpoint: Switching to organic food because it’s healthier, safer and better for the environment? Think again
Many consumers are committed to organic products for reasons that are more emotional than logical. They frequently define their purchasing ...
