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.
‘Future proofing’: Rediscovered wild coffee species could protect against production drops caused by climate change
In dense tropical forests in Sierra Leone, scientists have rediscovered a coffee species not seen in the wild in decades ...
‘Tools for sustainable agriculture of the future’: Biopesticides will be able to control pests, diseases, and weeds — and make crops more resistant to climate change
Biologicals are tools for the sustainable agriculture of the future... Biologicals are a class of agricultural products that include biopesticides, ...
Viewpoint: ‘Consumer activist’ concerns over Florida proposal to use gene drives to extirpate Zika-carrying mosquitoes is thinly veiled anti-biotech attack
Now that their nemesis Monsanto is no longer a thing, [the Organic Consumers Association and the Center for Food Safety] ...
Kenya aims to multiply production of GMO insect-resistant cotton seeds 10-fold by 2022, and distribute across Africa
Farmers in Kenya have been harvesting an average of 5,300 tonnes lint of cotton against a demand of about 38,000 ...
Viewpoint: While China is investing heavily in addressing climate change’s impact on agriculture, US dallies. Here’s why we need to fix that
Popular proposals to cut food’s large environmental footprint rest on the idea that we have all the technologies and information ...
Book review: Jennifer Thompson’s ‘GM Crops and the Global Divide’ addresses Europe’s neo-colonialist attempt to intimidate Africa into rejecting crop biotechnology
Jennifer Thomson’s excellent new book, “GM Crops and the Global Divide” (CSIRO Publishing, 2020), is a highly informed, lucid, and ...
Viewpoint: Earth Day needs a sustainability do-over. It’s devolved into environmental Cassandras prophesying apocalypse, dishing antitechnology dirt and proselytizing for a ‘woke’ agenda
Sadly, today’s Earth Day shares something with the current political environment: It reeks of divisiveness. Earth Day has devolved into ...
CRISPR may help curb malaria by altering a mosquito’s gut genes, new study suggests
Altering a mosquito’s gut genes to make them spread antimalarial genes to the next generation of their species shows promise ...
Podcast: Media’s COVID hypocrisy; Mandatory vaccines; Biodegradable plastic from GM plants
The mainstream press has viciously criticized COVID conspiracy theorists and vaccine rejection. Yet when it comes to other critical science ...
Zinc-fortified wheat set to boost access to essential mineral for millions of poor people
Scientists at a leading global grains research institute expect to sharply ramp up new wheat varieties enriched with zinc that ...
Revamped regulations could accelerate Kenya’s GM, insect-resistant, Bt cotton approval
Radical reforms in Kenya's agricultural sector are set to inject fresh impetus to Bt cotton farming in the country, should ...
Viewpoint: A world without pollinators? Don’t fall for ‘lurid tales of bee Armageddon’
A torrent of media stories from 2013-2014 presented frightening tales of “unprecedented” colony collapse disorder (CCD) among honeybees, conjuring up ...
Brazil approves environmentally ‘Friendly’ GM tool for controlling fall armyworm
Brazilian farmers are a step closer to using an environmentally friendly tool to control a destructive agricultural pest with the ...
Viewpoint: GMO misinformation—How ‘pseudoscience and romanticization of premodern agriculture’ undermine food sustainability
There are legitimate grievances to be made about modern industrial agriculture, but the use of modern biotechnology for the development ...
US intelligence report predicts greater global role for biotechnology
Biotechnology could potentially account for about 20 percent of the global economy by 2040, with agricultural and manufacturing uses the ...
Bangladesh developing new generation of genetically engineered disease-resistant Bt eggplant to fight plant diseases, dramatically cutting insecticide use
Starting with only 20 farmers in 2014, the technology of Bt brinjal – a crop developed to drastically lower hazardous ...
Scientific conundrum solved? Dairy-free cheese that mimics the real thing in development
“Coming at it from a scientific perspective, you can't help but realise that there's no magic in cows or in ...
Claiming pollinator declines are linked to pesticides, Walmart announces new policy encouraging produce suppliers to stop using chlorpyrifos and neonicotinoids on crops
Pollinators include butterflies and moths, birds, bats, beetles and many more, and without them some of our favorite foods wouldn’t ...
Market for CRISPR-edited crops will be limited by hazy global regulatory environment and societal ambivalence
New breeding techniques pioneered by genome editing have gained substantial traction within the last decade, revolutionizing the plant breeding field ...
Video: 7 years of agricultural productivity has been lost to climate change. Global warming is already slowing us down
The future potential impacts of climate change on global crop production has been quantified in many scientific reports, but the ...
What will it take for consumers to embrace lab-grown meat?
Always a wealth of information when it comes to this subject, [Eat Just CEO Josh] Tetrick explains what exactly it ...
Global warming causing eucalyptus trees, used for lumber, to invade native ecosystems. CRISPR gene editing could prevent that
Oregon State University’s Steve Strauss led an international collaboration that showed [a] CRISPR Cas9 gene editing technique could be used ...
Genetics and a second Green Revolution: Gene editing essential to address increasing crop losses as warming temperatures cause a surge in insect populations
For millennia, insects and the plants they feed on have been engaged in a co-evolutionary battle: to eat or not ...
China develops GM corn variety to combat yield-cutting fall armyworm
Food security is a major policy issue in China. To strengthen the nation's seed industry, the country has approved a ...
New piece of the climate change puzzle: Gene identified that could help plants cope with hotter temperatures
Warmer temperatures signal to plants that summer is coming. Anticipating less water, they flower early then lack the energy to ...
Agroecology in Africa: Silver bullet or pathway to poverty?
A model of agroecology that limits farming inputs in Africa to solely indigenous materials is meeting resistance from farmers and ...
Viewpoint: Uganda’s ‘mistrust of science’ threatens local farming innovation and economic growth
Uganda is merely watching as other countries embrace technologies such as biotechnology that are transforming agriculture and earning them huge ...
