Daily Food & Ag Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of agricultural and food issues, including the GMO debate, conventional and organic farming, regulations, new breeding technologies and sustainability. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
Mushroom handbags? Synthetic biology is expanding into the fashion industry
The fashion industry’s expectations are particularly high. “Nobody is willing to sacrifice quality and performance for sustainability,” says Matt Scullin, ...
Video: Here’s the story of the pioneering purple nutrition-enhanced genetically modified tomato—and why GMOs are the future of food
Plant geneticist Cathie Martin spent years working with snapdragon genes to create a purple tomato that produces more antioxidant compounds ...
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the near future, maybe neither
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? This eternally-confounding question now has an answer—that is, if just the egg ...
Viewpoint: Why scientists and health experts believe you can ignore the Environmental Working Groups’s Dirty Dozen list
[The Center for Food Safety just released its 2022 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of ‘unsafe’ ...
How sustainable is North American soybean production?
In the past 50 years or so, the cultivation of soybeans has grown tenfold, with the UN’s Food and Agriculture ...
GMO soil fungi: One way genetically modified barley might help reduce the need for fertilizers
A field trial of genetically modified and gene-edited barley is due to be planted this April. The research is evaluating ...
Viewpoint: Reversing the Green Revolution — Why Europe’s ‘Farm to Fork’ policy will increase hunger
After destroying European energy independence, environmentalists are now focusing on their next goal: the destruction of your supermarket. This is ...
Viewpoint: ‘Organic’? ‘Regenerative’? On labels they are little more than buzzwords. Here’s why
Natural, sustainable, organic: yesterday’s news. When it comes to virtuous eating, “regenerative” is the buzzword du jour. But what, exactly, ...
Age of eco-terrorism: Why are activists attacking the most productive part of our food industry — modern agriculture?
The attack on a grain train by activists hostile to what they call “agro-industry” on March 19 in Brittany, France ...
Viewpoint: How Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen undermines healthy food consumption
To be able to “vote with your fork” is a privilege that not everyone has, and the “Dirty Dozen” list ...
How gene editing could create carbon-sucking trees to help address the climate crisis
Of all the potential fixes for the climate crisis, none has captured hearts and minds quite like tree planting. It’s ...
Is there a better way to make cell-based meat? Maybe the tobacco plant can help
FoodTech start-up, BioBetter, has assigned a new role for the much-maligned Nicotiana tabacum plant upon discovering it can overcome the greatest hurdle ...
‘Now they’re here’: Genetically engineered mosquitoes could help control dangerous spread of disease-carrying Aedes aegypti
Anthony James, who researches disease-spreading insects, never encountered the aggressive mosquito species, Aedes aegypti, when he grew up in Southern California ...
Viewpoint: Here are cutting edge ways technology can help us increase farm outputs without using more land
The world has plenty of nutrients. They circulate between air, soil, sea, living plants and animals. Neither population growth nor meat meals ...
Modified: Destigmatizing GMOs one bite at a time
“GMOs have been unfairly stigmatized, haven’t they?” Thus spoke a man in his 30s, a sympathetic expression on his face, ...
Turning lettuce into a bone-strengthening food? How scientists are using genetic modification to create foods of the future
Researchers from the University of California, Davis, have genetically engineered lettuce to produce a drug based on a human hormone ...
Edible kelp: The next big thing in high-end cuisine?
The global population is growing, with an associated increase in the need for food, while arable land is in short ...
Following in Kenya’s footsteps: Behind Ghana’s quest to get GMO cassava approved–the country’s first genetically engineered crop
The most recently approved GM crop on the continent is the GM cassava, which Kenya has successfully greenlighted. This becomes the ...
Despite controversy and rising prices, farmers in Pennsylvania Amish country recommit to using glyphosate for no-till, reduced carbon-release farming
Sharp price increases for glyphosate and other chemicals, not to mention fears over shortages, will likely mean drastically higher input costs this ...
Future of food: Cell-based protein key to ensure sustainability of our global food supply
A 2018 meta-analysis estimated that food production releases more than one-quarter of all human-caused greenhouse gases and that agricultural irrigation accounts ...
Viewpoint: Gene editing crops is the very definition of ‘green technology’
One thing we have learnt from the GMO debate is that if you simply add layers of regulatory checks and ...
Viewpoint: Why we need to replace the current pesticide assessment system
The more we spray, the fewer insects are allowed to thrive. There is also that bird populations are affected by ...
How humans are driving plant evolution
A new study conducted by biologists out of the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) suggests that urban environments are altering ...
Viewpoint: GMO cowpea can support biodiversity
Nigeria’s biodiversity is rich and unique, including semi-arid savanna, mountain forests, seasonal floodplains, rainforests, vast freshwater swamp forests and diverse ...
Viewpoint: To persuade the public that GM foods are safe, advocates need to focus on scientifically confirmed health benefits
Ever since the first GM food was introduced, the debate about the risks of releasing GM crops has been substantial ...
Is mainstream media open to constructive conversations on GMOs and crop biotechnology?
Although nearly three decades have passed since genetically modified crops (so-called ‘GMOs’) were widely commercialized, vociferous debate remains about the ...
Milestone in plant breeding? New wheat variety might not require neonicotinoids or other chemical protectants
Every once in a while, there’s an innovation in plant breeding that sets down a true milestone. Barley yellow dwarf ...
