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.
Food from thin air? Transforming carbon emissions into protein could clean up pollution and reduce land needed to feed billions of people
Around the world, forests are being cut down to grow protein-rich soya to feed to animals. Using solar power to ...
Viewpoint: Concerned about biodiversity but wary of biotechnology innovation to achieve it? Your fears are misplaced
Some individuals worry about the unintended consequences of intervening with nature, including the use of genetic technology as well as ...
Recycling on steroids: Making new clothes out of spoiled milk
Did you know that 116 million tons of dairy products are wasted globally, with about half lost before even reaching ...
‘Despite the challenges of misinformation, the technology has enjoyed the confidence of farmers, researchers and policymakers’: Bt insect-resistant cotton celebrates 20 years of increased productivity
In the year 2022, Bt cotton will complete two decades of cultivation in India. Despite the challenges of misinformation, the ...
Can next-generation agriculture become a climate change solution — rather than a carbon generator?
Carbon farming includes a variety of agricultural methods aimed at sequestering atmospheric carbon into the soil. These farming practices can ...
Survey: Consumers are willing to embrace gene edited foods if they understand their sustainability and health benefits
Consumer acceptance of gene edited foods. That’s the title of a research paper co-authored with Vicenzina Caputo and Valarie Kilders ...
Kenya on track to commercialize GM maize by 2022 to increase yields, cut pesticide use
Whether it is ugali, a popular dish prepared from maize flour and often accompanied by meat, vegetables and pulses, or porridge, ...
South Africa has reaped major benefits from GM maize, study finds
Genetically modified (GM) maize has greatly improved food security in South Africa, reduced environmental damage and helped smallholder farmers achieve ...
Is the FDA up to the task of reviewing the coming onslaught of lab-made cell-based meat and seafood?
One of the most innovative food products expected to enter U.S. markets in coming years is cell-cultured meat and seafood ...
Vaccine in development that could protect honeybee populations from pesticide poisoning
The solution is about the size of a grain of pollen, and when ingested by bees, allows the creatures to ...
‘Uncertain and confused’: Sri Lankan farmers facing government’s ‘misguided’ ban on all synthetic chemicals fear sustainable farming will be unattainable
The [Sri Lankan Cabinet of Ministers recently] approved President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s proposal to ban the importation of chemical fertilisers. In ...
Forest of the future: Maine conservationists plant American genetically modified chestnut trees in hopes of reviving near-dead species
Though some are still scattered across the country, the [American] chestnut has been functionally extinct for 70 years. But science ...
CRISPR 3.0: A giant leap forward in the quest for climate-conscious farming
In a study in Nature Plants, Yiping Qi, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland (UMD), introduces a ...
80% less greenhouse emissions generated: The world’s first cell-based, lab grown meat factory just opened in Israel
Israeli biotech company Future Meat has opened what it claims to be the “world’s first industrial cultured meat facility,” a ...
Cow-free milk? Chicken-free eggs? Inside the quest to create real animal proteins with fermentation
[S]cientists are figuring out how to make animal protein without using any animal cells at all – by using fermentation ...
‘Why is the US so retrograde when it comes to biotech?’ — ‘Supertrees’ engineered to capture more carbon stir anti-GMO backlash
Capitalizing on trees’ ability to function as natural carbon capture machines, Reddit’s former CEO is now running a company that ...
Does ‘intensive agriculture’ make pandemics more likely? That’s the claim. Here are the facts
Animals can cause diseases in humans. That won't surprise you. What may surprise you is to read that these diseases ...
Viewpoint: Why banning neonicotinoids is a well-meaning but misguided strategy to protect bees and other pollinators
Unfortunately there is quite a bit of dis-and misinformation about what harms bees. For instance, [Maine] lawmakers recently passed a ...
Cow methane ‘burps’ are one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions. Could bovine genetic selection reduce climate change impacts?
Using genetics… scientists have isolated the gene in cattle which causes excess methane production. Through selective breeding, it claims this ...
Viewpoint: Can we adequately feed 10 billion people by 2050? Dutch scientists say yes, but the key is genetic engineering breakthroughs
The goal is to produce twice as much food using half the land and half the inputs. These changes are ...
Facing an uncertain, climate-altered future, here is how scientists are revamping crops
[A new wheat variety called] Kernza brings higher yields and can contain more seeds per stem than average wheat. And ...
‘No-kill meals’ made from lab-grown meat promise huge environmental and ethical benefits. What are the downsides?
We have pescatarians, vegans, flexitarians, locavores and of course vegetarians. But what’s the word for those of us who make ...
These genetically-modified poplars are easier to cut down — and can produce more bioethanol
Wood mainly consists of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin… In [genetically] modified poplars, one of the molecules involved in the production ...
Genome editing helps African researchers develop disease-resistant banana varieties
Though breeding programs using genome editing remain in their infancy on the African continent, public research institutions are leading the ...
Viewpoint: ‘Lefty food and farm’ group’s implacable opposition to genetic engineering imperils life-saving virus research, writes Mother Jones
[Recently, the Center for Food Safety] sued the National Institutes of Health in an attempt to force the agency to ...
‘Protein transition’: Everything you need to know about the coming clean, cultured, alternative meat revolution
The cultured meat revolution is also sometimes called ‘the protein transition’ and its advocates are confident that this transition will ...
Viewpoint: Regenerative ranching – promoted by organic activists from Vandana Shiva to the Organic Consumers Association — has turned out to be a massive scam
While the regenerative potential of many agricultural techniques is widely accepted among ecologists, the inclusion of ranching is disputed. ...
