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.
‘Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s sustainable or biodegradable’: Here’s the complicated truth behind plant-based materials — the latest eco fashion fad
In the accelerated push for mitigating the plastic crisis and exhaustive raw material use while appeasing a new guard of ...
Seafood distributors welcome AquaBounty’s sustainable GM salmon
AquaBounty will mark a new milestone for truly sustainable seafood this month with the first commercial harvest of fast-growing genetically ...
Viewpoint: Foods made from genetically engineered crops must be labelled by 2022, but USDA guidance is confusing. Here’s how the new administration and food producers can address that
When the [National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law] is implemented in 2022, will it provide information useful to consumers or will ...
Viewpoint: ‘What’s the difference between a GM vaccine and a GM crop?’ Key to developing COVID shots, biotechnology could boost Europe’s farm yields and lower costs — if the public will accept it
Millions of Europeans have been happy to receive a coronavirus vaccine, which relies on genetic engineering, prompting the question: What’s the ...
‘Risks are acceptable’: On verge of banning neonicotinoid imidacloprid, Canada reverses course, says bees will not be adversely impacted
Canada’s pesticide regulator said on [May 18] that farmers could keep using the chemical imidacloprid to control crop-destroying insects under ...
Viewpoint: How should EPA regulate next-generation GMO Bt insect resistant crops? Proposals left over from Trump Administration don’t all align with the science
[T]he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued two proposals that would modify its oversight of plant incorporated protectants (PIPs), which are ...
‘Last and only hope’: With global banana crop under siege from fungal disease, CRISPR may be only remaining solution
The banana as we know it is in trouble. Emerging reports suggest the fruit’s deadliest disease has been spotted in ...
Can the Biden Administration challenge Mexico’s decision to ban glyphosate weedkiller and GMO corn?
Mexico may be one of the U.S.’s top agricultural trading partners, but this relationship has plenty of problems. Consider the ...
Viewpoint: Cell-based meat on sale in Europe within 3-5 years? While the rest of the world innovates in food technology, politics and bureaucracy paralyze EU
[In December 2020,] Singapore became the first country to authorise the commercialisation of cultivated meat. Understandably, Europeans want to know ...
Kenya looks to gene editing to grow its key food crops
Kenya’s agriculture is set to benefit from several gene-editing projects that target some of the country’s key food crops and ...
Are dairy products made from animal-free sources vegan? Green adherents grapple with whether they should embrace cheese and other ‘precision fermentation’ foods
We are entering a brand new era of slaughter-free menus and products, which includes everything from mycelium steak to cell-cultured ...
The US military has polluted 25 million acres of prairie grass-filled land used for target practice. Now there is a GMO solution to detoxify it
Genetically modified (GM) switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) can be used to purge soils of RDX residues, according to new research. RDX ...
Citrus disease threatens $17 billion in annual sales of fresh fruit and juice. Early detection using CRISPR gene editing could help isolate infected trees and prop up an industry in economic free fall
Penn State and U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists have used cutting-edge CRISPR/Cas technology to develop a diagnostic test that could ...
Hermès’ eco-revolutionary new handbags: How agricultural leftovers and mushrooms could fuel a switch to sustainable leather alternatives
MycoWorks certainly made headlines in the fashion world in March when it announced a collaboration with Hermès on the creation ...
Viewpoint: ‘No one really agrees on what “regenerative agriculture” means.’ Is it merely a marketing buzzword or a genuine revolution in how we produce food?
A growing movement harbors a secret: No one really agrees on what “regenerative agriculture” should mean. That lack of consensus ...
Viewpoint: ‘Things only got worse’ — DDT bug spray curbed malaria-spreading mosquitoes but led to a host of unintended consequences. Here’s how to understand risk and environmental ‘trade offs’
DDT is a bug spray [used to kill malaria-spreading mosquitoes]. It was outlawed in many countries because once you spray ...
Reducing plastic waste: Recyclable eco-friendly, plant-based packaging in development could dramatically reduce microplastic pollution
Nowadays, those who shop for food in discount stores will almost always be buying plastic packaging as well. The vast ...
Viewpoint: Sri Lanka announces plans to ban agrochemical imports on path toward going 100% organic. It didn’t work in Cuba and here’s why it won’t work here
[Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's] decision to shift totally to organic agriculture, from conventional, could lead to widespread hunger and ...
Robotics, sensors, drones, and more: Agricultural technology enables farmers to go green without going broke
While always stewards of the land, [farmers have] faced a continuous squeeze over the decades with the real price of ...
Podcast — ‘We’re growing food now in a way that doesn’t leave room for other biodiversity’: How GMO crops are affecting the monarch butterfly and what can be done about it
[su_panel color="#3A3A3A" border="1px solid #3A3A3A" radius="2" text_align="left"]Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from an interview with University of Georgia ...
Tired of eating strawberries that taste like cardboard? CRISPR gene editing poised to improve ‘fruit quality’ and disease resistance of next-generation fruits
Recent technology has been developed to precisely engineer genes for traits of interest. This approach is known as "CRISPR" gene ...
Meet Tom, Dick and Wilma: These precision farming robots can ‘maximize yields at the individual plant level’
[A] UK startup called the Small Robot Company is about to change how farming is done. SRC uses two autonomous ...
Mexican court upholds 2024 government ban of Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller
Mexico's plan to phase out weed-killer glyphosate amid concerns the pesticide causes cancer has seen it clash with Bayer and ...
Book review: Jennifer Thompson’s ‘GM Crops and the Global Divide’ offers lessons drawn from the history of the agricultural biotechnology revolution, for activists to CRISPR advocates
I’ve spent the last few weeks reading “GM Crops and the Global Divide,” the new book by Jennifer Thomson, emeritus professor at ...
‘Imposing expansion of organic farming by decree counterproductive’: Farmer, ag industry executive challenges Europe to rethink its anti-biotech, anti-nuclear ideology
In the midst of the Farm to Fork (F2F) debate and the renegotiation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the ...
Genetically modified Bt cotton helped eradicate pink bollworm — and saved US farmers $200 million over five years. Now, scientists and farmers are deploying technology to target other pests
A recent study from the University of Arizona shows that farmers were able to eradicate [pink bollworm] with the help ...
Viewpoint: ‘Crops were in the fields, but folks were going hungry’: How Artificial Intelligence (AI) can optimize how produce gets from the farm to your plate
"I can't think of a better or more noble application of artificial intelligence than into the food supply chain," says ...
