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.
Viewpoint: UK decision to rescind neonics pesticide restrictions a welcome win for science
Activists like George Monbiot and Dave Goulson are parroting their environmental allies when it comes to neonics, but the science ...
Could heart-healthy soybean oil pave the way for more gene-edited, biofortified foods?
Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) have been successfully used to develop premium quality high-oleic soybean oil from gene-edited soybean plants. The ...
Bamboo: Invasive nuisance, or untapped climate change solution for farmers?
Bamboo has a reputation problem in North America, registering in the collective imagination somewhere between tiki torches and a pain-in-the-ass ...
GM plant grows insect sex pheromones as alternative to crop pesticides
Scientists have discovered how to genetically modify the camelina plant to produce pheromone precursors that can control agricultural insect pests ...
Podcast: Debunking ‘dangerous’ anti-GMO misinformation that harms developing countries
Crops and foods improved through biotechnology, popularly known as “GMOs” (for “genetically modified organisms”) remain at the center of a ...
Taco Bell begins offering plant-based meat at UK, EU locations to win back vegan and vegetarian customers
Starting January 7th, Taco Bell locations throughout the UK [began offering] plant-based meat from the brand Gold & Green ...
Many shoppers prefer organic food—unless GM products are cheaper, Canadian survey finds
Agricultural biotechnology produced genetically modified (GM) crops, not only provide economic benefits to farmers, but are beneficial to the environmental, ...
Impossible Foods is on a mission: ‘Eradicate the meat and fish industries by 2035’
Patrick Brown is on a mission: to eradicate the meat and fish industries by 2035. The CEO of Impossible Foods, a ...
Microalgae could help remove nitrates, phosphates and herbicides from polluted waterways
In recent years, the eutrophication that the [Spanish lagoon] Mar Menor has undergone, a process derived from the overload of ...
China approves two GM crop varieties in bid to support biotechnology and boost food security
China last year approved three domestically designed GMO crops as safe, the first in a decade, in a fresh push ...
CRISPR-edited eggs offer novel way to eliminate slaughter of newborn male chicks
[Most consumers] are blissfully unaware that the egg industry also slaughters billions of animals every year, but not to put ...
USDA green lights high-yield, herbicide-resistant GM corn variety, finding it unlikely to pose a plant pest risk
The Notice in the Federal Register states that APHIS is advising the public that the genetically engineered corn variety DP202216 is no ...
With sugar beet production dropping, UK approves emergency neonicotinoids pesticide use to combat beet yellows virus
In 2018 the [UK] government supported new rules which prohibit the outdoor use of 3 neonicotinoids - clothianidin, imidacloprid and ...
Earth-friendly shoes: Adidas developing sustainable leather alternative made from fungus
The athletic-wear company [Adidas] announced on [December 28] that it's working on a new material, a plant-based leather that will ...
‘All foods contain pesticides, and 99.99% are natural’: 8 critical facts about chemicals that help us grow food
In the United States, we live in an affluent culture whose standard of living is high compared to other nations ...
Eliminating dairy cows would reduce US greenhouse gas emissions just 0.7 percent while cutting essential nutrient supply, study finds
A commonly suggested solution to reduce greenhouse gas output has been to reduce or eliminate [the dairy] industry in favor ...
Mexican farmers and scientists speak out against government’s anti-biotech agenda
The Mexican government’s nonstop attacks on genetically modified (GM) crops — resulting most recently in a ban on GM maize ...
UK launches consultation that could roll back restrictive CRISPR crop rules, unlock ‘substantial benefits’
In one of its first post-Brexit moves, England has launched a consultation on gene editing in a bid to unlock ...
We’ll all be vegans by 2050? How GM microbes and alternative proteins are changing our diets
The plant-based meat market is predicted to grow from $3.6 billion in 2020 to $4.2 billion by 2021. And by 2040, 60 ...
RNA technology gave us a COVID vaccine. It could also help control plant pests without insecticides
With the development of Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, RNA technology has been dominating the news cycle. … A decade ago, ...
‘Like putting 5 locks on a door’: Wheat with multiple rust resistance genes could protect vital staple crop
[R]esearchers at CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, led an international effort to develop wheats with a stronger and potentially more ...
Peru extends GMO crop cultivation ban for 15 years, after months of intense debate
The president of the Congress of the Republic [of Peru], Mirtha Vásquez, signed the enactment of the 15-year extension of ...
Viewpoint: Glyphosate and cancer—How ideology and bad science turned a safe herbicide into a carcinogen
Glyphosate has long been considered as an herbicide with no unacceptable health risk. In 2015, its classification as "probably carcinogenic" ...
FDA aims to combat GMO misinformation with crop biotech high-school curriculum
Though a new curriculum guide offers high school teachers helpful tools for navigating the complexities of crop biotechnology and a ...
Go vegan to save the planet? No-meat diet won’t stop climate change, environmental scientists say
People in industrialized regions like the United States of America or Europe are generally urged to eat less meat and ...
USDA bioengineered food labels are coming in 2021. Will they change consumer behavior?
Four years after the thunder in Congress over labeling foods made with GMO ingredients, the deadline for compliance with the ...
US grew 13 million pounds of genetically modified apples in 2020, but most fruit growers still resist growing biotech crops
[G]rape and nut growers appear to have sustained a particularly rough 2020. But that was probably due at least as ...
