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.
Regenerative agriculture boosts soil health but unlikely to slow climate change, report shows
Agriculture needs to close an 11-gigaton greenhouse gas (GHG) gap between expected emissions in 2050 and those needed to hold ...
Viewpoint: Greenpeace lobbies to ban fungicides that kill cancer-causing mycotoxins
A vast network of organizations, including known players such as Greenpeace, are throwing a myriad of unscientific publications at the ...
Could CRISPR turn nutritious but unpopular vegetables into flavorful snacks?
You probably know that kale is packed with antioxidants and other nutrients and that you should be eating more of ...
Bees pollinate 1/3 of our food? Entomologist debunks 6 pervasive pollinator myths
.... [B]ees are ever-increasing in popularity across many sectors including conservation, gardening, fashion, marketing, and public/corporate strategies .... And as ...
Facing record-breaking temperatures, Belgium field tests drought-tolerant corn varieties
The effects of global warming are becoming evident even in Belgium. 2018 was exceptionally warm and dry and the summer ...
GMO eggplant contains 30 times more beta-carotene to help battle vitamin A deficiency
.... Osaka Prefecture University announced that it has succeeded in developing eggplants that contain about 30 times more beta-carotene, which ...
Mini-capsule technology controls mosquitoes without insecticides
Effective mosquito control without the use of insecticides can now be achieved by soaking an egg-filled mini capsule in water, ...
British American Tobacco poised to begin late June trials for COVID-19 vaccine derived from tobacco plants
An experimental Covid-19 vaccine developed by cigarette maker British American Tobacco Plc is poised to begin testing in humans. Pre-clinical ...
Seeds of fear sown in Uganda as farmers confuse clonal coffee with coronavirus
The emergence of the fast-spreading coronavirus and its virulent COVID-19 have come with unprecedented conspiracy theories related to source, cause ...
Kenya poised to greenlight GMO disease-resistant cassava cultivation to protect key food source
Kenya is planning to green-light the cultivation and sale of genetically modified cassava in a move to improve food security ...
How GMO and CRISPR gene-edited plants are playing key roles in developing coronavirus vaccines and treatments
Questions about the origin of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) were raised, and some even speculated that the virus is a ...
‘Sell by’ dates not backed by science, study shows, leading to $32 billion in wasted food every year
.... [T]he lack of regulation, standardization, and general understanding of date labeling on food products (such as “best by” and ...
‘Bad stuff is just easier to believe’: Why GMO disinformation captures consumer attention
A couple of years ago, a former company data scientist and I tapped into our common fascination with social networks ...
Viewpoint: California pesticide regulation battle highlights influence of politically connected activist groups
[California] Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for strong regulatory enforcement to “protect children from pesticide exposure” in a new directive ...
Book review: Activist-friendly ‘GMOs Decoded’ paints a misleading picture of crop biotech
Sheldon Krimsky’s latest book, GMOs Decoded, has a foreword by Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor at New York University and ...
Viewpoint: The real ‘dirty dozen’? 12 organic foods that could make you sick in 2020
It is that time of year again. The Environmental Working Group put out their annual list of food it considers ...
Science majors less skeptical of GMOs than other undergraduates? Yes, but not by much
For the past few years, I’ve been fortunate to supervise a number of students working on their undergraduate thesis in ...
Can we prevent another pandemic with lab-grown, plant-based meat?
In September 2019—two months before the first reported case of the coronavirus—the World Health Organization published a report that said, ...
Artificial photosynthesis: Synthetic chloroplasts as solar-powered drug factories
There’s a new way to eat carbon dioxide. Researchers have built an artificial version of a chloroplast, the photosynthetic structures ...
Why local food production doesn’t prevent shortages in a pandemic
Throughout this pandemic, there have been many prognostications about the future of eating and proposals to make sure we are ...
Africa saves food for 5 million people from destruction as battle against locust swarms rages
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges, significant gains have been made against Desert Locust encroachment in East Africa and ...
How insect resistant Bt eggplant has made Bangladesh a global ‘role model’: A photo essay
Brinjal — also known as eggplant, aubergine and talong — is a very popular and important vegetable in South Asia ...
Non-GMO gene editing: New technique edits plant DNA without use of ‘foreign’ bacterial genes
An NC State researcher has developed a new way to get CRISPR/Cas9 into plant cells without inserting foreign DNA. This ...
Microscopic algae diet could help honeybees fight off deadly pathogens and other threats
A microscopic algae ("microalgae") could provide a complete and sustainably sourced supplemental diet to boost the robustness of managed honey ...
Bolivian farmers reject activist opposition to GMO seed approvals, expecting crops yields to triple
The Federation of Peasant Workers of Cochabamba (FTCC) announced its discontent against the use of transgenic seeds promoted by the ...
She’s baaaack! ‘Plandemic’ anti-vaccine disinformation ‘star’ Judy Mikovits now warning glyphosate, GMOs boost COVID-19 risk
[In early May], I wrote about Plandemic, a viral video featuring disgraced scientist turned antivaxxer turned COVID-19 “Fire Fauci” conspiracy ...
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker propose phased in ‘factory farming’ ban to clamp down on ‘Big Ag’
Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced [May 7] that she would be co-sponsoring Sen. Cory Booker's bill to phase out large-scale factory ...
