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.
Synthetic biosensors: Engineered plants could detect flu viruses and crop pests before they become global problems
You’ve felt sick ever since you started working in a different office .... but building management can’t find the source ...
Shoppers will buy gene-edited food if they know its consumer, animal and environmental benefits
The FMI Foundation in partnership with the American Seed Trade Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Farm Foundation, ...
Viewpoint: How GMO herbicide-tolerant canola accelerated sustainable farming
Who would have fathomed how significant a day in March 1995 would become in the history of Canadian agriculture? On ...
Africa’s locust outbreak: Proof we need GMOs, pesticides and every other tool in the toolbox to combat crop-destroying insects
A perfect storm of conditions led to the locust attack currently tearing through East Africa and Pakistan, where countries are ...
Feeding microbes expired bread during fermentation could yield cheaper, more sustainable food
Wine, cheese, yoghurt and bread: all these culinary delights owe their existence to the work of microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, ...
Mozambique sees GMO crops as way to reduce poverty, achieve food security
Mozambique is exploring the use of biotech crops to boost food security following its successful field trials of genetically modified ...
Space-grown lettuce a hit with astronauts, and nutritionally identical to its earthly counterpart
The astronauts floated around, expressing delight as they tasted something entirely unexpected in space. "Awesome! Tastes good! I like that! ...
Next glyphosate fight? Colombian farmers challenge government plan to reinstate aerial coca crop spraying
Pedro Arenas is afraid that they'll take flight again. "I expect it could be within the next months," he says ...
Center for Food Safety sues USDA to block organic certification of soil-free hydroponic crops
Federal Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler .... will be reviewing USDA’s decision to permit the “indoor agricultural evolution” known as hydroponics ...
Rapid genome sequencing streamlines efforts to safeguard global food supply against salmonella
Researchers from Cornell University, the Mars Global Food Safety Center in Beijing, and the University of Georgia have developed a ...
Plant-based food tops $5 billion in retail sales as consumer demand for ‘sustainable’ products booms
New data released by The Good Food Institute (GFI) and the Plant Based Foods Association shows U.S. retail sales of ...
Kenya picks 1,000 farmers to grow GMO cotton
The Kenyan government has identified 1,000 farmers who will receive the country’s first genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds. The farmers ...
EU neonic insecticide ban cut UK canola production from 1.8 million acres to 1.3 million annually
In 2012, U.K. farmers seeded about 1.8 million acres of oilseed rape [canola]. But over the last eight years, acreage ...
Judge cancels second federal glyphosate-cancer trial to aid settlement talks between Bayer, plaintiffs
In an order on [March 5], U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria vacated the March 23 trial date for the second ...
Plant-based meat industry start-up Daring targeting chicken-free ‘chicken’, the world’s favorite protein
Daring is an imitation chicken, which replicates the taste and texture of the familiar fowl, and which is targeted specifically ...
Wild wheat gene could boost drought tolerance and grain size of commercialized crop varieties
In new research published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, Harkamal Walia, associate professor and Heuermann Chair of Agronomy and Horticulture at Nebraska, and colleagues ...
Viewpoint: ‘GMOs cause cancer’ and 17 other persistent health myths debunked
Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis. Eating eggs gives you heart disease. Coffee stunts your growth. No, no and no again ...
Sustainability benefits of biotech may prompt Millennials, Gen Z to embrace GMOs and gene editing
Millennials and Generation Z are influencing the ever-evolving clean label category, and they might be willing to consider biotechnology/genetic modification ...
Top European science council demands ‘radical’ GMO regulatory reform
A top European science council calling is demanding a “radical reform of the legal framework” that regulates genetically modified organisms ...
El Pollo Loco launches plant-based menu made from in-house, ‘non-GMO’ vegan chicken
El Pollo Loco is now offering plant-based chicken systemwide through its new Chickenless Pollo Taco and Burrito menu items, according ...
EPA appears likely to re-approve drift-prone dicamba herbicides with added restrictions
When the U.S. EPA reregistered dicamba soybean herbicides for use on Xtend soybeans in 2018, labels were effective for two ...
Will legal ‘assault’ on Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller in US, EU threaten Africa’s access to glyphosate?
A growing assault against glyphosate in the U.S. and Europe is threatening the future of the widely used weed killer ...
Just-lifted South Australia GMO crop ban could be restored, as Green party vows support for ‘more natural’ food
A BAN on genetically-modified crops in South Australia has been lifted fewer than 24 hours after it was enforced – ...
Soybean damage caused by Bayer’s drift-prone dicamba herbicide spurs farmers to use competing GMO seeds, weedkillers
Bayer AG’s takeover of Monsanto has been beset by problems, and now a decades-long dominance of the $4 billion U.S ...
Vegan burgers: How Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat mimic the texture, appearance and flavor of beef
Texture, appearance and flavor: These are the elements of meat that the new vegan alternatives from Impossible Foods and Beyond ...
Full-fat dairy not linked to childhood obesity, studies show, raising questions about US dietary guidelines
There's little scientific evidence behind recommendations by US health organizations that kids should stop eating full-fat dairy after the age ...
France introduces banana resistant to black Sigatoka—deadly disease that can cut fruit yields 50%
A new variety of banana that is resistant to black Sigatoka and can be produced using organic and agro-ecological production ...
