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.
Naturally drought-tolerant sorghum could help develop crops better suited to changing climate
A new study led by scientists from the University of California Berkeley reveals how sorghum plants control its genome - switching ...
Viewpoint: Pest resistance to GMO crops is a real threat, but no reason to avoid biotechnology
Central to the criticism of genetically modified crops is the fear that weeds and pests may develop resistance .... The ...
Blight-resistant GMO potatoes show promise in field trials
A genetically modified potato with improved tuber quality and resistance to the devastating disease late blight has progressed successfully through ...
India develops disease-resistant, drought-tolerant chickpeas in record time
Indian farmers may soon take hold of two new chickpea varieties with improved drought tolerance and disease resistance traits. The ...
Thailand Industry Minister threatens legal action to block glyphosate ban
Industry Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit said on [Dec. 3] he would counter-sue any organizations that bring a threatened lawsuit against him ...
Uganda faces heavy losses without GMO banana, economist warns
A leading Ugandan economist is warning of heavy financial losses among banana farmers if they don’t soon adopt a genetically ...
New vaccine could immunize 50 million cattle against bovine tuberculosis
Scientists at the University of Surrey have developed a novel vaccine and complementary skin test to protect cattle against bovine ...
EU may block Austria’s proposed glyphosate weed killer ban
Austria's government appeared to cast doubt [December 2] on whether a total ban on the controversial herbicide glyphosate would be ...
China cleaning up 25 million acres of polluted farmland to meet soaring food demand
China has shut more than 1,300 heavy metal enterprises since 2016 as part of a long-term plan to curb widespread ...
Oxford researchers: German study warning of insect declines lacks robust evidence
Sampling in Germany, Seibold et al. present an interesting and impressive study of arthropods in grassland vegetation and those in ...
Recent deforestation, agriculture intensification may accelerate biodiversity declines, study warns
Biodiversity across the globe could be in a worse state than previously thought as current biodiversity assessments fail to take ...
Will Alaska grow its own food as summer temperatures surpass 90 degrees?
Alaska has been on a multi-year weather paroxysm as the Arctic heats twice as fast as the rest of our ...
Pesticide makers want EU chlorpyrifos insecticide ban halted for lack of ‘sound evidence’
Agri-chemical manufacturers are putting pressure on the EU to prevent a ban of two disputed pesticides that damage the brain ...
New ‘Cosmic Crisp’ apple with year-long storage life poised to hit stores in December 2019
An apple a day... a year in the fridge, they may stay. A new type of apple was launched [December ...
Weed that ‘eats’ glyphosate discovered in Western Australia, researchers say
Researchers have claimed a world first .... after discovering a tropical weed in Western Australia's far north that literally eats ...
Podcast: Political opposition blocks South Australia’s plan to lift GMO crop ban
South Australia is the only mainland state that bans farmers from growing genetically modified food. The ban's been in place ...
US meat industry goes to ‘war’ against Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat
On a rainy September morning, a pair of cattle ranchers browsed the refrigerated meat cases at a Walmart Inc. store ...
Thailand reverses glyphosate weed killer ban following push back from nation’s farmers
Thailand reversed a decision [Nov. 27] to ban a controversial weedkiller and extended the permitted use of two other pesticides ...
Neonic pesticide thiacloprid has no detectable negative impact on bumblebees, field study shows
In a field study, the researchers Maj Rundlöf, Lund University, and Ola Lundin, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, have ...
First plants didn’t evolve flower color to attract pollinators, study suggests
Flowering plants feature a wondrous array of colors, the primary purpose of which is to attract insect pollinators. But this ...
Plant-based burgers are wildly popular. Are any of them vegan?
.... [W]ith a range of new "plant-based" meat options entering fast-food restaurants like Burger King, Denny's and Dunkin Donuts, which ...
Coating seeds with silk that supplies essential nutrients could provide a natural fertilizer to grow crops on unproductive soils
Providing seeds with a protective coating that also supplies essential nutrients to the germinating plant could make it possible to ...
Viewpoint: Federal government doles out millions of dollars to ‘children’s health centers’ that promote junk science
For more than two decades, the federal government has doled out millions of dollars to fund university-based “children’s environmental health ...
Kenya demonstration plots show GMO maize resists insects, increases yields
Demonstration plots in Kenya show that genetically modified (GM) maize varieties are more effective in controlling insect attacks than their ...
Viewpoint: Can we trust the research of scientists who work for corporations? Here’s what you should know
There is a pervasive bias in academia against scientists who work in industry. It is often said that such individuals ...
Post-Green Revolution study: Projected crop yields unable to feed the world by 2050, we need GMOs, gene editing and other ‘genetic strategies’
The current trajectory for crop yields is insufficient to nourish the world’s population by 2050. Greater and more consistent crop ...
Unfolding the mystery of carnivorous plants opens door to producing more sustainable crops
The secret recipe nature uses to make the diverse leaf shapes we see everywhere around us has been revealed in ...
