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.
Impossible Burger, Beyond Burger earn endorsement from anti-GMO Center for Biological Diversity
The Center for Biological Diversity supports Beyond and Impossible burgers and other food innovations urgently needed to accelerate the shift ...
New Zealand mulls loosening strict biotech crop rules as GMO ryegrass shows promise in field trial
While New Zealand has not yet approved the release of genetically modified crops, its agricultural research agency’s principle scientist has ...
Farmers may soon use drones to battle herbicide-resistant weeds
Remote sensing provides an alternative to ground-based manual scouting for weeds in agriculture fields. And, while many advances have been ...
Opportunity to develop disease-resistant crops ‘has never been greater,’ plant pathologists say
Approaches to manipulating disease resistance in plants is expanding exponentially due to advances in our understanding of plant defense mechanisms ...
Austria’s January 2020 glyphosate ban halted on technical grounds
An Austrian ban on the weedkiller glyphosate, a substance that has long been disputed in Europe and beyond, can’t take ...
Viewpoint: Conventional, organic farmers risk alienating consumers by ‘trashing’ each other’s products
I once rescued a car from a mechanic who was pushing much unnecessary “repair” work. The ethical mechanic I took ...
Meet ‘Tom’: The weed-spotting robot that could slash blanket herbicide spraying
A National Trust estate farm has brought in a robot called Tom to map its weeds. The robot’s mapping capability ...
France bans 36 glyphosate weed killers, citing products’ potential to damage DNA
French health and environment agency ANSES said on [Dec. 9] it was banning glyphosate-based weedkillers that represent most of the ...
Fungi ‘junk genes’ could yield new drugs, biopesticides, study shows
Bio-Protection Research Centre scientists and collaborators have made a discovery that potentially opens the door to new medicines and biological ...
Could ‘ultrasonic squeals’ from plants help farmers protect water-starved crops?
Although it has been revealed in recent years that plants are capable of seeing, hearing and smelling, they are still ...
Sequenced sugarcane genome aids development of high-yielding GMO crop varieties
An international group of researchers led by scientists from Brazil's Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo ...
Microbe-coated seeds survive salty growing conditions in new study
Researchers at Florida International University have found coating seeds with a fungus and a bacterium could help valuable crops block ...
Manipulating plant microbiome could yield healthier crops, cut chemical use, study shows
A new study by University of California, Berkeley, microbial ecologists used experimental evolution to help identify the core microbiome of ...
EU votes to ban insecticide chlorpyrifos, citing brain damage risk to children
A majority of EU countries voted to ban chlorpyrifos, an insecticide deemed unsafe for human health by the EU’s food ...
Glyphosate-cancer trials postponed while Bayer, plaintiffs negotiate potential $8-$12 billion settlement
Germany’s Bayer has agreed with plaintiffs to postpone its next two U.S. lawsuits over the alleged cancer-causing effects of its ...
Millennials turn to tech to solve African farming challenges
For generations our farmers were told that they will be the next richest people of the world, due to a ...
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 ...
