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.
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 ...
3D ‘bioprinting’ could help produce customized, sustainable and more nutrias lab-grown meats
Researchers at IIT-Guwahati [Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati] have developed lab-grown meat, which is nutritious and will be a step ...
Golden Rice approval in Bangladesh hits temporary snag but approval in early 2020 and planting by 2021 on track
Golden Rice was developed almost two decades ago by biologists Prof Ingo Potrykus of the Institute of Plant Sciences in ...
Bayer’s Monsanto division pleads guilty to misdemeanor for spraying banned pesticide and storing hazardous waste in Hawaii in 2014, will pay $10.2 million fine
Monsanto pleaded guilty to spraying a banned pesticide on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and agreed to pay $10.2 million ...
Does glyphosate or other common herbicides endanger beneficial earthworms? New study finds ‘low risk’, with Roundup among the safest
Agrochemicals are an important component of agricultural production systems. There are increasing concerns about the effect of agrochemicals on soil ...
Viewpoint: Proposed Philippines biotech authority could streamline GMO crop approvals, help farmers battle hunger
According to the biotech timeline prepared by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), the modern biotechnology ...
Can the ‘trendy’ microbiome diet ease consumer fear of GMOs?
The acceptance of the trendy microbiome diet among consumers has put wind in the sails of ag-biotech start up Joyn ...
Podcast: ‘OMG, GMOs!’ Bill Nye answers your questions about biotech crops
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) often gets a bad rap, but farmers have been using them for decades to feed the ...
CRISPR, disease-sensing technologies could yield a ‘cornucopia’ of healthier, tastier foods
Consumers may soon begin purchasing fun-sized fruits and vegetables, as well as processed foods that incorporate healthier ingredients .... And ...
Expanding India’s crop diversity could boost access to vital nutrients for 200 million people, study shows
There has been a substantial increase in food production over the last 50 years, but it has been accompanied by ...
Thailand glyphosate ban could boost weed-control costs by $268 million, pesticide trade group says
A trade group representing pesticide firms urged Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha to delay a ban due Dec. 1 on ...
