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.
Trump administration aims to boost farming, medical innovation with streamlined biotech rules
Trump administration officials say they are committed to reducing regulatory barriers to agricultural biotechnology as part of a larger strategy ...
Nigerian farmers, scientists celebrate success of GMO insect-resistant cowpea field trial
Nigerian [bean] farmers have commended the performance of .... Pod Borer Resistant (PBR) Cowpea .... on the field over the ...
GMO wheat varieties boost crop yields 20-30% in field trial
Studies conducted at the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) showed experimental genetically modified (GM) wheat lines [have] the potential to ...
Gene editing could yield heartier, tastier berry varieties
Biting into a fresh, sweet berry might be a simple pleasure, but the berries’ genomes are surprisingly complex. The strawberry ...
What’s xanthan gum? A closer look at that ‘unpronounceable additive’ in so many processed foods
Many people have spied the words “xanthan gum” on the list of ingredients on the back of a food box, ...
Bayer: No glyphosate alternative will ‘magically’ appear in next 5 years
In the next five years, no alternative to glyphosate is going to “magically” appear in the market, Dr Bob Reiter, ...
Do farmers really need neonic insecticides? Study sparks debate over pesticides’ future
New research has found a widely used and increasingly controversial insecticide has “negligible” benefits for commercially grown soybeans. Pesticide makers ...
Biofuel from GMO trees could cut global oil use, but EU biotech rules slow development
The looming threat of climate change is increasing the pressure to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. New technologies to ...
October glyphosate-cancer trial delayed as settlement negotiations continue, Bayer says
A pending U.S. lawsuit over claims related to Bayer’s (BAYGn.DE) glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup has been delayed, the company said on ...
USDA Kansas City relocation halts research on honeybees, organic food and Bayer’s dicamba herbicide
The relocation of two Agriculture Department agencies out of the District of Columbia has delayed the publication of dozens of ...
Farm group moves to permanently block California’s Prop. 65 glyphosate-cancer warning labels
A nationwide coalition of agricultural producers and business organizations representing a substantial segment of U.S. agriculture filed a motion on ...
Too many carbs, calories? Nope. Lack of fiber biggest problem with American diets
Ask Americans about what they think is the biggest problem with their diets and you'll probably hear a variety of ...
Over 99% of farmers follow EPA pesticide rules, so why is the public scared of chemicals?
[In September] the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its 2017 pesticide residue sampling data results. FDA concluded: “The ...
African farmers could boost crop yields with GMO seeds—if their governments would let them
An air of Malthusian gloom hangs over smallholder farmers in Sironko, in eastern Uganda. In the old days, they say, ...
Bayer ready for legal battle if EU bans glyphosate in 2022, company leadership says
Bayer’s top exec on pesticides suggested the agrichemical giant would consider legal action if the EU decides to ban the ...
Viewpoint: While experts fight about red meat, eat a diet that makes sense for you
Nutrition researchers and doctors are at each other's throats once again, this time over a recommendation published in the Annals ...
Fat from gene-edited plants could make infant formula more nutritious, less expensive
A team from the Rothamsted Research center, UK, has developed plants capable of mass-producing fat molecules resembling those in human ...
GMO Bt cotton saves Pakistani farmers estimated $7 million on pesticide-related health care costs, study shows
Despite substantial research on the economic effects of transgenic insect-resistant Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton, there is still limited work on ...
If consumers fear GMOs, why do they keep buying Impossible Burgers?
Used to be that GMOs ranked right up there with child porn as a blight on society no one should ...
Fertilizer, pesticides from microbes could help make urban farming more productive
Singapore could be an urban farming oasis and achieve government-set guidelines for produce self-sufficiency as researchers there pioneer the development ...
GMO Impossible Burger top-selling item at many grocery stores across US
Impossible Burger debuted on store shelves earlier [in September], immediately becoming the No. 1 product sold at some of America’s ...
Debate over GMO, CRISPR crop rules ‘essential’ as EU agriculture adapts to changing climate
In the hot summer of 2018, German farmers received €340 million in drought aid, and it will certainly not be ...
Argentina approves new Monsanto Bt corn variety—60th GMO crop in nation’s history
Argentina has approved the 60th transgenic seed in its history, a new corn variety resistant to insects and herbicides. ...
Bayer plan to launch GMO dicamba-resistant soybean in Brazil sparks pushback from some farmers
A genetically modified soy seed technology from Germany’s Bayer set to launch soon in Brazil has sparked concern from some ...
Viewpoint: ‘Ancient grains’ can transform your health? Probably not—and they’re more recent than you think
KHORASAN, teff, emmer and amaranth. No, these aren’t planets in the next Star Wars movie, but some of the growing ...
12 technologies that will help feed 9 billion people without wrecking the planet
There is a big challenge not just to produce food in a more sustainable way for the sake of our ...
Gene silencing immunizes valuable food crops against deadly plant diseases
The defense of crops from new pathogens and parasites is one of the main challenges that the agriculture sector is ...
