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.
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 ...
Should we eat less red meat? There’s no solid evidence behind that advice, dietary expert panel says
Public health officials for years have urged Americans to limit consumption of red meat and processed meats because of concerns ...
EU Parliament environment committee challenges recent GMO crop approvals, citing seed company ‘market domination’
The Environment Committee in the European Parliament voted against the approval of genetically modified maize and soybean varieties. [The committee ...
Turkish scientist gets 15-month prison sentence after publishing study that links chemicals in food and water in western Turkey to cancer
A Turkish food engineer and human rights activist was sentenced .... to 15 months in jail after publishing the results ...
Viewpoint: EU does world’s GMO, CRISPR crop research but blocks implementation while other nations benefit from the technology
The story of agricultural biotechnology in the EU started with high hopes and expectations 25 years ago, when Belgian Professor ...
The coming ‘vegan economy’? Billion-dollar plant-based food industry rushes to satisfy eco-conscious consumers
Veganism is on the rise. The phenomenon has spawned a burgeoning industry in alternatives to animal-derived products that’s already worth ...
Nestle expands glyphosate testing on imported coffee as trials feed Roundup-cancer scare
Nestle SA is increasing checks on the coffee it buys, after recent tests showed beans from some countries had levels ...
AI-powered devices deliver ‘micro-dose’ of herbicide to cut agriculture’s chemical use
Above a Saskatchewan field, a line of drones rises in formation, sensors primed to pick out enemy targets below. But ...
McDonald’s teams up with Beyond Meat to test plant-based burger in Canada
McDonald's is teaming up with Beyond Meat. On [September 26], the fast-food giant announced that it will partner with Beyond ...
Wait, corn is a fruit? Yes—here’s the biology that explains why
We all know the is-a-tomato-a-fruit debate (correct answer: yes, but you still shouldn’t put it in a fruit salad). Now ...
Can controlled burns crack down on herbicide-resistant weeds?
Weeds are thieves. They steal nutrients, sunlight and water from our food crops. In the case of sugarcane, yield refers ...
Newly discovered genes could help develop natural ‘antibiotic cocktails’ to battle plant disease
Yezhang Ding, Alisa Huffaker, and Eric Schmelz of the University of California San Diego and their colleagues have developed a ...
