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.
Exploring the biotechnology revolution in food and medicine
Biotechnology develops cellular and bimolecular processes to create products that will make our lives easier .... Today, biotechnology fights against ...
Plant-based Impossible, Beyond burgers will help wean consumers off meat, Whole Foods CEO says
In 2013, Whole Foods gave plant-based meat start-up Beyond Meat its first shot at selling its vegan “chicken” strips at ...
CRISPR guacamole, anyone? Gene-edited avocados could survive disease, cold climates
Researchers from Texas Tech University and the University of Buffalo have studied avocados in a way that is best described as ...
Video: Prof Joe Schwarcz on why bugs may be coming to our dinner plates
Pretty soon there will be 9 billion people coming to dinner. That population boom is going to require an increase ...
Bayer sells animal health division for $7.6 billion, denies deal prompted by glyphosate-cancer lawsuits
Agriculture and pharmaceutical giant Bayer [August 20] agreed [to] a $7.6 billion deal to sell its animal health business to ...
Viewpoint: Facing climate change, global hunger crisis, we should fix our ‘faulty food system’
Fixing the world’s “faulty food system” is increasingly being recognized as one of the key ways to fight climate change ...
‘Teaching plants new tricks’: How synthetic biology is reshaping agriculture
Aug 7-9, San Jose, California – the American Society for Plant Biology (ASPB) showcased the latest research in Plant Synthetic Biology ...
Scientists at Kenya’s biosafety conference debunk GMO-cancer link blocking Africa’s biotech progress
Despite widespread reports that genetically modified foods (GMOs), cause cancer, no evidence exists to prove this, scientists and researchers have ...
Radar and robots: Can technology turn honeybees into more efficient pollinators?
According to the Bee Informed Partnership, 37.7% of managed honey bee colonies were lost during the 2018-19 winter — the ...
‘Proudly GMO’ probiotic takes aim at hangovers. Can it ease consumer fear of biotechnology?
On [August 17], a San Francisco-based start-up called ZBiotics celebrated the launch of its first product in a fitting way: ...
Kenya will approve biotech crops on case-by-case basis, three months after proposing to lift GMO ban
Kenyans are still waiting on the Government’s decision as to whether it will lift the ban on Genetically Modified Organisms ...
Lab-grown burgers and now…coffee? Seattle-based startup developing bean-free ‘molecular’ java
[Recently], the United Nations shared yet another alarming report about climate change. This time, it focused on the threat to ...
South Australia to lift ‘stifling’ GMO crop ban that cost farmers $33 million
The Marshall Liberal Government has [on August 19] announced farmers on mainland South Australia will be given the choice to ...
UK farmers struggle to control ‘largely symptomless’ virus without neonicotinoid insecticides
A mild autumn and winter combined with a build-up in aphid numbers since the loss of neonicotinoid seed treatments has ...
‘Supercharged’ GMO crops could store 20 times more CO2 than average plant
Scientists are experimenting with new genetic modification technology that “supercharges” plants to enhance what they already excel at– sequestering carbon ...
Judge tosses glyphosate-in-Cheerios lawsuit for no evidence of ‘injury’
The active ingredient in popular weed killers, glyphosate, has gotten bad press lately .... Some advocacy groups are claiming that ...
Why the USDA employed taste testers to change how Americans eat
Lucy Alexander boasted one of the strangest jobs on the federal payroll. Her official title was the innocuous “chief poultry ...
AI could help farmers cut weather-related crop losses by 25% as global food demand soars
The AI in agriculture market was valued at USD 600 million in 2018 and is expected to reach USD 2.6 ...
USDA green lights commercialization of GMO, drought-tolerant soybean
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given its approval to Verdeca for HB4® drought tolerant soybeans which will allow ...
Is lab-grown meat really a solution to climate change?
To tackle the threat of climate change, there has been a proliferation of harebrained solutions. Right now, the fad du ...
Viewpoint: EPA has science on its side in glyphosate-cancer label battle with California
By any measure, California’s Proposition 65 is an exercise in madness. The law, which is officially titled “The Safe Drinking Water ...
This indoor farmer wants to turn rural Kentucky into America’s ‘high-tech agriculture capital’
Jonathan Webb’s farm doesn’t look like much: tawny soil stretching to a line of trees, a trailer with a few ...
Strict evidence standards in upcoming glyphosate-cancer trials could yield science-based verdicts, legal analyst says
Three trials in California against Bayer have sided with plaintiffs involving allegations that the glyphosate in the herbicide Roundup causes ...
Biotech corn with multiple GMO traits poses no threat to human health, environment, EU study confirms
Following the submission of [an] application .... from Monsanto Company (referred to hereafter as the applicant), the Panel on Genetically ...
Microorganisms could help rid soil of lingering pesticides
Pesticides have been widely used after the Second World War in management of weeds, diseases and pests of plants. Most ...
California advances ban on insecticide chlorpyrifos, claims ‘politics’ prevent EPA from acting
California regulators on [August 14] took formal legal steps to ban a widely used pesticide that had been rescued from ...
9 popular ‘eco-friendly’ everyday things that really aren’t…including buying non-GMO foods
We all care about the environment at least a tiny bit. Some of us more than others. But there are ...
