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.
Viewpoint: ‘Impossible Whopper’ success proves consumers want sustainable food and biotech stigma is overblown. How will meat producers respond?
“It will never be more than niche.” That’s what a cattleman friend of mine recently said about meat alternatives. I’m ...
Green chemicals: How DNA assembly tech streamlines microbe engineering to boost urban farming
Researchers at SMART, MIT's research enterprise in Singapore, and National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a technology that greatly ...
Honeybees and chemicals: Popular neonicotinoid insecticides ‘safe and effective,’ Australia confirms
There have been scientific studies published that suggest a link between the use of neonicotinoids and the declining health of ...
Skeptical about GMO food safety?
Scientists can do some amazing things with genes, from saving papayas from extinction, to making apples last longer before turning ...
South African farmer: Glyphosate ban would send agriculture back to the ‘Stone Age’
When I first heard about the activists who want to take away crop-protection products from African farmers like me, I ...
GMO mosquitoes could save millions from malaria but ‘progressive agroecologists’ mobilize against Gates-funded project
A child under 5 dies from malaria about every two minutes world-wide. Yet radical environmentalists are mobilizing against an important ...
Bayer may enter plant-based meat market as protein provider for Beyond and Impossible Burgers
A Bayer executive ... said the company was closely watching the plant-based meat market which has seen booming demand in ...
Brexit could lead Britain to ‘ditching EU’s mindless precaution and innovation-crushing rules on GMO crops’
Britain was once the world leader in biotechnology for agriculture, but that all changed 20 years ago when the environmental ...
Are crops ‘doused’ with glyphosate? Wheat farmer debunks popular Roundup myths, claims sustainability benefits
Too often, science and facts fall victim to fear mongering and emotion. Recently, we have seen an uptick in false ...
Untraceable CRISPR? New gene editing method modifies plants without leaving ‘foreign DNA’ footprint
Processes of traditional trait development in plants depend on genetic variations derived from spontaneous mutation or artificial random mutagenesis. Limited ...
With yields plunging, sugar beet growers in UK may discontinue growing crop in wake of neonicotinoid insecticide ban
Sugar beet is a crop that has always demanded close attention to grow well, but Norfolk grower Mark Means has ...
‘No safe exposure level’ for controversial pesticide chlorpyrifos, renewal unlikely, European officials conclude
The pesticide chlorpyrifos does not meet the criteria required by legislation for the renewal of its approval in the European ...
‘Homo gluttonous’: Could the history of our meat-eating, over-consuming species threaten the planet?
During our hunter-gatherer past, which constitutes 99 per cent of our history as a species, ... omnivorous tastes served us ...
Finnish ecological sustainability study: Glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide has ‘minor, transient’ impacts on soil and animal health
Despite an increasing concern of consequences of using vast amounts of glyphosate-based herbicides in agroecosystems, their potential effects on non-target ...
‘Blame nature not pesticides’: Bee health detectives unravel mystery of 2013 Oregon bumblebee mass deaths
In June 2013, in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville, Ore., an estimated 50,000 bumblebees dropped dead. Shoppers reported bees falling from ...
GMO glyphosate-tolerant soybean has ‘no adverse effects’ on male rat reproduction system
Glyphosate tolerant soybeans represent a large portion of soybeans grown and fed to farm animals around the world. Despite their ...
Bollworm pest shows signs of resistance to latest GMO Bt corn, cotton in southern US
Also known as the corn earworm, the cotton bollworm has spent the last decade steadily evolving resistance to most of ...
Roundup trial: Bayer’s glyphosate-cancer legal losses signal public’s flagging trust in regulators
Jurors have sided with plaintiffs in all three cases over Bayer AG’s herbicide Roundup to go to trial so far, ...
USDA: Purple corn could help battle obesity, diabetes
Purple corn is more than tasty and eye-catching. Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered a game-changing ...
Impossible Foods ramps up supply as Burger King plans nationwide GMO plant-based Whopper launch
Plant-based burger maker Impossible Foods on [July 31] announced a partnership with major meat supplier OSI Group, a longtime producer ...
Denied access to neonicotinoid insecticides, UK farmers scramble to control deadly plant virus
Controlling the spread of plant viruses has just got harder with the demise of neonicotinoid seed treatments putting the emphasis ...
‘Synthetic signalling networks’ between GMO plants, bacteria could boost crop yields
The root microbiota is critical for agricultural yield, with growth-promoting bacteria able to solubilize phosphate, produce plant growth hormones, antagonize ...
Controlling this gene boosts plant tolerance to water, salt stress
Plant Science reports that OsNCED5 gene regulated tolerance to water and salt stress, as well as leaf aging in rice ...
Just-discovered rice gene could fuel development of new GMO herbicide-resistant crops
Rice experts from the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) in Japan and partners found a rice gene that ...
Bayer scraps launch of Monsanto worm pesticide over safety concerns as glyphosate-cancer legal battle rages
Bayer AG has scrapped plans for wide sales next year of a chemical that is intended to protect U.S. crops ...
Smartphone-powered device quickly detects diseased plants, could help protect crop yields
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed portable technology that allows farmers to identify plant diseases in the field ...
Glyphosate on trial: Bayer would consider settling all cancer lawsuits on ‘reasonable terms’, as suits now number 18,400
Bayer on [July 30] said it would consider settling with U.S. plaintiffs suing over the German group’s Roundup herbicide only ...
