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.
Kenyan farmer ‘confused and disappointed’ by anti-science agenda at International Conference on Agroecology
The three-day first International Conference on Agroecology Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems in Africa, held recently at the Safari Park ...
Scientists recruit drones, GMOs and weed-killing robots to help farmers thrive as climate changes
In decades to come, African farmers may pool their money to buy small robot vehicles to weed their fields or ...
Sen. Chuck Schumer: Pesticide industry behind USDA suspension of honeybee population research
Sen. Chuck Schumer on [July 28] blasted the US Department of Agriculture for suspending data collection of the decline of ...
EU green lights imports of 10 GMO crops following comprehensive safety assessment
On [July 26], the Commission authorized ten genetically modified organisms (GMOs): seven for food and feed uses .... two renewed ...
Bayer faces expensive lawsuit in Brazil as more farmers challenge firm’s GMO soy patent
Germany’s Bayer AG, which completed the takeover of U.S.-based Monsanto [in 2018], has been dealt a legal blow in Brazil ...
Viewpoint: Eat organic apples to improve gut health? There’s reason for skepticism
Yogurt marketing and supplement claims aside, there is no evidence that your body is impacted by probiotics unless you suffered ...
Nutritionist: You can’t buy GMO wheat—so don’t blame it for celiac disease
Amber Pankonin, a registered dietitian and an adjunct instructor in the science department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, places trust ...
Infographic: How CRISPR gene editing works
Here's a quick look at the mechanics of CRISPR, courtesy of Euroseeds, a trade association for European seed producers. The ...
New breeding techniques can boost food security in Africa, report finds
New breeding techniques can help Africa meet its food security and industrial needs while improving farmer livelihoods, according to a ...
Roundworm pheromones could boost crop pest resistance, cut chemical use
Protecting crops from pests and pathogens without using toxic pesticides has been a longtime goal of farmers. Researchers at Boyce ...
Bayer trial: Judge cuts ‘excessive, unconstitutional’ $2 billion Monsanto glyphosate-cancer damages to $86.7 million
A California judge on [July 25] reduced a $2 billion jury verdict, slashing the award for a couple who blamed ...
Plant-based Beyond Burger healthier than beef? Nutrition experts weigh in on popular meat alternative
Canadians can't get enough of Beyond Meat's plant-based burger that's designed to taste just like beef .... But does Beyond's ...
GMO Bt corn has ‘no impact’ on health of soil animals, two-year study finds
Scientists from Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences conducted a 2-year field trial and found that genetically engineered maize producing insecticidal ...
Video: Can we keep this parasitic, bee-killing mite out of the US?
“Bees are not just an incredibly charismatic insect, they’re also incredibly vital to our way of life as human beings,” ...
Is ‘Big Ag’ getting into the cannabis business?
When Mowgli Holmes and his childhood friend Nishan Karassik founded Phylos Bioscience in 2014 they had one major goal: to ...
Kenyan scientists lobby for GMO Bt cotton approval to cut pesticide use
Mwea cotton farmers in Kirinyaga have expressed concern over the high cost of pesticides. They say they have to dig ...
Viewpoint: ‘Bombarding’ public with facts won’t end opposition to GMO crops
In a paper published early this year in Nature Human Behavior, scientists asked 500 Americans what they thought about foods ...
Natural GMOs: Parasitic plants steal host DNA to siphon off needed resources
Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their host plants and use the stolen genes to more effectively siphon off ...
Kenya field trial shows Bt cotton boosts yields four-fold
“The results from the biotech cotton have demonstrated the potential that it has in transforming the textile industry in the ...
‘GMO is too simplistic’: Why industrial microbes need their own classification system
ASTM International is the global leader in voluntary technical standards. If you’ve ever worn a bicycle helmet, for example, you’ve ...
Why 3 countries planted GMO Bt cotton and got ‘wildly different results’
Three countries used the same tactic to fight the same pest on the same crop, but they had wildly different ...
Could gene drive technology eradicate glyphosate-resistant weeds?
Waterhemp and Palmer amaranth, two aggressive weeds that threaten the food supply in North America, are increasingly hard to kill ...
Home-field advantage in Missouri trial could boost Bayer’s fortunes in glyphosate-cancer legal battle
Bayer .... facing an upcoming trial in St. Louis over allegations that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, has recruited ...
Viewpoint: Non-browning Arctic apple rollout offers ‘template’ for ending GMO debate
“Everybody thinks, 'GMOs … consumers are all against that,' ” Neal Carter, president of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, was quoted on ...
Some farmers earn more money defending GMOs on YouTube than they do growing food
It’s a sign of the times when farmers make more money advocating for the industry on social media than actually ...
Climate change could ‘significantly’ cut nutrient content in crops over next 30 years
One of the biggest challenges to reducing hunger and undernutrition around the world is to produce foods that provide not ...
Fitness-focused consumers spur development of non-GMO soybean with 50% more protein
Israel-based startup Equinom is developing non-GMO soybeans with higher protein levels, which the company said in a release will deliver a ...
