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.
Price of lab-grown burger could drop from $280,000 to $10 by 2021
Lab-grown meat, first introduced to the world six years ago in the form of a $280,000 hamburger, could hit supermarket ...
Manipulating plant mitochondrial DNA could boost crop diversity, promote food security
Researchers in Japan have edited plant mitochondrial DNA for the first time, which could lead to a more secure food ...
‘Second generation’ GMO plants could turn marginal soils into productive farmland
Roughly one-third of the world’s arable land suffers from lack of accessible iron, rendering it inhospitable to staple crops like ...
Glyphosate manufacturers reject alleged weed killer-cancer link in response to federal Roundup report
Glyphosate registrants defended their products as safe to use in comments submitted .... to the Department of Health and Human ...
Viewpoint: ‘We’ll be eating each other in 5 years’? How ‘catastrophic’ environmentalism threatens sustainable farming
In April, the cry of climate catastrophe seized the political agenda. ... It was the only subject driving the zombie ...
Zambia increases GMO imports after assessment shows ‘products safe for consumption’
Zambia's regulator of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) on [July 8] announced that it has allowed some companies to import products ...
Lab-grown protein could make up 35% of meat consumption by 2040 amid growing concerns about animal agriculture
Memphis Meats, based in Emeryville, California, is one of a growing number of startups worldwide that are making cell-based or ...
Hybrid corn boosts grain yields 89%, nitrogen use efficiency 73% over 70 years
During the past 70 years, hybrid corn varieties have increased both yield and nitrogen use efficiency at nearly the same ...
Sydney, Australia may end glyphosate use as public opposition to Bayer’s weed killer grows
Sydney’s city council said on [July 5] it was reviewing .... the use of Bayer AG’s Roundup, after other councils ...
Podcast: Save our forests with GMO trees? Let’s look at the costs and benefits first
We have genetically engineered food; how about trees? In [June 8's] Academic Minute, North Carolina State University's Jason Delborne looks ...
Monsanto’s GMO soybean ‘safe as conventional counterpart,’ EU expert panel confirms
Following the submission of [an] application .... from Monsanto (hereafter referred to as ‘the applicant’), the Panel on Genetically Modified ...
Promoting lab-grown meat as ‘high-tech’ innovation could fuel consumer fear of alternative protein
In the near future, we will be able to mass-produce meat directly from animal cells. This cultured meat could change ...
While managed honeybees get all the attention, some native pollinators ‘dwindle toward extinction’
Those honeybees you’ve been fretting over are getting native bumblebees sick. A new study shows that viruses infecting domestic honeybees ...
India’s crackdown on GMO cotton in Maharashtra state boosts illegal planting nearly 25%
Nearly 25 per cent of the cotton crop being sown by farmers in Maharashtra this season is from the banned ...
Pakistan marks another GMO crop milestone
Pakistani farmers and scientists are recognizing the need for genetically modified (GM) crops to help the country transition from subsistence ...
Juror in glyphosate-cancer trial urges judge to uphold $80 million verdict appealed by Bayer
A juror who was part of a panel that delivered an $80 million award against Bayer AG after finding that ...
Alternative meat producers struggle to secure supply of yellow peas as demand for plant-based burger skyrockets
The soaring popularity of plant-based meat substitutes has shone a spotlight on a new star ingredient: the humble pea. From ...
‘Smart’ fertilizers help feed booming global population while cutting pollution, slowing climate change
To feed the world’s growing population, farmers need to increase crop yields. Applying more fertilizer could help. But standard versions ...
African cassava mosaic virus poses serious threat to food security. Is CRISPR gene editing the answer?
.... African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV) has been linked to famine and indirectly to the deaths of thousands of people ...
Are plants conscious? Experts say trendy theory in biology based on misunderstanding of evolution
If a tree falls, and no one's there to hear it, does it feel pain and loneliness? No, experts argue ...
Treating nutrient-stripped soil with charcoal made from plants could boost US crop yields 6%
Farmers in the US can expect to see an increase in crop yield of between 4.7 and 6.4%, on average, ...
Want a more sustainable food system? Convince young westerners to eat insects
The rapidly changing climate and an expanding global population are serious risks for worldwide food security. Edible insects have a ...
India says it will take “appropriate action” to stop farmers from planting unapproved GMO insect resistant and herbicide tolerant crops
[India's] agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar reiterated that all genetically modified (GM) crops other than Bt. cotton [have] been banned ...
Viewpoint: GMOs pose ‘systemic threat to humanity’? Debunking Nassim Taleb’s apocalyptic assault on crop biotech
Nassim Taleb is a statistician and financial risk analyst. As interesting as his observations about the uncertain risk of large ...
Austria could be first EU state to prohibit glyphosate use as weed killer ban advances through parliament
Austria’s lower house of parliament passed a bill on [July 2] banning all uses of the weedkiller glyphosate, the first ...
New insight into how plants breathe could lead to more water-efficient crops
Scientists have discovered how plants create networks of air channels -- the lungs of the leaf -- to transport carbon ...
Are eggs good or bad for you? Why science can’t make up its mind about our favorite foods
Do you know whether eggs are good for you? What about coffee, red wine, or chocolate? Most people probably have ...
