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.
Naturally occurring phosphorous in soil could cut synthetic fertilizer pollution, major threat to sustainable farming
Cornell University engineers have taken a step in understanding how iron in the soil may unlock naturally occurring phosphorus bound ...
Female farmers join protests in India demanding access to GMO herbicide-tolerant cotton
After several instances of farmers in Maharashtra sowing unauthorized varieties of genetically modified (GM) cotton to openly defy the moratorium ...
US college cafeterias, restaurants could be first to serve controversial GMO AquAdvantage salmon
Inside an Indiana aquafarming complex, thousands of salmon eggs genetically modified to grow faster than normal are hatching into tiny ...
Attacking single gene in deadly parasite could protect honeybees from untreatable infection
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have taken the first step towards a weapon against the major honey bee parasite Nosema ...
Chinese biologist Qu Dongyu to focus on hunger, poverty eradication as UN Food and Agriculture Organization chief
Qu Dongyu, China's deputy agricultural minister, was elected [June 23] as the new director general of the U.N. Food and ...
Light manipulation could cut indoor farming energy use 30-50% without hindering crop growth
There is substantial interest in growing crops in closed controlled environments, yet the energy requirements are high. Energy is required ...
‘Google maps’ for gene sequencing helps small labs cheaply, quickly develop disease-resistant crops
Australian researchers have developed a tool described as “Google Maps for genes” potentially throwing open the field of genetic manipulation, ...
Post-Brexit Britain ponders break from EU GMO, gene-editing restrictions, embracing US model
With so much focus and attention on Brexit, there’s another ‘B’ word that has been fretted over for decades, causing ...
Blight-tolerant American chestnut tree: Latest biotech solution to nature’s assault on valued species
A blight-tolerant American chestnut tree is the latest example of what the science community has begun to call a GRO—a ...
Bt eggplant, Bangladesh’s first GMO crop, controls ‘vicious’ fruit and shoot borer pest, boosts farmer profit sixfold
Eggplant, or brinjal (Solanum melongena), is a popularly consumed vegetable grown throughout Asia that is prone to vicious and sustained ...
Bees with access to diverse flowering plants are healthier pollinators, USDA study shows
Everyone wants healthy, thriving honey bee colonies. One-third of the food we eat requires pollinators, and commercial beekeepers transport honey ...
Varroa mites central driver of uptick in overwinter honeybee colony losses according to 2018-2019 survey, worrying entomologists
Beekeepers across the United States lost 40.7% of their honey bee colonies from April 2018 to April 2019, according to ...
Viewpoint: Environmentalists put nature ahead of human welfare by assaulting ‘unnatural’ GMOs, pesticides
Traditionally, Western thought has conceived of the environment as a set of natural elements that can be domesticated by man ...
Food and farm groups combat activist effort to ban glyphosate from oat production
An effort by the Environmental Working Group seeks to eliminate the use of glyphosate in oat production, but farm and ...
Viewpoint: To boost sustainable farming, new UN Food and Agriculture Organization chief should promote science-based policies
The United Nations body is about to elect a new director‑general. The choice will affect the entire globe for years ...
No ‘meaningful difference’ between GMO golden rice and conventional counterpart, except for boosted beta-carotene levels, study confirms
Compositional analyses were performed on samples of rice grain, straw, and derived bran obtained from golden rice event GR2E and ...
Impossible Foods rebuffs activist Vandana Shiva’s ‘illogical, ironic’ plant-based GMO burger boycott
For decades, Vandana Shiva has been an outspoken activist against genetic engineering and the products that result from it, such ...
Bayer asks judge to overturn $2 billion glyphosate-cancer verdict based on ‘inflammatory, fabricated evidence’
Bayer AG has asked a California judge to overrule a $2 billion verdict by jurors who found the company’s glyphosate-based ...
GMO crops could have slowed fall armyworm pest advance across China
A hungry caterpillar that ravages crops is advancing across China and threatening the nation’s vast supply of maize. Scientists are ...
Gene editing could save Ghana’s cocoa from extinction, scientists say
A new study warns that climate change could drive Ghana’s cocoa (cacao) industry to extinction — a fate that scientists ...
Viewpoint: To support farmers, India should promote consumer acceptance of GMO crops
With Prakash Javadekar taking charge of the environment ministry from the inert Harsh Vardhan, and hopes kindling of genetically-engineered brinjal ...
Sequenced genome reveals how almonds went from bitter to sweet, could help produce more flavorful nuts
A team of researchers .... has found the genetic difference between bitter wild almonds and the sweet domesticated variety. In ...
High-yielding wheat boosts chemical use? Study busts popular farming myth
The myth that modern wheat varieties are more heavily reliant on pesticides and fertilizers is debunked by new research published ...
Land use for meat production slashed by 140 million hectares since 2000. Intensive agriculture could keep the decline going
Pastureland is by far the single largest human land use on the planet. Globally, we use twice as much land ...
CRISPR, ‘speed breeding’ can help meet surging food demand on a warming planet
Farmers and plant breeders are in a race against time. The world population is growing rapidly .... but the amount ...
Lab-grown sushi could help meet booming seafood demand, cut overfishing
Salmon has become the guinea pig of the seas when it comes to using technology to supplement falling fish populations ...
Video: African biotech scientist Margaret Karembu defends safety, sustainability of GMO crops
Environmental scientist Margaret Karembu takes on common objections to GMO crops in this interview with Know Ideas Media founder Nick ...
