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.
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 ...
Crops produced with mutagenesis misleadingly labeled ‘non-GMO’ in Germany, biotech industry trade group says
According to research by [Germany's Free Democratic Party] and the genetic engineering-friendly association “Forum Grüne Reason” (FGV), many foods labeled ...
Facing escalating legal costs defending Monsanto’s Roundup, Bayer invests $5.6 billion in alternative herbicide research
Germany's Bayer sought to repair its reputation on [June 14] after damage caused by U.S. litigation over claims its glyphosate ...
Viewpoint: Consumers shouldn’t trust paid anti-GMO activists over independent biotech experts
Despite the benefits of GMOs, 80% of respondents to the 2018 Food and Health Survey Report from the International Food Information ...
GMO corn doesn’t harm gut microbiome of rats, study team associated with anti-biotech geneticist Gilles-Eric Séralini finds
Safety concerns arising from the consumption of foods derived from genetically modified (GM) crops remains a controversial subject. We report ...
Kind Bar attacks pro-organic rival Clif Bar for ‘disguising’ sugar in its recipe
Kind’s latest salvo against Clif Bar is another sign that their ongoing rivalry for a bigger slice of the $5 billion ...
How do we stem climate change? Suck a trillion tons of CO2 underground
[In May], carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere surpassed 415 parts per million, the highest in human history. Environmental experts ...
Varroa destructor mite attacks on honeybees threaten wild bumblebees, too, research shows
A mite that spreads a dangerous virus among honeybees also plays an indirect role in infecting wild bumblebees, new research ...
Switzerland greenlights field trial of GMO fungus-resistant barley
On 18 December 2018, the University of Zurich submitted .... a request for the experimental release of genetically modified barley ...
Impossible Foods defends use of GMO soy in plant-based burger to stand out from competitors
As ingredient choices made by ‘next-generation’ plant-based meat brands attract more scrutiny, with some making a virtue of using peas ...
GMO Bt corn cultivation in EU poses no threat to ‘human, animal health or the environment,’ food safety officials confirm
Following a request from the European Commission, [The European Food Safety Authority] assessed the 2017 post‐market environmental monitoring (PMEM) report ...
Guatemalan coffee growers battling deadly plant fungus, stiff competition abandon farms for US
Guatemala’s coffee farmers are at the mercy of one of the world’s most volatile commodity markets. Over the past two ...
