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.
Pakistan announces field trials of 85 GMO pest-resistant Bt cotton varieties
The Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) has announced that 93 new cotton varieties will undergo National Coordinated Varietal Trials (NCVT) in four ...
Viewpoint: Roundup on trial—speculative glyphosate-cancer lawsuits based on ‘junk science’
“The art of junk science is to brush away just enough detail to reach desired conclusions, while preserving enough to ...
Biotech firms rush to enter CRISPR crop market to meet global food demand
Agriculture technology (“agtech”) companies of all sizes are vying to enter commercial food markets. [In March] when news broke about ...
‘Edible insects’ boost food sustainability, but will consumers eat BBQ-flavored bugs?
There is an increasing range of insect-based products, such as whole/flour, snacks, health bars, pasta, pasta sauce and burgers. Edible ...
Newly discovered ‘gene conversion’ mechanism could lead to high-yielding wheat
When it comes to breeding better wheat varieties....we seek to introduce desirable genes that increase yield, [but] these can come ...
CRISPR-edited ‘super plants’ might be our best chance to slow climate change
If this were a film about humanity’s last hope before climate change wiped us out, Hollywood would be accused of ...
Drought and pollution: How do thirsty plants impact air quality?
[P]lants can both help create and cleanse one dangerous air pollutant: ground-level ozone, which causes breathing problems and exacerbates lung ...
High production costs, regulation: Obstacles keeping lab-grown meat off our plates
The thought I had when the $100 chicken nugget hit my expectant tongue was the one cartoon villains have when ...
Engineered ‘self-limiting’ insect could suppress soybean looper, ‘exponential’ threat to US crops
Oxitec Ltd., a UK-based biotechnology company that pioneered the use of biologically-engineered insects to control disease-spreading mosquitoes and crop-destroying agricultural ...
Viewpoint: Biotech industry should rebuild EU’s trust in science to foster farming innovation
The global environmental challenges are changing too fast and we therefore need speedy reactions too, including innovative plant breeding technologies ...
Domestication ‘reboot’: CRISPR gene editing turns wild plants into desirable fruits and vegetables
Early in the 20th century, a strange tomato plant took root in the northeastern United States. Because of a random ...
Fungus-resistant hazelnuts illustrate how genetic modification safeguards our food supply
Ordu is a picturesque city between the mountains and the Black Sea, where a quarter of the world’s hazelnuts grow ...
Glyphosate trial: Text messages, emails reveal Monsanto’s ‘cozy’ relationship with EPA, plaintiffs’ lawyer argues
As the trial over the world’s most widely used herbicide and its connection to a California couple’s cancer stretches into ...
High organic food consumption linked to ‘strong nutritional, environmental benefits,’ study claims
The aim of this study, based on observational data, was to compare some sustainability features of diets from consumers with ...
China’s lengthy GMO crop approval process cuts US agriculture profits $5 billion over five years
China’s approval process for biotech crops is beset by regulatory hurdles and delays that have cost U.S. companies billions of ...
‘Bee safe’ pesticides that replaced neonicotinoids may harm pollinators, activist-funded study finds
New pesticides regarded as “bee safe” could actually be causing harm to these vital pollinators when combined with other chemicals ...
Are bugs disappearing? A science-based ‘insect apocalypse’ Q&A
Q. Dear Umbra, Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate. This terrifies me! What actions can I take to mitigate ...
EU neonicotinoid insecticide ban spurs farmers to abandon canola crops, important resource for bees
When neonicotinoid seed treatments were first banned in flowering crops, control of cabbage stem flea beetle in oilseed rape [OSR] ...
State officials urge EPA to permit additional restrictions on controversial herbicide dicamba
The nation's state pesticide regulators are fighting back after EPA's recent announcement that it is considering limiting states' ability to ...
Facing 10,000 plus glyphosate-cancer lawsuits, Bayer enters court-ordered mediation with next plaintiff
Bayer said on [April 12] it would comply with a U.S. federal judge’s order to enter mediation with a plaintiff ...
Canada codifies new neonicotinoid insecticide rules, allows key agricultural use to continue
Health Canada will restrict some uses of neonicotinoid pesticides because of their impact on honeybees and other pollinators, but the ...
Viewpoint: Do pesticides boost autism risk? New report says ‘possibly’ but correlations are ‘weak’ and ‘misleading’
Recently a study titled “Prenatal and infant exposure to ambient pesticides and autism spectrum disorder in children: population based case-control study” ...
CRISPR gene editing yields world’s smallest tomatoes to feed astronauts
Scientists at the National University of Colombia have bred the smallest tomato in the world using DNA from a cherry ...
USDA: Vietnam’s glyphosate ban ‘devastating’ to global agricultural production
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue on [April 11] criticized Vietnam’s move to ban imports of glyphosate herbicide [Bayer's Roundup], ...
New CDC glyphosate report: “Most studies found no association between exposure to glyphosate-based products and risk of cancer”
A new [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] report on glyphosate’s toxicological effects likely will play a role in the ongoing ...
New bill would give USDA primary responsibility to regulate lab-grown meat
In an effort to codify an agreement regarding oversight of lab-grown meat between the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety ...
‘Organic halo effect’: Consumers underestimate calories in organic foods, studies claim
According to the results of a new French study, it's likely that similar foods will contain similar nutritional content, regardless of ...
