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.
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 ...
Food revolution: Will lab-grown meat, milk and eggs take over grocery stores?
It’s been 6 years since scientists grew the world’s first beef burger made without the cow in the lab. As ...
Plant hormones help battle purple witchweed, major threat to sub-Saharan Africa’s staple crops
Striga hermonthica, also known as purple witchweed, is an invasive parasitic plant threatening sub-Saharan Africa's food production. Striga infects the region's staple ...
Judge dismisses lawsuit alleging Bayer tried to monopolize dicamba-resistant seed market
A federal court has granted Monsanto's move to dismiss a complaint filed by a Missouri farmer alleging a conspiracy to ...
Declining diversity of sorghum, world’s fifth most important cereal crop, could threaten Africa’s food security
The diversity of the crop Sorghum, a cereal used to make alcoholic drinks, has been decreasing over time due to ...
Fine tuning photosynthesis: Predictive model helps scientists breed higher yielding crops
In the next two decades, crop yields need to increase dramatically to feed the growing global population. Wouldn't it be ...
Bayer lawsuits: USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue defends glyphosate before House appropriations subcommittee
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue....defended the use of the weedkiller Roundup after two cases resulted in multimillion-dollar jury verdicts against Bayer ...
CRISPR-edited crops could help avoid famine as global food demand grows
Just like human beings, plants get sick. Microorganisms such as fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses and nematodes (tiny worm like organisms) ...
Sequenced durum wheat genome aids efforts to breed more nutritious, disease-resistant crops
University of Saskatchewan (U of S) researchers say they have discovered how to significantly reduce cadmium levels in durum wheat, ensuring the ...
Bayer releases 107 Roundup safety studies as glyphosate-cancer legal battle continues
With recent legal battles, Bayer [has released]....all 107 Bayer-owned glyphosate safety study reports that were submitted to the European Food Safety ...
Pollution from corn farming linked to 4,300 premature deaths annually, study claims
A study published [April 8] in Nature Sustainability shows how deadly [corn] can be. And eating it isn’t the killer; ...
Royalty-free seeds, mobile devices help African farmers boost crop yields despite drought
As our global population continues to grow and the climate becomes hotter and drier and resources become scarcer.... we need ...
GMO crops still ‘sticking point’ as US-China trade deal moves toward completion
China’s lengthy approval process for genetically modified crops remains a sticking point in talks to end the trade war between ...
Video: The case for growing (and eating) sustainable GMO AquAdvantage salmon
Recently, a company called AquaBounty earned U.S. approval to begin selling their genetically engineered salmon in grocery stores. The salmon ...
Newly discovered plant immune response mechanism reveals how crops battle deadly pathogens
Although separated by more than one billion years of evolution, plants and animals have hit upon similar immune strategies to ...
Video: CRISPR-edited crops could see mainstream success in 2019
[Food producers have] been lauding the benefits of CRISPR for a couple of years, and how different it is from ...
French farmers destroy 18,000 hectares of rapeseed, double previous estimates, after discovering illegal GMO crops
French farmers destroyed a total of 18,000 hectares of rapeseed, more than double the area initially expected, following the discovery ...
