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.
Without glyphosate, farmers in seven Asian countries face $1.4-$1.9 billion increase in weed control costs, study finds
A new paper published in the journal Agbioforum points to higher weed control costs, less effective weed control, more difficult access ...
EPA may override state pesticide regulations, including stricter dicamba weed killer rules
State regulators are worried that the Environmental Protection Agency is getting ready to override them on a host of pesticide ...
Photosynthesis-efficient rice could help meet surging food demand in developing countries
Work is well underway to engineer a rice plant in a way that global production of the grain gets a dramatic ...
5 organic food facts to consider before your next Whole Foods visit
[T]he affinity for buying and eating organic has spread like wildfire, especially in the last couple of years. People are ...
Roundup lawsuit: Jury in glyphosate-cancer case awards plaintiff $81 million
A U.S. jury on [March 27] awarded $81 million to a man who claimed his use of Bayer AG's glyphosate-based ...
Oregon’s proposed neonicotinoid insecticide restrictions spark debate over necessity of pesticides
Two bills restricting certain pesticides [got hearings on March 26] in the Oregon legislature. Marie Bowers is a fifth generation ...
UK experiencing ‘widespread’ decline of insect pollinators, new study claims
Great Britain is in great trouble....it’s running out of pollinators. The Center for Ecology & Hydrology measured the presence of ...
LEGO-inspired research gives lab-grown meat more realistic texture
A group of food scientists who are working to create lab-grown meat have found inspiration in an unlikely source: LEGOs. According ...
Roundup trial: Plaintiff in glyphosate-cancer lawsuit asks for $18 million in damages as jury deliberations continue
Arguing that agrochemical company Monsanto has spent decades deceiving consumers about the dangers of its popular Roundup weed killer, attorneys ...
Neonicotinoid insecticide ban, bad weather could cut Europe’s already slumping sugar beet yields
Farmers in western Europe have begun sugar beet planting, with first indications pointing to a drop in area for the ...
‘Insectageddon’? Biologists say we need better data before warning of impending insect extinction
As members of that subset of the human population who love insects, we have been alarmed by a recent publication ...
Viewpoint: Drought-tolerant crops could help Africa prevent $372 billion in lost crop yields
Drought, a period of inadequate rain or no rainfall, is the main cause of crop yield loss in Africa, ultimately ...
Consumer-focused CRISPR-edited crops may be key to building public trust in biotech
Gene editing has the potential to change agriculture, but only if consumers believe it’s a beneficial technology....The best way and ...
Viewpoint: Conventional, organic farming advocates should stop fighting and focus on feeding world’s growing population
For years, discussions about the future of the agricultural industry have converged on the arbitrary yet consequential date of 2050, ...
Viewpoint: EU neonicotinoid insecticide restrictions could ‘disrupt global trade flows’
Farmers and the agri-chemical industry are criticizing the European Parliament for seeking to export the EU’s stringent standards on pesticides ...
Many farmers endorse glyphosate as safe weed killer while Bayer battles Roundup-cancer lawsuits
Farmers are standing by Bayer AG’s Roundup herbicide despite rulings from two juries that the world’s most widely used weedkiller caused ...
Viewpoint: GMO trees could save America’s ‘decimated’ citrus industry from bacterial ‘plague’
Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges ...
GM disease-resistant wheat closer to commercialization after successful field trial
A joint venture project between the [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation] and a US foundation has had recent success ...
Do Roundup Ready GMO crops harm Monarch butterflies? Ecologists weigh in as new data comes to light
Monarch butterfly populations have been declining since the 1990s, and several studies have linked this to the proliferation of crops ...
Divided agriculture sector spars over GMOs as Tasmania mulls lifting biotech crop ban
Professor Sergey Shebala spends a lot of time thinking about how the world's growing population is going to be fed ...
Podcast: Yale neurologist Steven Novella debunks popular myths about GMO golden rice
As Bangladesh prepares to release GMO golden rice, Yale University clinical neurologist Steven Novella and co-hosts debunk some popular myths ...
MillerCoors sues Anheuser-Busch over corn syrup ‘fearmongering’ in Bud Light Super Bowl ad
The king in a Super Bowl commercial for Bud Light may have “just wanted to return some corn syrup to its rightful ...
Roundup lawsuit: Bayer shares tumble as legal battle against glyphosate-cancer claims continues
Shares in Germany’s Bayer’s fell more than 12 percent on [March 20] after a second U.S. jury ruled its Roundup ...
Animal cells grown on grass could yield next version of lab-grown meat
Scientists at the University of Bath have grown animal cells on blades of grass, in a step towards cultured meat ...
Plan to battle citrus greening disease in Florida with antibiotics sparks backlash from activists, some scientists
In the next month or so, orange trees across Florida will erupt in white blossoms, signalling the start of another ...
African biotech group to critics: Where’s evidence GMOs are dangerous?
Mr Enoch Ilori, the Project Officer for Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB), has said there is no ...
Crop biotechnology can aid environmental conservation, African scientists say
Over the years, many plant and animal species have disappeared from Earth, in part due to human degradation of the ...
