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.
Off-patent chemistry: Financially strapped American farmers switching to generic crop chemicals
U.S. farmers struggling with slumping incomes and depressed grain prices have been switching to cheaper generic pesticides and fungicides as ...
Viewpoint: We need scalable solutions to meet the surging global demand for food. Here’s why biotechnology is key
According to the United Nations, the world’s population is projected to reach nearly ten billion by 2050.1 Against this backdrop, problems ...
Can genetically modified crops co-exist with the rest of agriculture?
Co-existence and containment of genetically modified (GM) plants has been a contentious issue since GM technologies were first commercially released ...
Viewpoint: Regenerative agriculture that does not include the judicious crop chemicals to fight insects and disease is doomed to fall way short
The Noble Research Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to farm and ranch education, defines regenerative agriculture as “the process of restoring ...
Viewpoint: RFK, Jr. ignites debate over the American diet and the future of meat but his solutions are simplistic and unrealistic
Now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has kicked off his Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA Commission, food system advocates ...
Do liberals and conservatives shopping at the supermarket think about food differently? Brain imaging suggests they do
This study examines if the political affiliation of adults who self-identify as Democrat or Republican differs based on brain activity ...
Viewpoint: Why Europe is greenlighting crop gene editing while it rejected GMOs?
The European Union is yet to adopt a comprehensive legal definition for NGTs [new genomic techniques] . The current understanding ...
How agricultural drones offer farmers a sustainable edge
Traditional farming tools — big tractors, crop dusters, and lots of human labor — are expensive, inefficient, and hard on ...
EU approved three new GMO corn varieties for import as opposition to genetic engineering eases
In a move that could influence global agricultural policy, the European Commission (EC) has approved the import and use of ...
Protein propaganda and expensive pee: Supplement shakes and massive steak consumption have no health benefits and is a waste of money
The nearly ubiquitous social media message is, whoever we are, we need more protein. ... “Whey protein has falsely been ...
Food and beverage companies are overhauling their brands as RFK, Jr.’s ‘transparency campaign’ escalates
For food and beverage companies, complying with additive bans is no longer just about ticking boxes – it is a ...
Gene editing poised to dramatically improve the sustainability profile of tilapia
Brazilian Fish, one of Brazil’s largest tilapia producers, announced it will use genome editing technology to accelerate genetic improvements in ...
Viewpoint: Another top NIH food scientist quits, citing RFK, Jr.’s political interference and science censorship
The National Institutes of Health's top researcher on ultra-processed foods announced Wednesday he was stepping down from the agency, accusing ...
Citrus greening antidote in the works: AI deployed to figure out how to fight deadly plant disease
Scientists have uncovered the first known natural defense mechanism against citrus greening disease, a deadly plant illness that has devastated ...
Food industry moves to reformulate spices, dyes and other products in response to RFK, Jr.’s controversial attacks on safe additives
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s influence is already being felt throughout the food ...
Organic produce now costs as much as 53% more than conventional alternatives, and the price disparity is getting worse
Clean eating is important to many Americans, and that often goes beyond fruits and veggies. The quality of those products ...
The FDA’s new definitions of ‘healthy’ foods takes effect at the end of April—Here’s what you need to know
All of us have probably had the experience of browsing the aisles at the grocery store looking for healthy foods ...
Swamped by lawsuits targeting its weedkiller paraquat, Syngenta reaches mass settlement but reaffirms global regulatory consensus that the chemical is safe-as-used
Besieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s disease, its manufacturer, Syngenta, has entered into an agreement aimed ...
Building a fattier—and healthier—future: How AI could revolutionize the food industry
Food manufacturers are desperate for high-performance fats that meet ESG targets. As meat consumption rises, they’re increasingly concerned about supply ...
The coming generation of gene edited foods are engineered to address consumer needs not just farmers’
['O]ne of the great benefits of using genome editing is we can do more than one thing at a time: ...
CRISPR offers unique food safety tools
At its core, CRISPR works like a genetic search-and-replace tool. The system uses guide RNA to locate specific DNA sequences ...
What’s the recipe for healthier food? Healthier soil?
Greater biodiversity is the key to healthier soil. And healthier soil is the key to a range of environmental and ...
Combinations of some sweeteners and food additives slightly increase health risks
Food additives are widely used by the agri-food industry and are especially common in ultra-processed products found in supermarkets. Scientific ...
‘Tariffs on China could put me out of business’: Trump-supporting farmers panicked by erratic trade flip flops pleads for a quick deal
Amid an escalating trade war, President Donald Trump announced a 125 percent tariff on China while the country hit back ...
From nuclear energy to chemicals to vaccines to GMO crops and food, conspiracy theories and disinformation are as rampant on the political left as the far right
The great majority of conspiracy theories and disinformation spread about environmental and health topics are popularly attributed to the conservative/right side of the political spectrum. But ...
Mostly nutrition-less rice could be gene edited to increase heart health for hundreds of million of nutrition-challenged children
A team of Chinese scientists has successfully modified rice to produce coenzyme Q10, an essential compound known for its role in energy ...
Viewpoint: In RFK, Jr.’s Brave New World of food and health, Zen Honeycutt and and other ‘zealots and gurus’ roam freely
In an NPR article on Moms Across America’s Zen Honeycutt, covered in The Firebreak, the anti-vax activist stated she had given her co-conspirator, ...
