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.
Viewpoint: US, Europe taking ‘equally misguided’ approaches toward gene-edited crops
Crispr is coming to the farm. The gene-editing tool, best known for its potential to prevent disease and fight cancer, ...
Exploring GMO canola as a cheap source of omega-3 fatty acid for farmed salmon
Something is amiss in the huge barley fields of Montana. Mini-planters punctuate a tiny canola patch an hours’ drive from ...
Cryopreservation: Scientists protect diversity of Uganda’s staple crops with cold storage
Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) is using liquid nitrogen to conserve banana cell lines .... to combat disease and ...
Video: French anti-GMO activists target agricultural cooperative in dicamba, glyphosate protest
At dawn on Monday, August 27th, [French] GMO protesters rallied in Glomel .... As early as 6 am, they blocked access ...
Beef producers, ‘alt-protein’ makers seek help settling ‘long-simmering dispute’
On [August 23rd], the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), a Washington, D.C.-based association that represents the country’s biggest meat producers ...
Viewpoint: To be competitive, India must follow its own lead in regulating gene editing
The European Court of Justice has ruled that organisms altered using gene editing tools should be subjected to the same rules as ...
Pursuing alternatives: Honeybees may be helped by other pollinators
The honeybee, Apis mellifera, has been the dominant pollinator for decades but now is threatened by pesticides, pathogens, parasites and ...
Lab-grown microbes could reduce agriculture’s dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers
There's a potentially huge technology risk on the horizon [for] fertilizer companies .... next-generation biotech products called microbials .... Microbials ...
Caribbean nation St. Vincent suspends glyphosate imports
The Government of St Vincent and the Grenadines has placed an immediate suspension on the importation of pesticides that contain the acting ...
Now facing 8,000 Roundup lawsuits, Bayer says it ‘will vigorously defend’ its herbicide
The number of U.S. lawsuits brought against Bayer’s newly acquired Monsanto has jumped to about 8,000, as the German drugmaker ...
New dicamba application strategies could be key to preventing accidental damage to soybean crops
Using dicamba as a preplant weed-management tool or abiding by state cutoff dates for postemergence applications may be a way ...
Why there’s little hope of ending public disagreements over GMOs and food safety
[L]ook out into the future to the year 2050. Do you think our future food conversations will be more or ...
Sulfoxaflor: The ‘bee-friendly’ neonicotinoid replacement that could hurt bumble bees
With overwhelming evidence on the risks that neonicotinoids .... pose to bees, phytopharmaceutical companies look towards innovation to replace already ...
Cannabis farming is fueling development of less toxic biopesticides for ‘mainstream’ agriculture
As legal cannabis farms take the spotlight, safer methods of pest control are also taking root in more 'mainstream' agriculture. ... Regulators point out ...
Mexico will ban GMO corn when new government takes office, incoming agriculture secretary says
Victor Suarez, who has been named as the new [Undersecretary of Food Self-Sufficiency] by President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), has ...
Crops engineered to consume less nitrogen fertilizer could protect vulnerable ecosystems
Rice, wheat and other grains that have been bred to produce larger harvests using less land have been critical to ...
Scientists hope to use sequenced wheat genome to cut pesticide use, but anti-GMO activists may slow progress
After 13 years of study, a consortium .... of .... 60 countries [sequenced] the wheat genome. [T]he scientific community now ...
As Bayer absorbs ‘much loathed’ Monsanto, will consumers aim their anger at the aspirin maker?
The public seems to loathe Monsanto. A recent poll ranked the company among the 20 most hated in America (nearly every other name ...
Following lawsuit by organic food group, Nature Valley bars will lose ‘100% natural’ label
General Mills Inc.’s Nature Valley bars will no longer bear the “Made with 100% Natural Whole Grain Oats” label, after ...
Does Ireland’s GMO crop cultivation ban undermine push for sustainable agriculture?
At a time when we should be focussed on building a robust agriculture system that can cope with global climate ...
GMO Bt insect resistant eggplant accounts for 20 percent of Bangladesh market, sells for 6 times conventional
Eggplant is a staple in vegetarian diets throughout South Asia, and one of the cheapest vegetables to procure by resource-poor ...
In wake of Environmental Working Group’s glyphosate-cereal report, Chicago day care bans Cheerios
A North American day care company with nine Chicago-area locations has stopped serving Cheerios in response to a recent report ...
GMO corn could be key to controlling invasive fall armyworm pest in Asia
[T]he fall armyworm, an invasive crop pest .... has now been officially confirmed for the first time on the Asian ...
Farming mom: ‘Organic methods made our farm’s environmental impact worse’
Carpooler In Chief, Homework Enforcement Officer, President of Lunch-Packing, Bedtime Efficiency Strategist… When you’re a mom, you never wear just ...
Responding to Senator Schumer’s demand for glyphosate data, FDA says it found ‘no pesticide residue violations’
[The recent] media frenzy — and large dose of scientific criticism — over the Environmental Working Group’s glyphosate residues report, ...
Farmers say Laura Prepon and other anti-GMO celebrities make their jobs harder
I really wish there were more celebrities out there who embraced the biotechnology and the benefits behind modern agriculture. ...
Protecting pollinators: New logging practices triple wild bee populations in one year
New research suggests the removal of timber harvest residue during harvesting may be a boon for wild bees, an important ...
