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.
CRISPR-edited yeast could make biofuel production more efficient
Some chemicals used to .... breakdown plants for production of biofuels .... are poison to the yeasts that turn the ...
Eat your broccoli: Chemicals in kale, cabbage and other Brassica vegetables could prevent colon cancer
Chemicals produced by vegetables such as kale, cabbage and broccoli could help to maintain a healthy gut and prevent colon ...
Video: Fear of biotech remains high, but GMOs are revolutionizing farming worldwide
It's no secret that many consumers remain fearful of agricultural biotechnology. More than half of Europe's citizens, for instance, believe ...
Video: Ancient corn variety that makes its own nitrogen could lead to more sustainable farming
In the 1980s, Howard-Yana Shapiro, now chief agricultural officer at Mars, Incorporated, was looking for new kinds of corn. He ...
The next food revolution: Brought to you by CRISPR gene editing
Crispr has the potential to boost yields, disease resistance, and taste, and even tackle allergens like gluten. It could radically ...
Climate change threatens champagne production, but wineries use ‘smart genetics’ to stave off problems
In the cold, chalky cellars deep underground at boutique Champagne house A.R. Lenoble, co-owner Antoine Malassagne shares his worries about ...
If every country ate like America, the world would run out of farmland, study claims
If everybody in the world adopted the North American diet, there would be a shortage of land .... a new ...
Are Roundup-cancer lawsuits about profit, politics or public health?
You might think that the popular weed killer known as Roundup is causing cancers around the world thanks to alarming ...
European farmers already pondering what life without glyphosate might be like
In the aftermath of the European Parliament’s 355-204 vote opposing the renewal of the popular herbicide glyphosate in 2018 for households ...
Does glyphosate cause cancer? Jury says says ‘yes’ but years of research show the herbicide is safe
Can anyone make sense of the debate over glyphosate, the active molecule in the most widely used herbicide [Roundup] in ...
What is ‘clean eating’? Consumers say popular marketing trend is ‘confusing’ and ‘pretentious’
While phrases such as ‘eating clean’ are starting to appear more frequently in consumer marketing, Mintel research shows some consumers ...
‘Geoengineering’ the atmosphere to slow climate change would threaten agricultural production
Proposals to combat climate change by reflecting the sun’s rays back into space would cause widespread crop failure, cancelling out ...
With limited arable land available around the world, is organic farming sustainable?
This question comes up frequently in discussions of farming practices – how much arable land is there on the Earth, ...
Federal court orders EPA to ban widely-used pesticide chlorpyrifos
A federal appeals court ruled [August 9th] that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping a widely used pesticide ...
Viewpoint: Dicamba is controversial, but herbicide’s benefits outweigh its costs
.... Palmer Amaranth, Tall Waterhemp, and Giant Ragweed .... they’re among the worst invaders in a farmer’s soybean fields—prolific weeds that ...
Scientists recruit wheat microbes to halt devastating plant fungal disease
Fusarium head blight is a devastating fungal disease affecting wheat and barley crops worldwide. According to the American Phytopathological Society, ...
Precision drones, driverless tractors bring automated agriculture closer to fruition in the UK
Farming drones from China may soon be buzzing across British fields as a result of a new partnership between Chinese ...
Viewpoint: Farmers turn to social media to educate public about exaggerated benefits of organic and non-GMO labeled foods
Years ago, before I fell in love with a farmer and became one myself, I was a big-city girl who ...
Brazil’s public health agency will appeal judge’s nationwide suspension of glyphosate
Brazil-based agrochemical companies plan to appeal a ruling suspending the use of best-selling weed killer glyphosate .... an industry spokeswoman ...
Counterfeit pesticides in Kenya threaten crop harvests and farmers’ health
[Kenya] is losing [millions of dollars] in revenue to unregistered agro-chemicals dealers and counterfeit pesticides, according to [the] Agrochemicals Association ...
Protect your pets: Many agriculturally necessary plants are naturally toxic to animals
Not all plants are wholesome for foraging animals. Certain species of milkweed, for example, that are highly valued as host ...
As honeybee population grows, scientists question link between neonicotinoids and bee health
Some argue that an increase in insecticide use and a much-publicized Colony Collapse Disorder [CCD] issue have caused honey bees ...
Viewpoint: Organic vs GMO debate distracts from real food security issues
.... For several years now, GMOs and organic have consumed America’s attention. It isn’t our interest in these topics that is ...
Monsanto Roundup trial: First lawsuit alleging glyphosate-cancer link goes to jury
A trial in which a school groundskeeper alleged that his use of Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer caused his terminal cancer ...
FDA approves sugar made from Brazil’s first Bt insect resistant sugarcane variety
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has concluded that it is safe to consume sugar produced from the genetically ...
Success of insect resistant Bt eggplant in Bangladesh opened door to GMOs in the developing world
Bt brinjal is the first genetically engineered crop to be commercially released in Bangladesh, and other GE crops are in ...
Biotech firm Pivot Bio beta testing ‘clean, alternative’ nitrogen fertilizer to spare farmland, protect waterways
Across the Corn Belt this summer, Pivot Bio and farmers in the company’s Intent to Pivot program are beta testing the first sustainable nitrogen ...
