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.
13 African countries have biotech crops in different stages of development, but approvals are slow
A new report published by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) shows that GM crop cultivation ...
Grapes genetically resistant to mildew rot could cut pesticide use and French wine prices at the same time
French wineries have to use a lot of pesticide to keep their grapes healthy, and that's both expensive and costly ...
Brazilian judge suspends glyphosate use, citing concerns about herbicide’s toxicity
A Brazilian judge has suspended the use of products containing the agrochemical glyphosate, a widely employed herbicide for soy and ...
Agricultural firm Simplot receives first commercial license for CRISPR gene editing, focusing on cutting waste
A multinational agricultural company based in Idaho has acquired gene editing licensing rights that could one day be used to ...
Stopping gene flow: ‘Containment genes’ could prevent GMO seeds from spreading in the wild
The largest field-based study of genetically modified forest trees ever conducted has demonstrated that genetic engineering can prevent new seedlings ...
Agricultural innovation raises thorny ethical questions about overconsumption in the western world
Scientists at the Department of Agrobiotechnology research facility in the Vienna University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Tulln, ...
Congressional committee cuts funding to IARC over WHO agency’s controversial glyphosate-cancer finding
The House Committee on Appropriations has withheld funding for the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer—which receives about $2 million from ...
Ghanaian farmers enlist drones to combat fall armyworm invasion
Farmers at Janga in the West Mamprusi municipality of the Northern Region [in Ghana] are learning how to use drones ...
Regulators reverse Obama-era ban on GMOs, neonicotinoid pesticides in wildlife refuges
The Interior Department announced plans [August 3rd] to reverse a rule that banned the use of pesticides in national wildlife ...
Indian farmers double yields with Bt cotton, but pest resistance issues complicate its advantages
Ever since India adopted genetically modified Bt cotton in 2002, a bitter battle has been raging to define the narrative ...
Video: New education campaign gives ‘farmer moms’ a voice in the GMO debate
A Fresh Look is one of the newest efforts to give farmers a voice about GMOs and speak directly to the ...
Less harmful sugar? More efficient sweet silica could ‘shake up’ the food industry
The surprising truth about cake is that it’s astonishingly inefficient. So are lollipops, pies, sticks of gum, and cookies, each ...
Ratooning: Nuclear technology helps Chinese rice farmers double their yields—and their incomes
Just as grass lawns regrow after they are mowed, rice fields can regrow after they are harvested. This second harvest ...
As ‘GMO-free’ food market booms, Nestlé sued for mislabeling products containing GMOs
Nestlé is facing a federal class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles alleging it sold products labeled as having "No GMO Ingredients" ...
Low cholesterol oil? Indian scientists developing CRISPR gene-edited groundnut
Soon, weight watchers and those with high cholesterol won’t have to think twice before picking up the jar of groundnut ...
Viewpoint: A field trip inside Green anti-GMO campaigning
A few months ago, I went to [an] event called European Ideas Lab, organized in Brussels by the Greens/EFA, the green ...
Kenya, Ethiopia show neighboring Uganda how to revive its dying cotton industry with pest-tolerant technology
Cotton, once a cash cow in Uganda where growers aspired to outcompete each other in the acreage covered and income ...
Humans have never lived ‘in balance with nature,’ and we shouldn’t try to today
Before the agricultural revolution .... life was hard .... And there was no question of living in "harmony with nature." ...
Fish feed enhanced with omega-3 oil? UK scientists developing more nutritious food for farmed salmon
Researchers .... are giving farmed salmon feed made from genetically modified crops. The aim of the scientific trial is to ...
Video: Biochemist Myles Power dresses down Indian anti-GMO philosopher and ‘green revolution’ critic Vandana Shiva
Anti-GMO activists have attacked innovation in agriculture since the start of the Green Revolution in the mid-20th century. Assuming everyone ...
Celestial Seasonings accused of misleading consumers with non-GMO label
Anything calling itself “sleepy time” should be calm and relaxing, right? But there’s not much comfort to be found in ...
Glyphosate cancer lawsuits ‘needlessly alarm’ the public abut a ‘critical farming tool’
[A] federal district judge presiding over class-action litigation in California [recently] made a troubling decision that will reverberate across the ...
‘Rice 2.0’: GMO grain could neutralize HIV virus before it does any harm
An international team of researchers .... plans to fight HIV using only cereal; namely, rice. In a new paper, they ...
Organic, grass-fed beef: Nutritious food choice or marketing hype?
.... Organic farming and grass feeding are promoted as having some social and environmental benefits compared with conventionally produced red ...
‘Factory farms wreck the environment’ and other myths farmers are tired of hearing
Here are [some] of the biggest myths spread on social media and in the mainstream media, and some stuff we ...
Former Monsanto CTO Robb Fraley: Here’s why GMO labels deceive consumers
Imagine that some enterprising souls in the U.S. decide one day that shoes are bad, and begin drumming up support and ...
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue redoubles effort to promote gene editing, risk-based regulations
The USDA plans to double down efforts to work with partners globally towards science-based regulatory approaches. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture ...
