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.
U.S. investments in biotech fuel Philippine agricultural boom
Biotechnology in the Philippines is so important that a new biotechnology center is being built to support the Philippine Department ...
Ugandan researcher: Western science education a ‘game changer’ for African agriculture
[Dr. Priver] Namanya, a plant biotechnologist at the National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NARL) in Kawanda, Uganda, has been doing [biotechnology ...
To revive textile industry, Nigerian government approves its first GMO crops, insect resistant cotton
Several years after [Nigeria's] textile industry had gone moribund, the Federal Government has concluded plans to resuscitate the sector by ...
Viewpoint: Stonyfield Organic enlisted ‘rapid response team’ of academics to ‘scare people’ about GMOs
2015 was the peak of the GMO labeling debate. Bills were being thrown around at both the state and federal ...
Advanced breeding could lead to virus-free cassava, saving African staple crop from extinction
“Cassava is the most important food staple in sub-Saharan Africa,” says Morag [Ferguson], a cassava specialist who [works] with [the International ...
Viewpoint: FDA approval of ‘Impossible Burger’s’ key GMO ingredient is a huge step for sustainable food
The “clean meat” revolution took a major step forward [on July 23] as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ...
EPA investigates illegal use of dicamba as it mulls herbicide’s re-approval
Despite being banned for in-crop use this summer in Arkansas, dicamba is a suspect in damage to thousands of acres ...
India’s new GMO safety rules will follow ‘well established scientific principles’
The Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) has initiated work on framing regulations on Genetically Modified (GM) Food ...
Chemical giant Bayer challenging Europe’s neonicotinoids ban
Bayer will appeal...the recent ruling of the General Court of the European Union (EU) to ban neonicotinoids. [T]he German multinational pharmaceutical company ...
Monsanto, expert witness spar over validity of IARC’s glyphosate-cancer finding
An agricultural economist refuted Monsanto's assertion that the International Agency for Research on Cancer "cherry picked" studies to conclude that Monsanto's ...
Impossible Foods exec: Environmentalist opponents are on ‘wrong side of history’
For more than a year, the nongovernmental organization Friends of the Earth (FOE) has been trying to malign and defame ...
Video: Striving to save Florida’s struggling citrus industry with GMOs
Scientists are making progress toward breeding new citrus trees that better tolerate infection by the fatal bacterial disease citrus greening ...
Stubborn fall armyworm emerging as serious threat to African farms
The onset of the long rain season (March-June) in Kenya usually brings hope, especially to rural smallholder farmers who prepare their lands ...
Nigeria says it will confiscate GMOs imported without a permit
The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), on [July 26th], said it has, in conjunction with the Nigerian Customs Services, ordered ...
CRISPR: How gene editing could provide clean water, cut pesticide use and protect the environment
CRISPR has been making headlines for its potential to treat or prevent diseases. But medicine isn’t the only science where ...
Viewpoint: Despite what you might hear, food irradiation is safe—and necessary
Take a good look at those crisp lettuce leaves in your salad, or consider the barley that has gone into ...
Viewpoint: Activists fret about neonics, but viruses are the real threat to bees
While environmentalists raise millions of dollars insisting they will get targeted pesticides (e.g. neonicotinoids) banned to save bees that aren't ...
Fighting nature’s ‘computer hackers’ through genetic engineering
[T]hrough thousands of years of genetic modification by selective breeding, humans have developed the crops that keep us alive. We ...
What we still need to know about ‘alternative’ meats
“Alternative Proteins” are a hot topic right now; the media, business and farmers are looking at the future of these ...
Viewpoint: Here’s how to separate science from marketing hype on food labels
If your head starts spinning when trying to make healthy and budget-friendly food choices, you’re not alone. Take a look ...
How biotechnology can help feed a growing world population
According to the U.N., the world’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion in 2050 and further increase to 11.2 billion ...
Video: Inside the quest to improve farm animal welfare by tweaking their genes
For nine nerve-racking months beginning in the summer of 2014, Dan Carlson waited for his lab experiments to be born ...
Questioning EU neonics ban: Pesticides are ‘not a curse but a blessing’
Plant protection products and green genetic engineering [tools] are not a curse but a blessing, says Dr. Klaus Schlüter, a ...
Viewpoint: Why the term ‘GMO’ contributes nothing to debates over food safety
Many people believe that a so-called “genetically modified organism” (GMO) is a term that has some significance for interpreting the ...
Viewpoint: Lab-grown meat could lead to a ‘greener, safer, and more humane future’
An emerging body of research unequivocally confirms the need to shift our diets away from a dependency on animal agriculture, ...
Monsanto defends its internal testing in Roundup cancer trial
A Monsanto scientist denied on [July 24th] that the company based its assertions that its Roundup weed killer doesn’t cause ...
Several European Union nations rebuked over efforts to sidestep neonicotinoid ban
At least two EU countries continue to use emergency exemptions to sidestep a ban on pesticides that scientists believe harm ...
