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.
Are farmers struggling to control weeds in the face of dicamba herbicide restrictions?
If there is one thorn in the side of Missouri farmer Tommy Riley, it’s pigweed. ...Riley told members of the ...
USDA, World Health Organization butt heads over use of antibiotics in agriculture
The Trump administration is resisting the World Health Organization’s effort to sharply limit antibiotic use in farm animals... ... The WHO ...
Why is there so much ‘fear and loathing’ of anything biotech?
In this era marked by Grand Canyon-sized divides among Americans, there’s one subject that seems to unite people, no matter ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR crops have a chance to avoid the trust issues that plague GMOs
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on [July 18th] released a report on how to address the most pressing problems of American ...
Ahead of EU decision on new breeding techniques, Belgium acknowledges field trials of CRISPR-edited corn
Silently, the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) has been conducting a field trial with [CRISPR-edited] maize for a year and a ...
Viewpoint: Why the French media still defend Séralini’s discredited GMO rat tumor study
In recent months, the [French] media has had little interest in reporting the results of three large-scale studies that reviewed and confirmed the safety ...
Ugandan farmers could boost production and thwart effects of climate change with new apps
Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro) is popularising three Apps and an SMS-based platform it has developed to help farmers ...
Video: Cancer patient testifies against Monsanto in Roundup weed killer trial
It is the first time St. Louis-based Monsanto Company has had to defend one of its products, Roundup, in front ...
Viewpoint: Powerful new food industry group promises to promote science-based policies—but will it?
Four of the largest food companies have combined forces to form a new advocacy association. Danone North America; Mars, Incorporated; ...
European court appears poised to rule that gene edited crops should not be regulated as GMOs
Gene editing in agriculture takes centre stage [July 25th] when Europe’s highest court rules in a case that could determine ...
Soybean farmer sues dicamba manufacturers, seeks injunction on sale of popular herbicide
A northeast Nebraska farmer has sued herbicide manufacturers, saying his neighbors’ use of the company products damaged his soybean crop ...
Kazakhstan ‘goes organic’ to compete in $90 billion non-GMO food market
Kazakhstan is tapping growing consumer demand for organic crops to help it better compete in the food-export market. The country ...
Roundup trial: Monsanto lawyers grill expert witness for omitting key details around alleged glyphosate-cancer link
Lawyers for Monsanto attempted on [July 20th] to undermine a Chicago oncologist’s opinion that its Roundup weed killer caused a ...
As fears of ‘rogue’ GMO wheat ease, Japan lifts ban on Canadian imports
One day [in] July [2017], a contractor noticed a few stalks of wheat growing by the side of an access ...
CRISPR-edited seeds ‘personalized’ for individual farms could boost worldwide food production
The seeds farmers plant in their fields can carry certain desirable traits, such as drought tolerance or pest resistance. Breeding ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR-edited tomatoes illustrate our newfound power to ‘transform our food’
LIKE ANY SELF-RESPECTING farmer, Zachary Lippman was grumbling about the weather. Stout, with close-cropped hair and beard, Lippman was standing ...
Viewpoint: GMOs may be controversial, but bio-technology is creating a greener, cleaner world
Jason Kelly, founder of the microbe engineering company Ginkgo Bioworks, wants those who work in the often-contentious field of GMOs ...
Amid activist claims Germany colluded with Big Ag to soften glyphosate regulations, Europe may switch evaluation responsibility to France
Monsanto’s quest to keep its controversial weedkiller Roundup on the European market faces another challenge. The European Commission is pushing for ...
‘War of words’ over what to call lab-grown meat exposes divide in America’s food culture
On [July 12th], in a small but packed auditorium, the FDA convened a public meeting about lab-grown meat—but you wouldn’t ...
Despite anti-GMO ‘whispering,’ Bangladesh says ‘science-based information’ will guide its biotech policy
Bt eggplant, or brinjal as it’s known in Bangladesh, is the first genetically engineered food crop to be successfully introduced ...
Viewpoint: There’s no one ‘butterfly-killing bogeyman’ to blame for declining monarch populations
“When you look at the 25-year trend, it seems quite dire,” [Anurag] Agrawal, a Cornell University professor of ecology and ...
Could commercial herbicides made from fungi bridge sustainability gap between organic and conventional agriculture?
Nature is not just out to kill us, it is out to kill itself, in the interest of surviving over ...
Public sorting through what labels shoppers want on sustainable, lab grown meat, Consumer Reports finds
Consumer Reports, published by the 7 million-member nonprofit Consumers Union, [recently] reported on survey results showing the public expects laboratory-produced ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR gene editing might quell ‘frankenfood’ fears and win consumer support for biotech
The debate surrounding genetically engineered (“GE” or “GMO”) plants and animals has historically been, and still is, extremely divisive. Anti-GMO ...
German Agriculture Minister warns against ‘reflexive’ rejection of nutritional and safe CRISPR gene editing-created crops and foods
Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner has warned against a "reflexive" rejection of the use of [new breeding techniques, or NBTs] ...
Viewpoint: If Ghana embraces GMOs, farmers could save nation’s floundering agricultural sector
Ghana has prided itself over the years with agriculture being the key backbone of its economy. But for a long ...
Sri Lankan government lifts glyphosate ban to aid tea growers ‘plagued’ by weeds, slumping production
The [Sri Lankan] government has lifted [a two-year] ban on glyphosate for all crops throughout the country. ... The Government ...
