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.
40% of US consumers avoid GMO foods at grocery store, survey finds
Even though consumer awareness and knowledge of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) aren't very high, a recent online survey from the International Food Information Council ...
Bumblebees do better in cities than on farms, study finds
Cities are filled with buildings, people and concrete — usually not seen as the ideal place for anything wild but ...
GMO safflower approved for commercial use by Australian regulator
The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has issued a licence to GO Resources Pty Ltd that authorises the ...
17 million farmers around the world grew GMO crops in 2017, industry studies show
[T]he International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) and PG Economics, Ltd. released new studies highlighting the continued ...
Mandatory label may improve consumer confidence in GMO foods, study finds
Today’s findings suggest ... that the presence of labels may serve to dispel consumer concerns about GMOs by increasing their ...
Impossible Foods: Friends of the Earth is ‘anti-science fundamentalist’ group
For more than a year, the non-governmental organization Friends of the Earth (FOE) has been trying to malign and defame ...
Viewpoint: Canada GMO wheat mishap shows why biosecurity is important
A temporary ban by Japan on imports of Canadian wheat is the latest lesson to grain exporters that biosecurity can ...
How GMO crops can help Nigeria achieve food security
The tortuous journey to creating food security through bio-technology has been undulating, but it is a sacrifice worth making by ...
Viewpoint: David Zaruk’s defense of science, glyphosate make him a ‘true farming hero’
Compared with some of history’s more notable rivalries – Wellington and Napoleon, Gladstone and Disraeli, Ali and Frazier – a ...
Finless Foods: Lab-grown fish startup that uses genetic engineering nears commercialization
Finless Foods – one of a new wave of start-ups in the rapidly heating-up cultured fish arena - has raised ...
Viewpoint: Efforts to combat vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines aren’t working. It’s time to give Golden Rice a chance
Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) continues to be a major public health concern worldwide. It is estimated that 250,000–300,000 vitamin A-deficient ...
South Korea resumes wheat imports from Canada after no GMOs detected in shipments
South Korea is importing Canadian wheat again eight days after suspending purchases following the announcement that a handful of unauthorized ...
Viewpoint: How EU can return to evidence-based policy-making
The word ‘evidence’ implies objectivity based on facts and science. But the reality reveals a wide gap between theory and ...
Signs of trouble ahead for organic dairy farmers
It’s an indisputable fact that organic farming is on the up, now more than ever. With sales of 8.2 billion ...
Viewpoint: Why farmers should pay attention to glyphosate-cancer lawsuits
The San Fransisco Superior Court will soon hear testimony from a man dying of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma who claims Roundup (glyphosate) ...
European scrutiny puts pressure on farmers to limit glyphosate use
The glyphosate you use on the farm hasn’t changed — but public attitudes, at least in some quarters, have radically ...
Gene discovery could make GMO poplar trees a renewable source of biofuels
For decades, biologists have believed a key enzyme in plants had one function—produce amino acids, which are vital to plant ...
Viewpoint: How Scotts and Monsanto got off the hook for Oregon GMO bentgrass mishap
In the failing light of an unusually warm January day, Jerry Erstrom and I race along a dirt track behind ...
Indian scientists develop new variety of blight-resistant rice
Researchers at the Hyderabad-based Indian Institute of Rice Research have developed a new variety of the popular Improved Samba Mahsuri ...
White House proposes FDA transfer its crop and animal oversight responsibilities to USDA
The Trump administration has proposed a fundamental change to the mission of the Food and Drug Administration, one that would ...
Chinese embrace fake news on GMOs, with many believing they are US bioterrorism weapons
Numerous public opinion surveys have shown that Chinese people have a sharply negative attitude towards genetically modified foods, despite the ...
EU Green Parties: Crops produced with New Breeding Techniques are ‘new GMOs’ that perpetuate ‘industrial agriculture’
The EU Court of Justice will soon publish its ruling concerning the legal statute of a group of biotechnologies, which have ...
Viewpoint: Japan and South Korea’s bans on Canadian wheat over GMOs is ‘political stunt’ to lower prices
In mid-June 2018, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) reported that a few GM wheat plants had been detected in southern ...
Global abstention from pesticides will lead to food shortages, Syngenta says
The world is likely to face food shortages within 20 years if pesticides and genetically modified crops are shunned, according ...
Can biotech crops solve the hunger crisis?
Is there a likely solution in sight for hunger? “I now say that the world has the technology—either available or well ...
Why it’s OK to change your mind, from a former anti-GMO activist
Once upon a time, shortly after the age of bloodletting, people thought that facts could change minds. It may seem ...
Facing accusations that its cancer designations are politicized, WHO’s IARC may lose US funding
Members of the House Appropriations Committee are threatening to withhold funding for the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), whose ...
