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.
GMO crops so efficient at killing pests, adjacent non-GMO crops are also protected
One of the great purported boons of GMOs is that they allow farmers to use fewer pesticides, some of which are ...
Agroecology advocates urge global shift away from ‘unsustainable industrial agriculture’
Input-intensive crop monocultures and industrial-scale feedlots must be consigned to the past in order to put global food systems onto ...
‘We just want to survive better’: Brazilian natives fined $33 million for growing GMO crops banned on reservations
The savannah scrubland where Chief João Ponce once hunted deer and wild boar in Brazil has given way to neat ...
Viewpoint: Weeds appear to be winning ever-evolving war against herbicide resistant crops
For farmers, protecting fields from pests and plagues is a constant battle fought on multiple fronts. Many insects have a ...
After Bayer-Monsanto merger, will ‘big ag’ invest in big data?
The merger has been a laboured one: in order to please regulators, Bayer had to sell its seed and herbicide ...
Viewpoint: Pesticide bans and restrictions can have unwanted side-effects
Glyphosate, neonicotinoids, drinking water initiative – renouncing pesticides is currently the subject of fierce discussion. For while on the one ...
Why are so many people still so skeptical of GMOs?
[W]hy are so many people highly sceptical of GMOs? One reason could be non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Although they are perceived ...
Video: Can blight-resistant GMO trees save the American Chestnut?
The American Chestnut tree used to be a staple in American forests until it essentially became extinct due to blight ...
California agency rejects Prop 65, sets aside ruling requiring that coffee carry a cancer warning
On [June 15th], the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) proposed a regulation that would exempt coffee from requiring ...
Viewpoint: Regulatory hurdles, anti-GMO activists stymie adoption of sustainable crop biotechnology innovations in developing world
Ever-more powerful genetic technologies, such as genome-editing endonucleases and marker-assisted breeding, continue to facilitate the development of genetically modified (GM) ...
First plaintiff, nearing death, goes to court in case claiming Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup causes cancer
On bad days, Dewayne Johnson is too crippled to speak. Lesions often cover as much as 80% of his body ...
Viewpoint: New director of International Agency for Research on Cancer, under fire for promoting cancer fears, likely to maintain status quo
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a World Health Organization subsidiary mired in controversy, picked Dr. Elisabete Weiderpass ...
Viewpoint: FDA schedules public meeting to address regulatory issues surrounding emerging alt-meat industry
So-called cellular agriculture raises numerous questions about whether the regulations enacted to ensure food safety for conventional animal foods are ...
Viewpoint: Why a federal judge blocked mandatory California Prop 65 health warning labels on the herbicide glyphosate
Recently, a federal judge sitting in the Eastern District of California (Sacramento), for the first time, refused to require a ...
Can CRISPR save the banana and revolutionize coffee? Tropic Biosciences believes so.
In a lab at a U.K. research park, researchers from a startup called Tropic Biosciences are using CRISPR to create a better ...
Korea suspends Canadian wheat and flour sales following discovery of GMO plants in Alberta
South Korea has joined Japan in suspending trade in Canadian wheat following the discovery of a small number of genetically ...
Cell free proteins? Unraveling the mysteries of the plant circadian clock
The basic unit of life is the cell; tiny, fatty, self-replicating bubbles that have adapted to fill almost every environment ...
Viewpoint: How the organic industry spreads ‘fake science’
This fact sheet describes the contents of an organic industry confidential public relations plan to spread fake science in its ...
Green revolution: Indian farmers advocate for legalization of GMO mustard, biotech crops
A new green revolution is in the making. Farmers in India are now using social media to promote and advocate ...
Viewpoint: Indian anti-GMO activist Vandana Shiva ‘spreads misinformation and fear’ about conventional agriculture
I attended a presentation given by Vandana Shiva, a well-known anti-GMO activist, at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. It was definitely an ...
Argentinian government approves genetically modified glyphosate-resistant alfalfa
[On June 9th], the Argentinian government approved the first transgenic alfalfa for the country with resistance to the glyphosate herbicide and with ...
How to outwit weeds: Genetically engineered cotton that feeds on phosphite, an alternative, sustainable fertilizer
Wily weeds can develop resistance to herbicides, allowing them to compete with genetically modified crops designed to tolerate weed-killing chemicals ...
Japan cancels purchase of Canadian wheat after unapproved GMO variety found in isolated non-farm location
Genetically modified wheat, which is not authorized for commercial production in Canada, was discovered growing on an Alberta farm last ...
Indian scientists criticize government for leaving GMO seeds ‘sitting on the shelf’
Farming may go high-tech, but unless seeds keep pace, all improvements will be cosmetic. Or that’s what scientists at research ...
‘Laser weeding’: Can robots partially replace farm tractors, harvesters and even herbicides like glyphosate?
Professor Simon Blackmore, head of robotic agriculture at the UK's National Centre for Precision Farming at Harper Adams University in ...
Video: How disease-resistant GMO potatoes could help Uganda’s potato farmers reduce pesticide spraying
This video describes advances by the International Potato Center and the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) of Uganda to develop ...
‘Super bacteria’ could boost crop yields and reduce nitrogen pollution
Bioscientist Dr. Ted Cocking, from the Centre for Crop Nitrogen Fixation in the UK, was the first to unlock the ...
