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.
Viewpoint: Pro-organic, anti-GMO groups’ lies ‘poisonous’ to fight against food poverty
Across the globe, genetically engineered (GE) crops face opposition from environmental and organic food activists, who claim the crops harm ...
Bad weather to blame for recent uptick in US honeybee loses
Beekeepers in the U.S. reported an increase in honeybee deaths over the last year, possibly the result of erratic weather ...
America’s farmers vs anti-GMO groups: The looming fight over gene editing in agriculture
Although the USDA has announced it “does not have any plans to regulate plants” that are created through the revolutionary ...
UK approves first gene-edited crop trial in Europe––for omega-3 oil boosting camelina
Gene-edited super-crops are to be sown in Britain in a European-first after scientists exploited a legal loophole. The Government has quietly ...
Viewpoint: Is glyphosate safe? Question complicated by politics, murky science
On one side, activists and advocacy organizations have blamed glyphosate exposure for everything from autism to celiac disease. Agribusiness companies ...
Sugar beet farmers worry USDA will require GMO label despite ‘molecularly identical’ product
Colorado farmer Steve Kelly brushes aside a small mound of dry yellow dirt to reveal a sugar beet seed that’s ...
Where food security trumps ideology: ‘People in Mozambique are not worried about GMOs’
In Mozambique, a country where 64 percent of the population is food insecure, no one cares about the processes used ...
Indigo Agriculture’s microbial seed treatments aim to replace synthetic pesticides
Indigo Agriculture CEO David Perry grew up raising corn and cows on his family's farm in Arkansas. While he wasn't the ...
Taking the long route: How anti-GMO activism hinders ‘super crop’ research using CRISPR gene editing
One scientist has a promising idea to solve two major problems at once—removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and feeding ...
CRISPR rice increases grain yield 25% in Chinese field trials
A team of scientists from Purdue University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has used CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology to develop ...
Whole Foods pauses GMO food labeling requirements following USDA proposal
In an email to suppliers on Friday [May 18], Whole Foods President and Chief Operations Officer A.C. Gallo announced the company ...
Will weed-zapping AI robots disrupt market for herbicides and GMO seeds?
In a field of sugar beet in Switzerland, a solar-powered robot that looks like a table on wheels scans the ...
CRISPR plants are on the way—but gene-edited animals face more barriers
GMO crops have extra layers of government regulation beyond what “conventionally” bred plants have to deal with. But this year, ...
Viewpoint: With climate change threatening crop diversity, genebanks are more important than ever
Genebanks – repositories of genetic material (germplasm) of plants or animals – play a critical role towards a two-pronged goal: ...
How GMO crops help farmers, communities and the environment
1. Genetic engineering can be good for farmers.“GE crops are cultivated to help food grow better,” says [Dr. Tamika Sims, director of food ...
Organic foods have less pesticide residue than conventional produce—but does it matter?
I’ve been following these issues for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of evidence that organic foods have ...
FitBit for cows: Biohacker invents implanted sensor that tracks livestock health in real time
Though they look indistinguishable from the other cows on a dairy farm in Utah, three cyborg cows with implanted sensors ...
Viewpoint: Why is anti-GMO snake oil salesman Dr. Oz on Trump’s council on nutrition?
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced a slew of well-known celebrities, doctors, executives and athletes to the President’s Council ...
New tools needed to protect pesticides’ effectiveness from evolution of weed and insect resistance
To slow the evolutionary progression of weeds and insect pests gaining resistance to herbicides and pesticides, policymakers should provide resources ...
Viewpoint: EU’s GMO crop regulations should ‘evolve’ to recognize history of safe use, benefits
From [early draft legislative texts on GMOs in the EU], it is clear that the intentions were to have an ...
General Mills: Global scientific consensus shows GMO foods safe to eat
As genetically-modified (GM) ingredients become more common in the global food supply, particularly in the U.S., we know that consumers ...
Chinese corn buyers switching from US to Ukraine due to GMO restrictions, trade tensions
China’s purchases of U.S. corn have slowed significantly due to worries the grain might be drawn into the trade spat ...
Impossible Burger will have to wait another 90 days for voluntary FDA safety review
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has pushed back the deadline of a safety review of Impossible Foods Inc.’s “magic” ingredient ...
Glyphosate residues safe for livestock, European Food Safety Authority says
EFSA says it finds no reason for concern over glyphosate residues in feed in terms of cattle, sheep, pig, poultry ...
GMO Golden Bananas could help combat vitamin A deficiency in Uganda by 2021
A project known as Banana21 commenced in 2005 to alleviate micronutrient deficiencies in Uganda and surrounding countries through the generation ...
Genetically modified plant could make cheaper malaria drugs. Will anti-GMO activists oppose it?
A team of mainly Chinese researchers [recently published] “The Genome of Artemisia annua Provides Insight into the Evolution of Asteraceae ...
Can wild seeds from Syria save American wheat from climate change?
When a team of researchers set loose a buzzing horde of Hessian flies on 20,000 seedlings in a Kansas greenhouse, ...
