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.
Battling cancer-causing aflatoxin contamination in Africa with genetic engineering, other technologies
We in the rich societies of the world don’t hear a lot about aflatoxin. It is probably one of the single ...
Viewpoint: How dairy companies like Stonyfield Organic mislead consumers about GMOs
A typical stroll down the grocery store aisle exposes the shopper to almost 40,000 different products. While most have labels ...
Viewpoint: Despite small percentage of sales, organic food is now ‘mainstream’ in the US
[O]rganic is mainstream in America in every way except as a significant percentage of total US annual grocery sales. According ...
Ugandan scientists criticize controversial changes to GMO bill
A number of scientists have expressed shock and anger at the proposed restrictive requirements that were included in the long-awaited ...
Viewpoint: Why consumers should reconsider ‘blanket opposition’ to GMO crops
It’s human nature, it seems, to resist change and fear the unknown. So it is no surprise that genetic engineering ...
Viewpoint: Gene editing could unleash next Green Revolution, but ‘GMO fearmongers’ need to be convinced
The GMO fearmongers are able to take to Twitter and Facebook now because, like all of us, they have benefited ...
Eating rare farm animal breeds could actually save them from extinction
When you think about Britain’s endangered animals, hedgehogs, small tortoiseshell butterflies and puffins may spring to mind. But rare breeds ...
Mozambique farmers hope drought-tolerant GMO seeds can help them adapt to changing climate
Natural disasters like extreme drought and floods are prevalent in Mozambique, and the country has experienced about 15 protracted droughts ...
Viewpoint: The government can’t decide what a GMO is—so how is it going to require mandatory labeling?
If the food industry and government cannot come to a consensus about what is a GMO and what isn’t, labeling ...
New York farmers disagree on GMO crops
It seems like something out of science fiction — taking the DNA of one organism and replacing it with part ...
How synthetic biology can help world meet UN sustainable development goals
The agenda of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) challenges the synthetic biology community—and the life sciences as a whole—to develop transformative ...
Proposed 2018 Farm Bill includes amendments aimed at streamlining regulation of genetic engineering
The House Agriculture Committee approved a group of 15 Republican amendments to the panel’s farm bill that would modify a ...
Viewpoint: Friends of the Earth ignores organic pesticides harmful to bees
Friends of the Earth Canada is calling on Ontario Minister of the Environment Chris Ballard to investigate the sale of ...
California court rejects challenge of state’s decision to label glyphosate herbicide as possible carcinogen
A state appeals court on [April 19] backed California’s listing of the widely used herbicide glyphosate as a possible cause ...
Biotech livestock: USDA, FDA diverge over how to regulate genetically engineered animals
A disease that kills millions of pigs a year may soon meet its match — if two federal agencies can ...
‘Kenya’s silver bullet’? How GMO insect resistant Bt corn could help farmers fight fall armyworm outbreak
Genetically modified maize, Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) could be Kenya’s silver bullet in the fight against Fall Armyworm which has so ...
Viewpoint: Food companies’ ‘meaningless’ non-GMO labels insult farmers, threaten food sustainability
The conditions that will befall our food system require innovative solutions like those offered by biotechnology to ensure food security ...
Plant ‘vaccines’, CRISPR gene editing could increase crop yields and reduce pesticide use
When European researchers recently announced a new technique that could potentially replace chemical pesticides with a natural “vaccine” for crops, ...
Video: How GMO bananas could help Ugandan farmers overcome bacterial wilt disease
Uganda's political system holds the key to helping farmers who are struggling with the devastating banana bacterial wilt disease. Read ...
Viewpoint: Anti-GMO groups’ crusade against Golden Rice not backed by science
Golden Rice was declared safe for consumption by Canada recently. This has huge implications for the rest of the world, ...
Regenerative agriculture: Can ‘carbon farming’ help battle climate change by improving soil health?
[Regenerative agriculture's] guiding principle is not just to farm sustainably — that implies mere maintenance of what might, after all, ...
How ‘regulatory lag’ in approving GMO crops hurts international trade
Time is money. This time-worn axiom of business school courses and the corporate world is also particularly applicable to the ...
First gene drive developed for crop pest targets invasive fruit fly that damages berries
Biologists at the University of California San Diego have developed a method of manipulating the genes of an agricultural pest ...
Germany planning ‘massive restrictions’ on glyphosate herbicide use in agriculture
German Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner on [April 17] said she was finalizing a draft regulation to end use of the ...
Viewpoint: Challenging the belief that GMOs are key to feeding the world’s hungry
Industrial agriculture and biotech interests have built entire campaigns saying that we “need” genetically engineered organisms to “feed the world” ...
Mystery source of orange GMO petunias identified
A recall campaign for commercial, orange flowering petunia varieties in spring 2017 caused economic losses worldwide. The orange varieties were ...
Viewpoint: Organic Consumers Association promotes conspiracy theory blaming farm pesticides for school shootings
A crackpot named E. G. Vallianatos has written a blog post that links pesticides to school shootings. He says, "[Pesticides] may have ...
