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.
Regulate GMO and gene-edited livestock based on product not process, experts say
A bevy of remedies may be needed to ensure American farm productivity keeps growing at the clip it has for more ...
Breeding healthier cows: Using advanced genetics to tweak health traits
The dairy industry is poised to make foundational leaps in the ability to breed healthier cows when new genomic evaluations ...
GMO IPA? Genetically engineered yeast could provide environmentally friendly alternative to hops
The bad news for environmentally conscious beer lovers is that hops, a prized floral flavoring of ales, has an oversized ...
100% organic farming would require ‘Australia-sized amount of extra land’ due to lower yields, no synthetic fertilizer
Organic farming, which prohibits the use of synthetic fertilizers, is often touted as the solution to many of agriculture’s environmental ...
10 years of GMO canola in Australia: How have farmers fared?
When genetically modified crops were first mooted for Victorian farmers, agronomic advantages were the last thing that received publicity. Ten ...
EU approves Bayer’s $57 billion takeover of Monsanto
The European Union has approved Bayer's buyout of Monsanto in a massive agriculture business deal, but says they will have ...
Viewpoint: Green Revolution II will require GMOs and a paradigm shift toward lower-input farming
From the 1960s through the 1990s, yields of rice and wheat in Asia doubled. Even as the continent’s population increased ...
European Commission faces increasing political pressure to back neonicotinoid insecticides ban to protect bees
EU lawmakers have urged the European Commission to convince member states to back its proposal to ban neonicotinoids and avoid ...
South Australia’s ban on GMO crops could be overturned as Liberal Party takes power
The victory by the Liberal Party in the South Australian election, may lead to a new era of choice for ...
GMO labeling debate expected to heat up as USDA nears release of proposed rules
Expect the debate over GMO labeling—the labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients—to heat up again in the near future ...
Monsanto to fund gene editing company Pairwise Plants to develop new crop varieties
Monsanto Co. will fund a new U.S. company that aims to develop crops using technology known as gene editing, rather ...
CRISPR opens the door on crop research by smaller companies and universities
CRISPR, a new gene-editing technique, offers an end run around the cost associated with traditional genetic engineering, allowing smaller companies ...
Viewpoint: Rampant anti-GMO beliefs make it more difficult to combat hunger and food insecurity
The negative rhetoric surrounding GMOs, big ag and non-organic food production is due for a reckoning. At some point, many ...
Nigeria needs GMO seeds to feed growing population, says nation’s top scientist
Nigerian scientists are drumming up support for modern agricultural biotechnology, saying the country cannot feed its growing population with the ...
Indian seed companies threaten to halt supply of GMO Bt insect-resistant cotton seeds over price cut
Indian seed companies threatened ... to halt supplies to 8 million cotton farmers in protest against a potential government plan ...
Video: Monsanto’s dicamba herbicide fiasco explained
Dicamba… Miracle herbicide? Ultimate boondoggle? Bit of both really… These videos talks about why a 50 years old herbicide is ...
How will government regulations impact CRISPR gene editing in agriculture?
In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for regulating food and agricultural products, has made ...
French scientists call on politicians to listen to science, not ‘scare-mongers’ on GMOs, glyphosate
Virginie Tournay, of CEVIPOF, a scientific research institute at the famous Science Po [Paris Institute of Political Studies] published the following article ...
Viewpoint: Why university scientists shouldn’t be subject to public record requests
This Article confronts a dangerous contemporary trend: the political harassment of public university professors by activists on the right and ...
Neonicotinoid insecticide levels ‘well below’ those toxic to aquatic life in Canada, research shows
A study into the presence of neonicotinoids in Canadian waterways suggests a ban or restriction of neonicotinoid seed treatments is ...
Gene editing could all but end world’s most serious livestock diseases
Farming is poised for a gene editing revolution that could overcome some of the world’s most serious livestock diseases, the ...
Viewpoint: Our ancestors played ‘genetic roulette’ in crop breeding while modern genetic engineering is ‘controlled and conservative’
[A]s much as human history is the history of agriculture, it’s also the history of genetic modification of plants, animals ...
‘Solution for problem that doesn’t exist’? Australian politicians considering compensation fund to cover ‘contamination’ from GMO crops
THE lawyer who spearheaded Kojonup farmer Mike Baxter’s legal defence in the landmark legal test case over Genetically Modified (GM) ...
Viewpoint: GMO rejectionism appeals to catastrophists and conspiracy minded
Opponents to the GMO issue generally believe there is something sinister about how science “dangerously manipulates organisms” for use in ...
Tracing human evolution through the foods we eat
You aren’t what you eat, exactly. But over many generations, what we eat does shape our evolutionary path. “Diet,” says ...
Golden Rice approved for sale to Canada but no plans for imports
In 2017, Health Canada received a submission to allow the sale of a variety of rice, called Provitamin A Biofortified ...
Breakthrough research into how glyphosate resistance evolves might lead to new weed control strategies
Kansas State University researchers have discovered how weeds develop resistance to the popular herbicide glyphosate, a finding that could have ...
