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.
Public embrace of CRISPR gene editing key to future of agriculture
The process of producing food, protecting the environment, and improving animal health is advancing at a seemingly breakneck pace. These ...
Video: New strain of wheat stem rust in Uganda could wreak havoc on world’s breadbaskets
There was a time when one of the most dangerous crop diseases a wheat farmer could encounter in the field was ...
Viewpoint: How Monsanto could end up profiting from dicamba herbicide drift fiasco
By mid-October, state departments of agriculture nationwide had received 2,708 complaints from soybean farmers who claimed their fields had been damaged by ...
Judge delays glyphosate lawsuit after study of 45,000 people finds no link to cancer
In October 2016, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) consolidated all federally-filed Roundup lawsuits into one court in ...
How artificial intelligence might solve the ‘chemical treadmill’ farmers are trapped in to kill crop-choking weeds
After months of research, they faced a disappointing truth: There was no way around herbicides. “Turns out zapping weeds with ...
Can CRISPR gene-edited ‘terminator bulls’ revolutionize the beef industry?
After a year of trying, [Australian geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam's lab at the University of California succeeded in using] the ...
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue: We have a duty to farmers to harness safe crop biotechnology
Editor's note: Sonny Perdue is the US Secretary of Agriculture. He is a former farmer, agribusinessman, veterinarian, state legislator, and ...
Food Evolution director: Organic, natural food industries use misinformation and fear to sell products
You’ve probably heard the same conversation, in one way or another, for years: Some say genetically modified organisms (GMO) are ...
Iowa taxpayers to pay anti-GMO activists $50,000 to end First Amendment lawsuit
Iowa taxpayers will pay a $50,000 settlement to end a lawsuit filed by anti-GMO activists who claim state officials violated ...
How living GMO algae could electrify rural Africa
Fuel cells powered by living algae that are five times more efficient than current models, have been designed by scientists ...
US Farm Bureau opposes non-GMO labels on products without GMO alternatives
An end to the use of non-GMO labels on products that do not have GMO alternatives, NAFTA modification to improve ...
Bangladesh develops country’s first GMO rice variety
Scientists in Bangladesh have developed the country's first biotech rice variety giving farmers an answer to the difficulties they face ...
Sri Lankan tea farmers want glyphosate herbicide ban overturned
Tea farmers in Sri Lanka want their government to reauthorize the use of glyphosate for agriculture. The country is one ...
Herbicides and fungicides could be key factors in bee health problems, study finds
Honey bees might be drawn to the very chemicals that are endangering them, based on experiments in which they preferred ...
Is President Trump pro-GMO?
“We are streamlining regulations that have blocked cutting-edge biotechnology, setting free our farmers to innovate, thrive, and to grow,” Trump told a ...
How ‘good’ bacteria can boost crop yields without pesticides or GMOs
In 1988, a remarkable finding illuminated a new path that agricultural scientists would soon follow in their quest to maximise ...
Viewpoint: Preaching to the choir won’t win over GMO skeptics
Editor's note: Robert Arnason is an agriculture journalist. In 2017 I interviewed about 800 to 1,200 people about agriculture, agronomy, ...
Study: Pesticide residue on food as risky as drinking one glass of wine—every 7 years
Relatively few studies are available on realistic cumulative risk assessments for dietary pesticide exposure. Despite available studies showing low risk, ...
Fact check: Will climate change cause chocolate to go extinct in 40 years?
In the waning hours of 2017, like a politician holding inconvenient news for a Friday afternoon, Business Insider published a terrifying headline: ...
DNA testing could enable rapid response to damaging wheat stem rust
A global team led by researchers in Australia has achieved a dramatic breakthrough in dealing with stem rust, a fungal ...
How the media, government and Google talk about GMOs differently—and why it matters
Here, semantic network analysis is performed to characterize the presentation of the term “GMO (genetically modified organism),” a proxy for ...
Blight-resistant GMO potatoes could reduce pesticide use in Uganda
Uganda is steadily progressing towards having a potato that will not require chemical spraying. ... According to Dr Alex Barekye, ...
Will Canadians accept unlabeled genetically modified salmon?
Between April and June [2017], Canadians participated in an unprecedented experiment: supermarket shoppers bought about five tonnes of genetically engineered ...
Viewpoint: Why I avoid buying food with the Non-GMO Project label
Katie Pinke is the general manager/publisher of AgWeek I decided to visit the Non-GMO Project website and Twitter profile to ...
Despite 2014 EU ban, neonicotinoid insecticides still found in quarter of UK honey samples
Almost a quarter of British honey samples remain contaminated after a partial ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, new research has revealed ...
Herbicide-resistant ‘super weeds’? Don’t blame GMO crops, study says
Andrew Kniss is a professor of weed science at the University of Wyoming Genetically engineered (GE) herbicide-resistant crops have been ...
GMO peace treaty: Mark Lynas lays out 7 steps to stop the fighting
The following is part of a speech by environmental writer and activist Mark Lynas at the 2018 Oxford Farming Conference [W]hat ...
