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.
With biotech law in place, will Uganda embrace GMOs to tackle hunger?
After an afternoon drizzle, Ephraim Muhereza carefully scouts his three-acre banana plantation in Gayaza, Wakiso district, plucking male buds from ...
Missouri adds restrictions on Monsanto, DuPont dicamba herbicide products
The Missouri Department of Agriculture has extended its restrictions on dicamba herbicides to products manufactured by Monsanto and DuPont. The new ...
Restoring soil health: Synthetic fertilizer use could be cut, nutrients restored with GMO bacteria
[A recent study] shows how genetically modified soil micro-organisms can help restore nutrients in the soil to increase crop yield ...
Combating climate change: Glyphosate herbicide ban would hurt no-till farming, conservation agriculture
[Editor's note: Pedro Vigneau is president of the Argentine Association of Producers in Direct Sowing (Aapresid), a farmers organization in Argentina.] ...
CRISPR used to make bigger tomatoes without editing genes
Global crop yields are increasingly vulnerable to changing climate and air quality. To combat future environmental threats and increased population ...
GMOs in South Africa: Benefits of biotech crops changing women farmers’ minds
As a young girl, Tepsy Eve Ntseoane never thought she’d grow up to be a farmer, let alone an advocate for ...
EU may vote on complete ban of neonicotinoid insecticides this week
EU countries are poised to vote on a proposal to introduce tougher restrictions on three neonicotinoids in the coming days ...
Monsanto rolls out cash incentive for farmers who use controversial dicamba herbicide
Monsanto Co will give cash back to U.S. farmers who buy a weed killer that has been linked to widespread ...
Organic food helps you get pregnant? Media outlets fall for ‘activist science’
[Editor's note: Terence Bradshaw is a research associate at the University of Vermont. He has a PhD in plant & soil science.] ...
Fast-growing AquaBounty salmon could pave way for more genetically modified animals
When it was revealed over the summer that genetically modified salmon was now being sold in Canada, the backlash from ...
Viewpoint: ‘Radical change’ needed to make global food system sustainable
The Green Revolution of the post-World War II era has rightly been hailed as a huge achievement for humankind. Transformation ...
Would switching to organic farming cut greenhouse gas emissions?
A new study, led by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, gives the impression that a large-scale shift to organic farming ...
Quantity vs quality: Burkina Faso’s problems with Monsanto’s insect-resistant GMO Bt cotton
In 2000, farmers in Burkina Faso, Africa’s top cotton grower, were desperate. Their cotton fetched top prices because its high-quality ...
US House science committee warns IARC it ‘may reconsider taxpayer funding’
U.S. congressional committee members warned on Friday [Dec. 8] that Washington’s funding of the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency ...
Top 5 most ridiculous types of Non-GMO Project labeled products
The stuff with no G to M It would stand to reason that any Non-GMO Project certified item would have ...
Women in science: Geneticist Pamela Ronald, developer of GMO flood-resistant rice
[T]he breakthrough that finally created rice seeds strong enough to stand up to blight and flood came when Pamela Ronald ...
‘Roundup Facing the Judges’: Documentary promotes glyphosate conspiracy theories, pseudoscience
[Editor's note: Øystein Heggdal is a Norwegian agronomist. He holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and natural resources. He is ...
Viewpoint: EU’s glyphosate herbicide fight reveals limits of Europe-wide governance
Glyphosate, the ubiquitous herbicide, may not really be poison, but it could well be the most politicized substance in Europe. In ...
Neonicotinoid seed treatments ‘best option’ for soil pests, but should be used judiciously, study says
The topic of neonicotinoid seed treatments (NSTs) continues to keep researchers searching for answers. A study from the University of ...
CRISPR gene-editing technology expected to accelerate crop development
Genetically modified crops are continuing to spread across the world’s agricultural land. Last year they covered a record 185m hectares, ...
Anti-GMO group March Against Monsanto promotes, profits from anti-vaccine ads
Visit the March Against Monsanto website and you'll see a strange ad peppering the pages, among the usual dubious stories about ...
Fighting poverty with GMOs: Filipino farmers turn to insect-resistant Bt corn to boost yields, income
Agricultural choices don't just affect food availability. They also have significant economic and social ramifications. A case in point is the ...
Should organic farming embrace new plant breeding techniques like CRISPR?
Over the last few years, new tools have rapidly created possibilities in plant breeding. These New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs) ...
Viewpoint: Food Evolution movie shows GMO supporters ‘you’re not alone’
If you have the opportunity to see the documentary “Food Evolution,” do it. It has been the most talked-about food and agriculture ...
Economist: EU’s GMO crop ban likely led to lower corn, soybean yields in Europe compared to US
Is it true that a ban on GM crops in the European Union has hurt productivity? Most likely yes, retired ...
‘To lose them would be a disaster’: More than 20 wild relatives of modern crops added to ‘threatened’ list
Wild relatives of modern crops deemed crucial for food security are being pushed to the brink of extinction, according to ...
Climate change fighting plants: Genetically modified crops could trap half of human CO2 emissions in soil
The Salk Institute has enlisted a new ally in the effort to address the anticipated dangers of climate change — plants. Scientists ...
