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.
Monsanto glyphosate lobbyists barred from EU parliament
[Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)] have decided to bar lobbyists for Monsanto, the US agrochemical company, from the European ...
Viewpoint: Restrictions on GMOs a ‘catastrophe’ for Australian farmers
Onerous and expensive regulations have denied farmers’ access to new and existing Genetically Modified (GM) crop varieties and reduced their ...
Decoded fall armyworm genome could aid fight against destructive corn pest
Until now limited to America and the Caribbean, Spodoptera frugiperda [also known as the Fall Armyworm] is estimated to cause ...
Saving chocolate: Scientists develop disease-resistant hybrid cacao clones that dramatically increase yields
[F]ew cacao varieties are widely cultivated, and that’s a problem: Like many other crops, cacao is under constant threat from ...
Uganda on track to pass ‘biotech bill’ that should pave way for GMO crop commercialization
Uganda’s long-awaited national Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill was delayed again yesterday, but is likely to be passed next Tuesday [Oct ...
What the GMO labeling law means for consumers
[Editor’s note: Gregory Jaffe is the Director of the Project on Biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public ...
High supplies and low prices: Does the world really need more corn?
Monsanto Co is working to develop what it hopes will be North America’s fastest-maturing corn, allowing farmers to grow more ...
Viewpoint: Politico exaggerated link between climate change and food ‘nutrient collapse’
Politico offered the following headline, The great nutrient collapse, The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the ...
CRISPR gene-edited wheat safe for celiac sufferers on horizon
People forced to avoid gluten could soon have their bread (and cake) and eat it. Now there are strains of wheat that ...
Italy expected to vote against EU renewal of glyphosate herbicide
Italy intends to vote against the [European] Commission’s proposal to renew for 10 years the market authorization for glyphosate, the active ingredient ...
Many weed scientists reject summit with Monsanto to discuss mounting dicamba herbicide crisis
Monsanto Co. invited dozens of weed scientists to a summit this week to win backing for a controversial herbicide but ...
Non-browning genetically engineered Arctic Apples in US stores in October
Okanagan Specialty Fruits (OSF) is gearing up for the first commercial crop of its non-browning apples this autumn. Marketed under ...
Junk science: Journal paid to publish ‘food industry conspiracy’ paper—funded by organic industry
Gary Ruskin, the chief junkyard dog of US Right To Know, an industry front group created by Organic Consumers Association ...
Syngenta settles with Minnesota farmers in GMO corn lawsuit
Syngenta AG reached an in-trial settlement with a group of about 22,000 Minnesota farmers who claimed the company carelessly marketed its ...
Oregon court reaffirms decision to block Josephine County’s proposed GMO ban
The Oregon Court of Appeals has decided to keep blocking a voter-approved initiative that bans genetically engineered crops in Josephine ...
Butterfly phobia: The one food label this dietitian says is best to avoid
[Editor's note: Nicole Rodriguez is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.] Every day is Election Day - at the grocery store. Here's ...
French farmers protest government’s opposition to extension of EU’s glyphosate herbicide license
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe reiterated Paris would vote against the European Commission’s proposal to extend for 10 years the license ...
Opposition to Sri Lanka’s glyphosate ban grows as tea farmers turn to alternate pesticides
With the ban of the weed killer glyphosate without scientific evidence, some planters have started using alternative chemicals, running the ...
Neil deGrasse Tyson, narrator of ‘Food Evolution’ movie: It’s not pro-GMO, it’s pro-science
Film and entertainment news site Deadline Hollywood announced last week that Hulu has acquired rights to the Food Evolution documentary, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker ...
Challenging food movement: Small, organic farms not key to fixing food system
[Buying food from small, local, organic farms] cannot fix that chemical-intensive system that crowds out biodiversity, depletes the soil, pollutes ...
Hulu acquires exclusive rights to stream Neil deGrasse Tyson-narrated GMO film ‘Food Evolution’
Hulu has acquired the exclusive US [Video-on-Demand] rights to Food Evolution from Academy Award-nominated director Scott Hamilton Kennedy. The highly ...
Monsanto’s dicamba herbicide crisis divides farmers on pesticide regulations
Farmers planted a new kind of seed on 25 million acres of soybean and cotton fields this year. Developed by ...
Viewpoint: EU court’s finding that GMOs are safe contrasts with public’s ‘unfounded prejudice’
[Editor’s note: Roberto Defez is a molecular microbiologist at the Institute of Bioscience and BioResources, Italian National Research Council. Dennis ...
Farmers hope gene editing can provide boost to stagnating wheat yields
[Rick Seimer], the president of Siemer Milling in Teutopolis, Ill., has seen the recent data showing the fewest number of ...
UK science advisor: Agricultural pesticides important, but better regulations needed to limit environmental impacts
The assumption by regulators around the world that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes is ...
Lab-grown fried chicken? ‘Alternative’ meat company adds poultry options
In April, Memphis Meats [offered] taste samplings of fried chicken and Duck a l’Orange, both made by growing animal cells ...
Kenya’s leading scientists urge government to approve GMO corn
[Kenya’s] leading scientists have written to the National Biosafety Authority (NBA) seeking permission to release the first ever Genetically Modified ...
