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.
GMO ‘virus-free’ pigs stir debate about ‘pushing limits’ of genetic research
These pigs are really just like any other pigs, except they were born without any genes in their genomes that ...
Newly elected government poised to open door to GMOs in Kenya
Food security played a major role during the presidential campaign. The price of unga—our staple food of maize meal—had risen ...
Will Britain fumble regulations on human and agricultural gene editing as it has on GMOs?
Britain has an opportunity to seize on the latest breakthroughs in gene editing and pioneer new approaches in agriculture, research ...
Can ‘carbon farming’ sustainably reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
From the perspective of global climate change, soils are a major compartment within the planetary carbon cycle, the second-largest pool ...
Why trace pesticides found on food are not dangerous
There is no link between pesticide residues on food and disease. Period. You will find lots of people claiming the ...
Wine grapes case study: How modern crop management has led to dramatic reductions in pesticide use
[Editor's note: Steve Savage is a plant pathologist who has been working in agricultural technology for over 35 years.] Grapes grown ...
Conservation biology, ideology and the dangers of censorship
If conservation science is in service to an agenda, then it seems inevitable that research would at times be viewed ...
Borat is proud: Kazakhstan identified as home of the modern apple
Researchers, including those at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) in the US, sequenced and compared the genomes of 117 diverse apple ...
At epicenter of GMO salmon debate, Prince Edward Island divided about need for labelling
Earlier this month, a public consultation session on food affordability, accessibility, safety and conservation in Charlottetown heard perspectives on GMO ...
GMO clover that could improve livestock digestion in field tests
Forage Genetics, which is best known for alfalfa that’s genetically modified to withstand glyphosate herbicides, began field testing the transgenic ...
10 unique GMO products and benefits, and more on the way
[Editor's note: Carol Lynn Curchoe is a scientist, teacher, consultant, advisor, and author.] [GMOs] have been used to benefit human ...
Viewpoint: Netflix promotes anti-GMO films, suppresses legitimate science
Netflix has declined to carry the agriculture documentary called "Food Evolution", for reasons they refused to specify. ... Is the ...
Genetic reason why tomatoes come in such a variety of sizes
The gradual increase in size of tomatoes is in part the result of breeders, ancient and modern, continually selecting and ...
How GM seeds can ‘push’ photosynthesis to improve yields, battle impact of climate change
To feed a growing population, the United Nations projects, worldwide agricultural yields must increase by 50 percent between now and ...
Could we control bee-killing Varroa mites by exploiting their genetic vulnerabilities?
Seemingly indestructible Varroa mites have decimated honeybee populations and are a primary cause of colony collapse disorder, or CCD. Michigan ...
Shifting political climate in Uganda may block greenlighting of GMOs
The Ugandan Parliament will resume debate on the stalled Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill when lawmakers return from recess later this ...
‘Super cows’: How genetic tinkering could turn farm animals into cancer-fighting drug factories
While the overall biotech industry in South Dakota is small — about 66 firms — the state is emerging as ...
Viewpoint: How activists ‘hijacked’ the regulatory system in obsession to ban even safe agro-chemicals
Find something, anything, that the lay public might be convinced is dangerous. Ideally, it should have a scary-sounding name, and ...
Viewpoint: Nutritionally-enhanced Golden Rice will not solve Philippines’ malnutrition problem
According to the presentation by one of its proponents Dr. Roel Suralta from the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Golden ...
Viewpoint: Trump administration’s embrace of GMOs lets down American farmers
The [Trump] Administration claims that GMOs should be accepted on scientific grounds. And it says that its motivation for this ...
Viewpoint: GMO-free pet food ‘panders to public perception’
More and more pet foods are touting “Non-GMO” prominently on their labels. They do that because non-GMO is important to ...
Do GMOs reduce biodiversity?
[Editor's note: Heather Landry is a Ph.D. candidate in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Harvard University.] Although there is ...
Can crop biotechnology boost food security in Nigeria?
Since his assumption of office in May 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has repeated said that the nation’s economy must be ...
Science double standard: Media embrace NGO-exaggerated risks, downplay industry research
[T]here is a dangerous double standard in news coverage of environmental and public health risks. Research funded by industry, playing ...
Recent increase in honeybee population does not necessarily mean health stress crisis over
Honeybee colonies -- specifically for operations with five or more colonies in the U.S. -- were up in April 2017 ...
Do organic and conventional farmers use similar amounts of pesticides?
[Editor’s note: This opinion column was written by Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center. It was ...
Lab study shows ‘no impact’ of thiamethoxam neonicotinoid pesticide exposure on mature bumblebees
In this experiment, we chronically exposed whole mature bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) colonies to field-realistic levels of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam (2.4ppb ...
