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.
Former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue tapped as next agricultural secretary
Donald Trump has chosen former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue to be his secretary of agriculture, completing a protracted search with ...
Why Ugandan farmers are blocked from growing biotechnology crops
Editor's Note: This article, written by crop scientists Micheal Otim, discusses a recent print article called “MPs who visited Namulonge ...
EFSA head: Debate over banning glyphosate not about science, herbicide’s safety
Editor's Note: This article discusses comments made by Bernard Url, the head of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) surrounding ...
Why is cotton production falling in Pakistan?
... [T]he highest cotton produce recorded so far was in 2004 registered 11,138 million bales while the nearest spike was ...
Will DuPont-Dow merger raise global food prices?
The gigantic Dow Chemical-DuPont merger is experiencing some serious antitrust pushback in Europe and some Washington insiders feel it could ...
Glyphosate found in urine poses no health risk in German study
... Glyphosate sales in Germany have increased substantially from ... 2000 to … 2014. The interim peak of approx. 7600 ...
Foodie movement leaders call for aggressive ‘progressive’ agenda to counter Trump
... As of today, the president-elect has yet to nominate an agriculture secretary, but the food movement is rightly aghast ...
Days before inauguration, Trump’s secretary of agriculture pick still unclear
A behind-the-scenes fight between agribusiness tycoons and members of Donald Trump’s camp who want more diversity in the Cabinet has ...
Vietnamese farmers to increase planting, imports of genetically modified corn
… Le Ba Lich, chairman of the Vietnam Animal Feed Association, told VnExpress that Vietnam has imported four million tons ...
Agriculture secretary front-runner Ted McKinney seen likely to promote crop biotechnology
Ted McKinney, [former] director of global corporate affairs for Elanco Animal Health, a division of pharma giant Eli Lilly; [former] ...
Consumer groups push Japanese officials to impose stricter GMO labeling laws
Reports from Japan suggest officials are weighing up imposing stricter rules for the mandatory labelling of food items containing genetically ...
Trump administration’s three FDA commissioner picks all from venture capitalist sector
Something huge is going to be happening soon at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ... it is all ...
Western Australian Labor party officials scrap plans to try to block GMO crops
The Barnett Government changed regulations to allow the growth of GM canola in 2010, and hundreds of thousands of hectares ...
Wine with no hangover? CRISPR gene-edited yeast could make that happen
[R]esearchers working at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Services (ACES) claim to have produced a ...
Can gene-edited plants reduce impact of climate change?
If there’s even a smidgen of hope in the climate change story, it’s that ultimately, humans will find a way to pull ...
Paper raises questions because Monsanto to supply seeds for NSF-funded student outreach
[Oregon State University received the] five-year [$4 million] grant from the National Science Foundation also has an educational component, providing ...
Farming practices, not glyphosate, primary driver of weed resistance
Editor's Note: This article features a talk given by Peter Sikkema, researcher at the University of Guelph's Ridgetown Campus on ...
Sustainably produced ‘cow’s milk’ made using genetically engineered yeast coming to your breakfast table
...[T]he next trend for [milk] isn't a plant-based alternative: It's cow's milk—with a twist. Though nearly identical to the stuff you ...
Environmental, economic costs of EU neonicotinoid ban ‘devastating’, according to study
[A] potential ban or suspension of NNi [neonicotinoid seed treatment] technology would have tremendous economic implications.... To take few examples: over ...
Sustainability activists fear agrochemical, seed company monopolies will damage food security
... In the global agriculture sector, there have long been seven international manufacturers of pesticides and seeds, the report says ...
Big Ag megamerger? Trump meets with Bayer, Monsanto CEOs
Top executives of Bayer AG and Monsanto Co. met with President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday in New York to pitch the ...
Computer scientist Stephanie Seneff proposes questionable theory linking glyphosate to autism
[Editor's note: Stephanie Seneff, co-author of this paper, is a controversial MIT computer scientist and anti-GMO critic who has advanced ...
USDA to certify farmland switching from conventional to help increase production of organic food
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on [Jan. 11] took a step toward increasing the production of organic foods — which has not ...
Rusty-patched bumble bee listed as endangered, neonic pesticides pose ‘particular threat’, says USFWS
The rusty patched bumble bee ... was listed on [Jan. 10] as an endangered species, becoming the first wild bee in the ...
Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts: Greenpeace, green lobby spread ‘lies’ about GMOs to raise money
Editor's Note: This article discusses a recent talk by Sir Richard Roberts, awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his contribution to ...
Democratic politicians’ mostly anti-GMO views lead list of liberal anti-science positions
... The liberal obsession with things that are “natural” or “organic” often also clashes with science...just because a product is ...
GM herbicide-tolerant crops reduce overall herbicide use
Editor’s Note: This blog by geneticist Anastasia Bodnar evaluates whether claims made by the biotechnology industry that GM foods decrease ...
