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.
Indian Supreme Court seeks public input on safety, benefit of GM mustard
A locally developed variety of genetically modified (GM) mustard seed is not swadeshi enough for the Swadeshi Jagran Manch... saying ...
Regulators to discuss whether gene edited crops should be allowed under organic label
[Editors note: Melody Meyer is the Vice President of Policy and Industry Relations for United Natural Foods(UNFI), a is a distributor of ...
SciBabe tackles ten GMO myths
According to the internet, GMOs are responsible for a lot of problems. You’ve heard that they cause almost everything, including ...
US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack: Future of food, farming lies in science
What if I told you a scientist had recently discovered a way to remove up to 98% of the allergens ...
Do GMOs boost yields? ‘Superwheat’ set for field trials boosts harvests by 20%
Genetically modified crops could help us grow more food on less land in a world struggling to cope with climate ...
Developing countries, universities beginning to develop genetically engineered crops
A very common criticism against genetically modified (GM) crops, whenever they are mentioned, is to automatically associate them with a ...
German cabinet backs law banning cultivation of GMOs
The German cabinet has approved a draft law banning cultivation of crops with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), government sources told ...
CDC investigating increasing foodborne illnesses and deaths linked to organic food
A newly published study of outbreaks linked to organic food concludes that while more data are needed to assess whether the ...
Farmers’ view: NYT’s GMO analysis ignores environmental benefits of GMO crops
[Editor’s note: A recent article in the New York Times claims that GMO crops have not lived up to their promises ...
New GMO could protect wheat and barley against deadly blight
Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium graminearum, is a devastating disease of wheat and barley that leads to reduced ...
EPA: Dow’s Enlist Duo combining glyphosate and 2,4-D herbicides poses no serious safety concerns
Enlist Duo containing the choline salt of 2,4-D and glyphosate was first registered in 2014 for use in Genetically Engineered ...
Former AAAS president Nina Fedoroff on Danny Hakim’s “disingenuous” NYT GMO ‘hit piece’
[Editor’s note: A recent article by Danny Hakim in the New York Times claims that GMO crops have not lived up to their ...
Mother Jones: New York Times report on GMOs used misleading statistics
[Editor's note: A recent article in the New York Times claims that GMO crops have not lived up to their ...
As food companies demand sustainability from suppliers, where will GMOs fit in?
...Increasingly, major food companies are raising the bar over what they consider to be “sustainable” agricultural practices around the globe ...
Nobel laureate Sir Richard Roberts: ‘Green activist opposition to GMOs hurts food-insecure developing countries
If the thought of genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs, brings to mind vague notions fraught with danger, Nobel laureate and Distinguished ...
Does the Chinese public really oppose GMOs as strongly as media suggest?
The story line that pops up again and again from Googling "China" and "GMO" is that China's citizens loathe genetic ...
Waitrose, major UK grocery chain, reducing use of GMO fed animals in its supply chain
Waitrose has received its first shipment of soya grown in the Danube region of Europe as it attempts to bring ...
Following ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, Cambridge University’s lawns destroyed by pests and crows
The immaculate lawns of Cambridge University are being spoiled by crows feasting on bugs after an EU ban on a ...
Agricultural economist: GMO crops have benefits, otherwise farmers wouldn’t grow them
[Editor's note: Jayson Lusk, a food and agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, responds to Danny Hakim's recent article in ...
Zimbabwean scientists develop drought and heat-tolerant maize
Scientists in Zimbabwe say they have developed new heat- and drought-tolerant varieties of maize that may be ready for sale ...
Insect-resistant GMO Bt eggplant in development in Philippines does not harm beneficial insects
The first-ever field level study of the effects of insect-resistant genetically modified Bt eggplants on non-target arthropod species, carried out in the ...
Two new varieties of blight-resistant GMO potatoes approved by USDA
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved commercial planting of two types of potatoes that are genetically engineered to resist ...
What the New York Times missed with its big GMO story
The [Danny Hakim] story is an odd one for the Times because if you take the most mild interpretation of ...
Geneticist pleads guilty in plot to steal GMO rice seeds for Chinese
A geneticist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture pleaded guilty on [Oct. 24] to making false statements to the Federal Bureau ...
Switzerland approves field trial of GMO wheat
[Editor's note: This excerpt was translated by Google Translate and lightly edited for clarity.] The Swiss Agroscope research institute received approval to ...
China cracks down on booming underground illegal GMO corn market
In an apparent bid to appease a public overwhelmingly opposed to ... GMOs, the Ministry of Agriculture has been putting pressure ...
Monsanto’s Robert Fraley: Comparing corn crops—Genetically modified in Ontario v non-GMO in France
Dr. Robert T. Fraley is Monsanto's Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. He awon the 2013 World Food Prize for "breakthrough achievements ...
