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.
Scientists developing device to detect GMOs in the environment
...[R]esearchers led by Rice's Scott Egan, an assistant professor of biosciences, are building tools to detect, quantify and track the ...
Kenya: Should decisions on GMO maize field trials be made by politicians or experts?
Health minister Cleopa Mailu’s decision to keep on hold the planned trials of genetically modified (GM) maize on the basis ...
South Korean consumer groups, politicians call for mandatory GMO labeling
Costco and Burger King have been found to have brought the largest amounts of processed food products containing genetically modified ...
German farmers concerned about Bayer-Monsanto merger
[This excerpt was translated from the German by Google Translate and lightly edited for clarity] Group names such as Monsanto and ...
Bayer has no plans to introduce GMO crops in Europe if Monsanto takeover approved
German chemicals firm Bayer said [Oct. 10] it would not introduce genetically modified crops in Europe after its gigantic takeover of ...
South Korea developing GMO rice varieties to fight climate change, but public skepticism remains
Public opinion is divided into pros and cons over the South Korean government's all-out efforts to develop genetically modified rice ...
Brazil approves import of 3 GMO corn varieties for animal feed
Brazil's biosafety commission CTNBio approved on [Oct. 6] imports of three genetically modified (GM) varieties of corn from the United States ...
India unlikely to approve GMO mustard in time for coming growing season
The debate around genetically modified crops and a recent PIL in the Supreme Court may force the government to delay ...
After Brexit, UK farmers want speedier, science-based pesticide approval and regulation
A more science-based, pragmatic and faster approach to approving pesticides and regulating their use in the UK post Brexit was ...
Adoption of GMO crops could improve health of Chinese farmers
It is notable that the adoption of GM glyphosate-tolerant crops increases glyphosate use but reduces non-glyphosate herbicide use; and adoption ...
Syrian seed bank that holds genes to fight climate change relocating due to war
A major seed bank in Aleppo, Syria, holds genes that might help researchers breed crops to survive climate change. But ...
Indian farmers excluded from debate on GMO cotton
I am on a phone call with a farmer named Ganesh Nanote [from Nimbhara, India]... . . . . I have been ...
Food company executives know GMOs safe, but cater to consumers’ desire for labeling
Consumers’ desire for deeper transparency into how food is made will continue pushing food companies to label ingredients made from ...
78% of Canadians think tomatoes modified with catfish gene would taste fishy
A new report commissioned by Health Canada finds Canadians are critical yet overwhelmingly confused about food that has been genetically ...
Chinese man receives 3 year jail sentence for stealing GMO corn trade secrets
A Chinese man will spend three years in prison for conspiracy to steal trade secrets from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto ...
‘Non-GMO month’: A marketing ploy grounded in misinformation
I was not aware until earlier this week that October is Non-GMO Month, a time apparently set aside to wallow ...
Addition of Hawaiian bees to endangered species list unrelated to honey bees
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added 49 species of plants and animals to the endangered species list on [Sept ...
Genomics will allow plant breeders to use seed banks more effectively
There are vast numbers of seeds in gene banks around the world. A new approach uses their genomes to predict ...
India’s inconsistency on GMOs: endorse GM mosquitoes, oppose GM mustard
Politicians... in India have been pretty receptive to GM technologies for control of dengue and chikungunya... Such political support for GM ...
EU Parliament, bucking EU Commission, opposes authorization of five new GMOs
The European Parliament opposed the European Commission plans to authorise five GMO products, maize Bt11, 1507 and MON810 (seeds and ...
How are family farms faring as companies buy land to meet growing organic food demand?
Farmers... want to meet the growing demand for organic, but are faced with several challenges to increasing acreage. Most significantly ...
Cargill to offer Non-GMO certified sugar, sunflower oil and sweetener
Cargill, one of the world’s biggest wholesale food suppliers, has bowed to consumer trends... The US company handles millions of ...
‘Advocacy research’ tying neonicotinoids to bee deaths debunked, but still effective propaganda
...[A] worrisome... trend is the increasing frequency of articles containing flawed “advocacy research” that is actually designed to give a false result. This ...
Michael Pollan claims ‘Big Food’ out-lobbies the ‘food movement’
Simply put, [Big Food] is the $1.5 trillion industry that grows, rears, slaughters, processes, imports, packages and retails most of the ...
Farmers get higher prices for non-GMO soybeans, but are they worth the extra labor?
In the late 90s, many farmers went all in on biotech crops... But as crop prices falter, and some Americans ...
Monsanto’s Robert Fraley: Next GMO crops to focus on nutrition, climate change
The first genetically modified row crops of any kind—herbicide-resistant soybeans and cotton protected against the bollworm and other pests—were introduced ...
Greenpeace scientist Doug Parr on GMO debate: “Facts matter less”
Many people criticize Greenpeace for backing the scientific consensus when it comes to climate change, but not when it comes to the safety of GMOs ...
