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.
Genetic mutation discovered in barley that increases salinity tolerance
Researchers looking to identify the genetic controls of salt tolerance in crops located a specific point on a chromosome (2H) ...
Why poor may pay the most to satisify public’s ‘right to know’ about GMOs
The additional costs associated with product labeling, ingredient testing, insurance procurement, and continued consumer class action litigation over “natural” claims ...
Indian scientists develop white-fly resistant GMO cotton to compete with Monsanto
National Botanical Research Institute has claimed to have developed whitefly-resistant cotton. The CSIR-NBRI research has been accepted by international journal 'Nature' ...
GMO crops help reduce environmental impact of farming
[Editor's note: This is an excerpt from an extensive, open access series of reports on the safety of GMOs produced by ...
Romania used to cultivate enough soy, but after GMO ban, needs to import it
[Editor's note: The article was translated from the original Romanian using Google translate and lightly edited for clarity] Achim Irimescu, ...
CRISPR corn: Dupont’s non-transgenic drought-tolerant gene edited corn could be on sale soon
[R]esearchers at DuPont Pioneer. . . have published a study about a strain of corn engineered with CRISPR to be ...
London’s Science Museum archives history of rancorous GMO debate
The effort to prepare an archive of the GM debate began in 2008, when it became clear that the GM ...
Nebraskan to Africans: ‘Green revolution’ to feed malnourished unnecessary, agroecology already working
[S]mall farmers who sell their food locally still produce around 80 percent of the food in sub-Saharan Africa. But that ...
Online marketers target food stamp recipients, selling high-priced ‘organic and natural’ junk food
The federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.. offers nutrition assistance to...low income Americans.... SNAP helps people afford food at stores and ...
How large-scale farms using pesticides can be more sustainable than organic farming
Editor’s Note: In her new book “Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman: Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland,” . . . Miriam Horn [tells]. . . the story ...
Impossible Food’s plant-based beefy hamburgers edge closer to market
[T]he more attention consumers paid to the realities of feedlot farming, the more they wanted out. But organic, grass-fed, and ...
Guardian: In Monsanto GMO cotton dispute, government must assure farmers get fair prices
The arguments about GM crops show the folly of trying to understand technology as if it stood outside political and economic power ...
India expected to unveil two government developed varieties of GMO cotton
India is expected to unveil in November two . . . cotton varieties that will cost less than other hybrids but ...
First gene edited meal served: Pasta with sautéed CRISPR veggies
For (probably) the first time ever, plants modified with the “genetic scissors” CRISPR-Cas9 has been cultivated, harvested and cooked. Stefan ...
First Indian GMO food crop, mustard, passes regulatory hurdle
[Genetically-modified mustard] “does not raise any public health or safety concerns on human beings and animals with respect to overall ...
Field trials of GMO maize in Kenya delayed by bureaucratic impasse
The controversy over Kenya’s plan to release Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) for field tests deepened yesterday after the Agriculture ministry ...
Are organic industry claims of better taste, nutrition, health an illusion?
Surveys find that people go organic because they believe it produces food that’s tastier, more nutritious and safer. . . ...
Organic meat, dairy dependent on loosely regulated imported feed
[F]eed for organically raised livestock is pouring into Canada and the United States from other countries. . . . ...
Mark Bittman: GMO labeling law could increase transparency on food production
President Obama recently signed the weakest [GMO] labeling law imaginable, and to most of the food movement, this felt like ...
Members of Congress want answers on EPA’s delayed evaluation of glyphosate
When Congress reconvenes [in September], lawmakers will continue to press the Environmental Protection Agency about why it’s withholding their report ...
US should follow Canada in cracking down on non-GMO label when no GMO version exists
. . . [M]ore and more companies are slapping non-GMO labels onto products for which there is no GMO equivalent ...
Mark Bittman’s wrong: Mega production monocultures of corn and soy aren’t result of GMOs
Mark Bittman has an editorial today in the New York Times on the new GMO labeling laws. . . . I was ...
Bayer nears end game in merger talks with Monsanto
German pharmaceutical and crops manufacturer Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE) said on [September 5, 2016] that its negotiations with Monsanto Co (MON.N) had ...
Rachel Parent’s call to “teach the controversy” on GMOs echoes creationist attack on evolution
One of the latest contributions from [Huffington Post] . . .comes courtesy of self-described teenage "food safety activist" Rachel Parent. . . Her new article is ...
Rachel Parent, teenage anti-GMO activist, claims teachers fall prey to GMO PR
Today, PR spin proclaims that GM is safe and absolutely necessary for fighting world hunger and feeding a growing population ...
India promoting advanced biotechnology for biofuel production
Biofuel made from microalgae can prove to be an alternative to conventional fossil fuels, said experts participating in the international ...
Indian officials call on researchers to produce GMO chickpea within two years
Director-General of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) Trilochan Mohapatra has asked agricultural scientists to double their work on ...
