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.
Gene identified for scent could lead to perfect rose
Fresh clues emerged this week when scientists identified the gene partly responsible for the delicate scent of the rose. The ...
Organic seed development lags biotech in developing pest controlling varieties
Rearranging veggie genes is big business, and we're not even talking about biotechnology. Private companies and university researchers spend hundreds ...
German Greens and Social Democrats propose national GMO ban
Germany’s debate over banning genetically modified (GM) plants has come to a head: Green/Social Democratic coalitions in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate, ...
Administration proposal to overhaul GMO regulations welcomed, but sharp divide on goals
The Obama administration said on July 2Â that it would update the way the government regulated genetically modified crops and some ...
Why farmers are offended by buzzwords like ‘sustainable agriculture’
The Risk-Monger spent the day on a large Belgian farm having the opportunity to see the challenges and opportunities farmers ...
Genetics suggest wheat gluten allergies mostly imaginary
Some of the anti-glutenists argue that we haven’t eaten wheat for long enough to adapt to it as a species ...
Could Africa’s own indigenous ‘superfoods’ rival GMOs?
Superfoods exist in Africa thanks not to the genius and beneficence of a foreign company, but rather through millennia of ...
Maui County’s GMO ban overturned by federal judge
A federal judge has invalidated Maui County’s moratorium on genetically engineered crops that voters approved last fall. Judge Susan Mollway ...
Cuban authorities say there are no plans to introduce GMOs
Authorities in Cuba have said that they have no plans to introduce the use of transgenic seeds to the Cuban ...
Public concerned more about GMOs created with ‘foreign’ versus ‘apple-to-apple’ gene transfer
In a study recently published in the journal Appetite, colleagues and I examined why some people reject GM technology. Specifically, ...
Why GMOs should be part of California’s drought strategy
In the midst of the most severe drought ever recorded in California, Governor Jerry Brown, the master of passionate rhetoric and ...
Friends of the Earth ‘investigation’ of GMO science supporters dismissed as “contrived”
Like a previous report from food activist Michele Simon a few years ago (Best PR Money Can Buy) the Alliance for ...
IARC evaluation of herbicides glyphosate and 2,4-D ‘flawed’ and ‘redundant’
In March I wrote about the travesty of the International Agency on Research in Cancer’s four-day review of glyphosate (the ...
Upgrading photosynthesis through genetic engineering
The amount of land dedicated to farming is shrinking, the world's crop productivity is stagnating, and the population is still ...
False alarms raised by groups demanding stricter GMO regulations
There have been calls recently from predictable sources demanding “tougher regulations for genetically engineered (GE) crops under the federal Plant ...
Will regulators show flexibility toward ‘double-muscled’ pigs made by editing single gene?
Belgian Blue cattle are hulking animals that provide unusually large amounts of prized, lean cuts of beef, the result of ...
CropLife says IARC “hazard” herbicides classifications confuse regulators and consumers, distort science
In March, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), ...
Indian farmer suicide more closely linked to small farm size and rain reliance than GMO cotton
An interesting new paper (Gutierrez 2015 cited below) discusses the way in which rain-fed cotton could be managed in India ...
Why are bees hurting? A lineup of suspects
In my last piece I made the case that the rumors of honeybee extinction have been greatly exaggerated, but honeybees ...
Failed GMO wheat trial only fits anti-GMO narrative if you don’t understand science
Back in 2012, a group of clueless protesters tried to disrupt a trial of genetically-modified wheat, which was taking place ...
Genetics and selective breeding create better blueberry
At the Flavors of Florida — a cornucopia of science-enhanced produce, seafood and meat recently held at the University of ...
Ecomodernist Manifesto: Technology based agriculture more sustainable than ‘green’ myths
The Ecomodernist Manifesto, a short but brilliant essay published online recently by 18 prominent greens, gets sustainability right at last. Until ...
Wrong to discredit herbicide-resistant GMOs with C-word
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved for use in 15Â states a new product called Enlist Duo, which is ...
Indian scientists avoid GMO regulations through gene editing
With their ambitious plans to undertake genetic modification of crops failing to take off as the debate on the suitability ...
IARC’s designates herbicide 2,4-D ‘possibly carcinogenic’ but no data suggesting carcinogenicity
A near kin to the GMO controversies that ITIF deconstructed earlier this year in a comprehensive guide for policymakers is ...
Why the bee crisis isn’t as bad as you think (but still matters)
There’s a note of evangelical glee in some of the predictions of bee extinction. Vanishing bees are a sign of the end ...
Greenpeace Australia’s tax status challenged after unlawful destruction of GM wheat trial
Greenpeace's unlawful protest and destruction of Genetically Modified (GM) crop trials at CSIRO facilities in Canberra in 2011 are a key ...
