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.
IBM, Mars collaborate to figure out what makes food safe
Is your food safe? Protecting the global food supply is a monumental public health challenge. In the U.S. alone, one ...
Does Monsanto deserve reputation as an “evil” company?
Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, have caused increasing controversy in recent years with various experts and non-experts alike weighing in ...
Public skepticism on GMOs, climate change reflect misunderstandings of risk
The Pew Research Center released their annual Science and Society report (PDF), where they asked over 2,000 members of the ...
Former Greenpeace UK bucks NGOs opposition to GM crops, endorses some GMOs
One month after taking office, the Juncker Commission reached an agreement with the European Council and the European Parliament on ...
Pew fumbles survey on science literacy, overstates public opposition to GMOs
So here’s a follow-up on “grading of Pew's public attitudes toward science report”--& why I awarded it a “C-” in promoting ...
Neither environmentalists nor industry happy with EU rules on GMOs
Campaign groups and the biotech industry are digging in for a new round of conflict, following the European Union's decision ...
Florida bills re-introduced to label GMOs and rBGH dairy
Two Florida Democrats are again trying to pass bills to label some foods containing genetically modified organisms. Similar efforts died last ...
China’s GM crop production drops in 2014 amid safety concerns
China's genetically modified (GM) crop planting areas declined in 2014 amid heated discussions over safety concerns, a study revealed on ...
Will benefits of nanopesticides outweigh costs?
Stacey Harper is doggedly researching tiny, human-made substances called nanoparticles. The scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis hopes to be ...
Vermont ruling on GM labeling case expected this spring; final court decision, end of year
Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said Wednesday that he expects a judge to rule on dueling motions in the GMO ...
GMO fix for California’s drought-stricken almonds will not come easy
The current drought hitting the west coast of America is giving the nation’s almond growers a particular headache Last week, ...
Record acreage of GMOs grown globally
Biotech crops were grown on a record 448 million acres in 2014, a group that promotes the use of these ...
Cumbersome regulatory approval of GMOs in China hurts innovation
China’s government has too many rules restricting the adoption of genetically modified food, and that’s ultimately hurting its long-term competitiveness ...
USDA lacks authority to regulate GM pine
The genetically modified variety of pine developed by Arborgen cannot be restricted by USDA, the agency has determined. A pine ...
GMO plant oil could be healthy, sustainable alternative for feeding salmon
Genetically modified plants created by British scientists to contain health boosting Omega-3 have been declared a safe alternative to fish ...
Gene silencing technology boosts levels of monounsaturated fats in flax
Amid increasing use of RNAi as a crop-modification technology, a research team led by scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and ...
Mapping marijuana’s genome could lead to medical discoveries
The history of marijuana is being mapped in Portland, Ore. For 10,000 years, humans have carried this plant everywhere, but ...
Are genomically recoded organisms needed to keep GMOs on a leash?
Let’s talk about the latest news. Last week we reported on two papers in Nature describing breakthrough techniques in modifying ...
Improved wheat varieties on horizon to address drought, flooding pests and stresses
After years of research efforts worldwide, researchers have finally identified a draft sequence of the bread wheat genome - an ...
Arizona next to propose GM labeling
Advocates for GMO labeling are getting another shot in the Arizona Legislature. Six representatives submitted a bill to require food ...
Kevin Folta deconstructs Food Babe’s response to students in scathing fashion
Last week, a group of food science students from the IFT Student Association (IFTSA) wrote a letter to the "Food Babe", Vani ...
Urban consumers should pay more for lower-yielding non-GMO crops
Washington Farm Bureau first vice president Aaron Golladay lives on a family run farming operation in central Washington State, near ...
Science literacy doesn’t change minds about GMOs
In an excellent meeting at the National Academy of Sciences last week, there was a lot of discussion of science ...
Two markets for dietary supplements: Non-GMO and ‘made with genetic technology’
Opponents of the labeling of genetically modified ingredients have spent millions to defeat the various state ballot measures on the ...
Will new Innate potato, with no ‘foreign’ DNA, satisfy anti-GMO critics?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in November approved for commercial planting a potato genetically engineered to have reduced bruising ...
Recent “win” opening door to growing GM crops in Britain not really a victory
The European Parliament's decision on GM in January was hailed by the pro-GM campaign in the UK as a great victory ...
US consumers say they want GMO labelling but only 56 percent trust labels
The dots don’t seem to connect: Consumers cast a dubious, untrusting eye about the legitimacy of packaged-food labels, and yet ...
