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.
How genetics can revolutionize 100-year old strategies failing to protect honeybees
Beekeepers lose between 30% and 40% of their colonies annually, mostly to parasites and pathogens. Losses during one bad year ...
Glyphosate disinformation: French activists use fake ‘glyphosate detection tests’ in campaign to turn public against safe weedkiller
Opponents needed a tool that would strike public opinion. Monica Kruger, an activist and director of the private veterinary testing ...
How zapping roots with electricity can supercharge plant growth
Barley seedlings grow on average 50% more when their root system is stimulated electrically through a new cultivation substrate. In ...
Sucralose, aspartame, stevia: With the use of sugar substitutes continuing to rise, questions mount about their impact on diets
Many people are cutting back on their sugar intake for health reasons. But the food industry has found another way ...
Viewpoint: Indian farmers urged to learn from Sri Lanka’s failed environmentalist-led movement to abandon science
One important lesson that Indian farmers must learn is never to believe without trying and applying what others are imposing ...
Viewpoint: Despite crop gene-editing deregulation in Canada, lack of federal support sharply limits innovations
In 2022, Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced that crop varieties developed with gene editing technology will not be subject ...
Study: Organic farming produces less food than conventional. How huge is this yield gap?
The productivity of organic farming systems and their capacity to address the global food demand of a rapidly increasing population ...
Cell-based, lab grown meat is splitting food and agricultural sustainability communities. Here’s why
Proponents of cultivated meat argue that it carries numerous environmental benefits compared to conventional agriculture — all of which are particularly ...
Cherry tomatoes of the future are here today thanks to gene editing. They grow faster, in clusters, and even indoors
Scientists have just genetically modified cherry tomatoes to make them easier to grow, and the future applications could include making them more ...
Here’s the skinny on fast-emerging genetic engineering tools that are rapidly improving global farming
Genetic engineering and gene-editing tools are by no means a panacea for the time-sensitive agricultural and food-related challenges we face ...
Pakistan edges closer to inevitable embrace of sustainable genetically-modified seeds
The debate on consuming genetically modified organisms (GMO) in agriculture has erupted once again in Pakistan ...
$115 billion: From GMOs to gene editing, agricultural biotechnology market poised to expand dramatically by 2028
'Agricultural Biotechnology: Emerging Technologies and Global Markets' explores the dynamic intersection of cutting-edge biotechnological innovations and the global agricultural landscape ...
Americans’ top 10 favorite genetically-modified foods
Genetically modified papayas were first produced in the U.S. in 1996. Since then, they have been extremely popular in the ...
‘Glyphosate does not cause cancer and is not responsible for the plaintiff’s illness’: Bayer snaps Roundup liability losing streak
Bayer has won a trial in a lawsuit brought by a California man who said he developed cancer from exposure ...
To reach climate change targets set at COP28, we need agricultural biotechnology to help decarbonize economies around the world
Climate change is affecting communities worldwide, and innovative solutions are more urgently needed than ever. As leaders from around the ...
Weedkiller adaptation: ‘Silver bullets on weed control don’t exist’
It has been a quarter century since corn and soybeans were engineered to withstand the withering mists of the herbicide ...
New York neonicotinoid compromise: Governor Hochul agrees to gradually phase out some neonicotinoid pesticides while allowing key exceptions
Governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law Legislation S.1856-A/A.7640, known as the Birds and Bees Protection Act. This nation-leading legislation ...
Upcycling food waste: Corn cobs, the circular economy and industrial production: Plant biomass offers alternative industrial products
The practice of upcycling –present in a variety of industries from fashion to construction– not only revitalizes discarded items, adding new values ...
Dozens of countries are planning to open their markets to agricultural gene editing. Here are the current regulatory status and opportunities for harmonization
The creators of CRISPR/Cas have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their ground-breaking technology and its exceptional ...
As climate change threatens to eliminate land suitable for arabica production, cell-based coffee may eventually offer a solution
Scientists in Finland have shed new light on the process of making, roasting and analyzing lab-grown cellular coffee ...
The investment bubble surrounding indoor farming has burst. One plodding but high-tech startup is bucking the trend, and here’s how
Indoor farming startups seeking to revolutionize the nation’s food supply have endured a rocky year. Investors have significantly pulled back ...
Feather-based fuel? How millions of tons of poultry waste, an agricultural byproduct, could be transformed into clean, green hydrogen fuel cells
Look at a chicken feather, and what you’re seeing is 91% keratin. Now a team of scientists have found a way to ...
Why African farmers fighting against notoriously low yields need innovation to survive inflation and starvation in a warming world
Rising temperatures mean large chunks of Africa are whipsawing between increasingly severe droughts and more frequent and intense cyclones, threatening ...
Monsanto’s lingering shadow: Bayer grapples with growing Roundup legal costs
Three years after Bayer agreed to pay $10 billion to settle claims that its weedkiller, Roundup, caused cancer, juries continue ...
Viewpoint: Why we need to get over our gene-editing fears and embrace optimized, climate-resilient crops
As the planet warms, gene editing is one of our greatest hopes for developing resilient crops that allow for adaptation ...
Is eating vegan healthier than following an omnivorous lifestyle? Study on 22 sets of twins delves into diet
November 30, a study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by researchers at Stanford University, who studied 22 ...
Creating the perfect Christmas tree: Researchers spent four decades creating a faster-growing, shed-free fir tree
Christmas trees are the centerpiece of the holiday season. But the fear of needles falling can deter shoppers from buying ...
