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.
The genes we eat: a conversation
Many worry that genetic advances could result in risks to our health and the environment—concerns that surfaced again in the ...
What will it take to convince people GM foods are safe?
Genetically modified foods are a hot button issue for a lot of people. Just a few weeks ago, California voters ...
Animal rights activists challenge patents on genetically engineered chimps
Animal rights activists in Germany are contesting three patents on genetically engineered chimpanzees granted this year by the European Patent ...
Mapped pig genome may aid medical research, food production
Scientists have mapped the genome of the domestic pig in a project that could enhance the animal's use for meat ...
Book: How synthetic biology will reinvent nature and ourselves
In the future, genetically modified organisms could be making our medicines, our fuel, our housewares, our houses — and they ...
Biosecurity concerns for new animal disease research lab
For over 50 years the United States has carried out research on dangerous animal diseases at Plum Island, just off ...
Company wants to use GM insects to protect crops
Whether you like them or not, genetically modified ingredients are hard to avoid in the food supply--they’re found in most ...
GM seeds spur protest in Costa Rica
Close to one hundred people gathered in front of the Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderia (MAG) in San Jose on ...
GM labeling fight goes to Washington State
The next stop for the GMO labeling movement is Washington State, where I-522 (also known as "The People’s Right To ...
Scientists breed disease-resistant fish, sans genetic engineering
The Japanese are great guzzlers of fish, but fish are in finite supply. And farming them to increase that supply ...
Coconut crisis forces a rethink on gene banks as conservation tools
The international collection of the South Pacific's coconut palm species, held at a field gene bank in Papua New Guinea, ...
Wild coffee faces extinction, leaves cultivated crops genetically vulnerable
Wild species of Arabica could be extinct in the wild by 2080 thanks to climate change, a new study says ...
What’s in store for food reform in Obama’s second term?
When Obama was first elected, food reformers dreamt big. As Michael Pollan wrote just after the 2008 election in his ...
Australia grapples with GM wheat
Last month, a group of Australian scientists published a warning to the citizens of the country and of the world ...
North Dakota protects “modern” agriculture
Voters in heavily agriculture-dependent North Dakota became the first to enshrine the right to farm in their state constitution, a ...
Food movement loses battles but will win war
While support for GE food labels has never been stronger, the incessant drumbeat of misleading and outright false industry advertising ...
Organic farming may be less energy intensive
The Rodale Institute , which promotes organic farming, has been investigating this question for more than 30 years. It grows ...
“Oprah’s Farm” to capitalize on organic food craze?
On Monday, the New York Post unearthed a handful of applications to the US Patent and Trademark Organization for Oprah-branded ...
Cloning versus habitat protection in wildlife conservation
Biotechnicians want to use cloning to save endangered species, but they are having only limited success. Critics say that the ...
Goldfish Crackers targeted in ‘natural’ lawsuit in wake of Prop 37
While Prop 37 did not pass, the failure to disclose the presence of GMOs in foods that are marketed as ...
GMO labeling efforts change course after California defeat
The failure on Tuesday of a California ballot initiative that would have mandated labeling of genetically modified foods is not ...
The Monsanto fallacy
It’s my favorite new logical fallacy, the “Appeal to Monsanto”, the world’s largest producer of biotech agriculture seeds. This is ...
Organic versus inorganic: an important distinction, but not for obvious reasons
The distinction between organic and inorganic -- natural versus unnatural -- carries massive cultural, historical, and social freight, as demonstrated ...
Scientists cheer death of Prop 37
Scientists, on the whole, are pleased to see Prop 37 fail this week. This blog post from SciAm explains the ...
Call to arms from Grist in wake of Prop 37 loss
Despite the defeat of Prop 37, the food movement is being urged to keep fighting the good fight. Grist, in ...
Last 500 Ethiopian wolves endangered by lack of genetic diversity
The last wolves in Africa face a difficult road if they are going to survive. Just 500 Ethiopian wolves (Canis ...
Sheep breeders at the “cutting edge” of genetics
Agriculture and animal husbandry have strong ties to the history of genetics -- Darwin, after all, relied heavily on evidence ...
