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.
Indoor plants do not improve air quality very much. Startup Neoplants has a genetic fix
Neoplants’s marquee product, announced late last year, is the Neo P1, the first houseplant genetically engineered to remediate indoor air ...
Curse of good intentions? New York’s Birds and Bees Protection Act could undermine climate-adaptive farming
S. 1856/A. 3226 also known as “The Birds and the Bees Protection Act” does nothing to address the actual threats ...
Fact check: No, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have not been added to livestock or produce
COVID-19 vaccines are not being passed along through livestock or produce, and experts say that would not be an efficient ...
Does the US rely too much on GMO crops? Hear from scientists and farmers in this FDA, EPA and USDA-produced video
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and U.S. Department of Agriculture ...
From Cavendish bananas to Arabica coffee, many favorite foods may succumb to disease and go extinct. CRISPR gene editing offers a solution
Some of our most beloved crops are currently under existential threat. Coffee, cacao, banana, and citrus fall into this unfortunate ...
How the battle over Ukrainian grain supplies threatens EU unity
The breadbasket of Europe, Ukraine has for years exported vast quantities of grain through the Black Sea. But after Russia’s invasion ...
Chronic food insecurity threatens many low-income countries. What can be done?
After more than fifteen years of heartening declines, global food insecurity and malnutrition are again on the rise. According to ...
Viewpoint: Italy’s lab grown meat ban follows in path of science rejectionism across Europe
Italy’s right-wing government provoked immediate controversy when it proposed banning the production of lab-grown meats to “safeguard our nation’s heritage.” The farm ...
Viewpoint: Can the International Agency for Research on Cancer be trusted to dispassionately assess potential dangers of aspartame when its key evaluator claims to know the answer in advance?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a United Nations epidemiology group headquartered in France, could be in ethical ...
Viewpoint: Health quacks like Mehmet Oz and Joe Mercola — and many mainstream environmental groups — use fear to promote their ideological agendas
Concern trolling is basically when you pretend to care about an issue in order to undermine and derail any measures ...
Gene editing targets pathogens that limit rice yields
As global food insecurity climbed to a perilous high in 2022, scientists ramped up their efforts to perfect best practices ...
‘Cruelty-free’ lab-grown mini-organs could dramatically reduce need for animal testing
The traditional way of testing vaccines involves injecting them into animals and waiting weeks or months for the result. When ...
A plant pandemic is destroying wheat crops across the globe. Here’s how we can use genetics and fungicides to stop it
Wheat, the most important food crop, is threatened by a blast disease pandemic. Now a new study, conducted by an ...
‘Super foods’ are more hype than science. Gene editing technology could make them reality
‘Superfoods’ are often touted as being exceptionally beneficial for our health. But currently, the concept is mostly just marketing hype ...
Indian farmers face threats from pest infestations, erratic weather, droughts, floods, salinity, and soil degradation. Gene-edited crops could help
Indian farmers have contributed significantly to the global agricultural industry with a wide range of crops. Agriculture employs nearly 60% ...
Breeding ‘green’ cows? CRISPR poised to reduce climate-polluting methane gas emissions
Scientists and companies are coming up with plenty of ways to curb cow methane, from simply changing their food source ...
Science-based reasons why Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list of ‘pesticide-laden’ fruits and vegetables is dangerously misleading
Fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet providing vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, dietary fiber and other benefits ...
Scientists say East Africa’s farmers need improved seeds to counter pests and effects of climate change
About 12 kilometers from Uganda’s Kampala City, along the Bombo-Gulu Highway, fleshy and dark-green banana plants thrive on a farm ...
Video: World’s first climate-resistant strawberries developed in steamy Singapore
The strawberries growing at Singrow’s indoor farm at the Science Park are derived from a Japanese varietal, but have been ...
Moth sex pheromones: Tweaking plants with gene editing can replace some pesticides
By using precision gene engineering techniques, researchers at the Earlham Institute in Norwich have been able to turn tobacco plants ...
‘Gene-edited crop regulations should be based on the product not the process’: UN’s FAO assesses impact of CRISPR and new breeding techniques on food
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released a report on food safety considerations for regulating foods derived ...
Early plant domestication: How humans co-evolved with ancient crops
The story of how ancient wolves came to claim a place near the campfire as humanity's best friend is a ...
Here’s how drones can optimize harvests and save on labor
Drones are being used for an ever widening range of agricultural applications enabled by new technology and diminishing regulatory constraints ...
United States promises Africa 7 billion dollars to tackle climate crisis and food insecurity
United States vice president Kamala Harris’s nine-day visit to Africa saw her discuss with leaders measures to tackle the continent’s ...
Converting agricultural waste into protein and other sustainable innovations
According to reports, approximately one-third of food is wasted when it goes from farm to fork, which could otherwise feed more than ...
Mexico’s proposed GMO corn ban could damage the US economy
Mexico issued a proposed ban on GMO corn in 2022, putting the U.S. in a position to lose out on ...
USA Today fact checks disinformation claiming GMOs permanently change genes
A March 29 Instagram post shows a screenshot of a news release about testimony heard by the Missouri House of ...
