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.
Banana flavored beer? Gene edited yeast expands beer taste possibilities
Beer may have lost some of its past flavor. Beer had historically been brewed in open, horizontal vats, but the ...
Challenging ‘green’ wisdom: Why Africa desperately needs more, not less, access to synthetic fertilizers
The European Commission has opposed a plan to support expanding fertilizer production in Africa because it would clash with the European Union’s ...
Slaughterless meat on cusp of reality? Cell-based steak, chicken and fish are all on the near horizon
Companies creating lab-grown steak, chicken, and fish see a recent White House announcement as a signal that meat grown without ...
University scientist challenges UN’s IARC to embrace current science by evaluating chemicals using ‘risk’ not just ‘hazard’ standards
The latest International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monograph Program report on cancer hazards associated with firefighting work, which ...
Fact check: Associated Press debunks social media claims that GMO corn can cause cancer
Social media users in recent days have falsely claimed genetically modified corn isn’t safe because it’s been found to cause ...
Can ‘grow-anywhere’ micro-algae provide the nutrients and calories needed to sustainably feed our expanding species?
Most people are familiar with the largest form of algae, kelp or seaweed. It can grow up to three metres ...
Promise and peril of Kernza: This deep-rooted, erosion-fighting perennial beer grain grows back every year — but brewers struggle with transition from traditional wheat
Barley and wheat are also vulnerable to erratic weather patterns. Already, harvests of these staple grains have been disrupted across ...
Viewpoint: How to build a plant-based food system? Legislate, deregulate and flood the supermarket with vegan products
Imagine a world where plants, not animals, are the foundation of a resilient, sustainable food system that benefits not only ...
‘Human Genome Project for our diets’: Here’s how bioactive compounds could overcome a dearth of vegetables in Americans’ health
A recent paper published in Nature Food to inform the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health proposes a public challenge ...
Genes from honeybees and African frogs help create a new species of genetically modified mosquitoes that neutralize malaria at the source
Scientists have genetically modified the main malaria-carrying species of mosquito in sub-Saharan Africa to slow the growth of malaria-causing parasites ...
Fighting herbicide-resistant weeds: Statin molecule found in fungi (and common cholesterol medication) could be ‘as effective as glyphosate’
Farmers are battling increasing weed resistance to common broad-spectrum herbicides such as glyphosate, but Australian research could be a game ...
Winning streak: After losing first 3 glyphosate-cancer cases, here’s how Bayer has convinced juries in 5 recent cases that the weedkiller is not harmful to humans
Bayer is on a winning streak as it battles the remaining cases targeting its Roundup weedkiller, a change after several ...
Study: ‘Avoiding regulatory bottlenecks’ — Here’s how countries around the world are advancing climate-friendly gene editing in farming
We looked at how countries selected from a sample of geographical regions globally are currently handling applications involving GEd organisms ...
Future fruit: Meet the farmers painstakingly developing colorful and tastier new apple varieties
Imagine reaching up to a tree branch and plucking an apple that’s unusually tall and narrow — a variety called ...
With soaring costs and rising inflation, 50% of small US farmers plan to use new technologies like robotics to boost crop yields
With US inflation worsening, the research found that 80 percent of farmers now cite rising input costs as the biggest ...
Mexico’s anti-GMO corn decree threatens relationship with US and promises billions in economic damage
Farmers in the United States are urging their government to challenge a looming Mexican ban on genetically modified (GM) corn ...
Infographic: Just one mosquito species can spread 54 viruses. Here’s how genetic modification can help us conquer this disease-spreading, destructive powerhouse
Aedes aegypti is one of the most common mosquitoes in the U.S. that can spread disease. One of the best-known ...
Viewpoint: Sweeping advances open door to biotechnology innovation in the UN, US and Africa
At the United Nations on September 21, 2022, President Biden announced $2.9 billion in assistance to address global food insecurity and urged ...
Viewpoint: ‘Darwinian beekeeping’ — Bees have adapted for over 100 million years. Maybe saving them from parasites could be as easy as leaving them alone
Bees have been around for about 120 million years... says Brenda Kiessling, a retired physician and an Eastern Apicultural Society ...
Hungry for a lab-grown burger? These are the countries where you can find a cell-based meal
There is currently one market where consumers can eat cell-based meat — Singapore. Following approval being granted by the Singapore ...
Viewpoint: European Greens defend organic policy, claim genetic engineering causes ‘uncontrollable, unintended and unsafe mutations’ in food — but this does not hold up to decades of evidence
A very dry summer alongside a low supply of fertilizer and energy spikes have created the perfect storm for the ...
‘Shockwaves in the global food chain’: Spain, Poland, Hungary beg European Commission for impact assessment on Farm to Fork plan pesticide cutbacks in face of Ukrainian invasion
EU member states have called for a new impact assessment on the European Commission’s proposal to slash the use and ...
Viewpoint: Lawyers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on pushing ‘inaccurate and baseless claims’ about common products like Roundup and talcum powder
Plaintiffs’ lawyers are relying more and more on traditional and social media to bolster litigation, often pushing inaccurate and baseless ...
Viewpoint: Daily Wire’s Candace Owens rolls out ludicrous conspiracy diatribe vilifying mainstream media, COVID vaccines and Bill Gates’ biotechnology advocacy
Candace Owens: This is a headline in Evie magazine. The World Economic Forum wants to make you allergic to beef ...
Viewpoint: The UK could be CRISPR crop pioneers — but only if ‘overly restrictive and outdated’ gene-edited crop ban falls
In May, the United Kingdom introduced a bill that would allow the commercial cultivation and sale of gene-edited crops, which are functionally banned under ...
62% less pesticides: What could be the consequences if Italy follows Europe’s mandate to cut use of crop protection chemicals in half?
Encouraged by the circle-beating attitude of politics, industries and associations, the European Commission is asking Italy to reduce pesticides by 62 ...
Viewpoint: European farm groups raise alarms about unrealistic and unscientific EU targets to dramatically cut back on pesticides
The draft of the EU plant protection regulation contains two specific reduction targets: The first target is to reduce the ...
