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.
World’s first GM lager: Could beer made from genetically modified wheat usher in a new era of GMO crop acceptance?
Argentina’s Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp., the farm technology company that’s trying to convince the world to eat genetically-modified wheat, is in talks with ...
Viewpoint: Europe’s rejection of biotechnology in favor of organics has played an unfortunate role in today’s global food crisis. ‘Precision agriculture’ can help
Leading officials including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are sounding the alarm over the alarming state of global food security. The war in ...
Viewpoint: Sri Lanka’s botched organic farming experiment illustrates danger of ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to agricultural sustainability
Even though the transition towards organic farming seemed like an environmentally sustainable step forward, the sudden switch was a time ...
Viewpoint: Britain’s deregulation of agricultural gene editing a good first step — but further reform needed
Britain's deregulatory plans around GMO crops focus on gene editing, a type of genetic modification that "is heavily restricted in the EU." ...
‘Sleepwalking into a food crisis’: High-yield, intensive farming using advanced biotechnology is key to address climate crisis
The world needs to increase food production and availability by 70 per cent by 2050 to keep pace with the ...
Can foods boost your immune system?
It’s easy to fall prey to marketing gimmicks deployed by food brands. After all, it’s comforting to think that there ...
Viewpoint: ‘Britain must address the madness of its organic-obsessed, science-denying agricultural system’
When the Ethiopian famine finally ended in 1985, with a million people dead, nobody expected it to be the last ...
‘Regenerative agriculture’ has replaced organic as the ‘green’ solution to farming and food. What does it really mean?
The hype about regenerative farming has some sustainable food and climate researchers and advocates concerned. Unlike organic farming, which is ...
Lab meat boom? Start-ups surging into the cultured meat sector
The global market for cultured meat is forecast to reach $499.9 million by 2030, up from $133.4 million last year, ...
Video: RNA technology used to develop COVID vaccines can protect crops from viruses, fungi and insect pests
It’s one of the biggest challenges facing the environment and farmers across the globe – pest control. But now, University ...
Gene editing crops: Pros and cons
There are few food-related areas of discussion more emotive than that of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Public debate often takes ...
Organic fresh strawberries potentially linked to hepatitis outbreak in US and Canada
The US Food and Drug Administration is investigating a potential link between a hepatitis A outbreak and fresh organic strawberries. The FDA ...
Djibouti and Oxitec announce pilot project using genetic modification to help remove invasive malaria-transmitting mosquitoes threatening the Horn of Africa
Oxitec Ltd, the leading developer of biological pest control solutions, [May 31] announced the launch of a new partnership with ...
Video: Viewpoint — Why GMOs are good for us
Activists have convinced Americans that "organic" food is better—healthier, better-tasting, life-extending. As a result, poor parents feel guilty if they ...
Vitamin-A enhanced Golden Rice saga illustrates destructive legacy of anti-GMO hysteria
Even though 5.2 million children suffer with vision impairment and a potential death sentence, Golden Rice, a contributory answer to ...
Viewpoint: ‘Bolivia cannot continue imposing straitjackets on itself by embracing retrograde ideological visions’ — Renewed plea to embrace GMO technology
[Bolivia] suffers from a shortage of corn, a grain of fundamental importance in the production chain that guarantees national food ...
Here’s why the invasion of Ukraine could prompt Europe to reform GMO food barriers and embrace gene edited crops
The brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, and especially the blockade of the port cities of Odessa and Mariupol, mainstays of ...
Viewpoint: ‘A very curious form of self-sabotage’ — Organic industry rejects crop biotechnology solutions for environmental damage caused by widespread copper sulfate use
Last February, the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses) published a “mapping” on the uses ...
Edible metamaterials: The world’s most ‘perfect chocolate’ was 3-D printed
Think about biting into a piece of chocolate. What makes it enjoyable? Is it the sweetness? The way it melts ...
Crop gene editing and ‘sustainable intensification’ critical if Africa hopes to address climate change dislocations
Sustainable intensification of agriculture in Africa is essential for accomplishing food and nutritional security and addressing the rising concerns of ...
Farm groups claim US Solicitor General’s Supreme Court brief on glyphosate labeling puts it on the wrong side of science — and invites regulatory chaos
In a letter to President Biden, 54 agricultural groups expressed grave concern with a recent amicus brief submitted by the ...
Viewpoint: ‘Africa needs to network and share crop biotechnology advances’
In this interview with Nkechi Isaac, the chairman of Ghana’s Parliamentary Select Committee on Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and ...
Did Russia’s destruction of Ukrainian plant genetic resource center also demolish the country’s National Seed Bank?
Earlier this year, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and while Vladimir Putin's forces have largely retreated from the north ...
Viewpoint: Guardian activist journalist George Monbiot promotes book with claims that plant-based diet and regenerative farming could feed Britain 3 times over
We currently use 17.5m hectares of farmland in the UK. [Dairy farmer Simon] Fairlie finds that while a diet containing a ...
Cloud of disinformation: Ghanian scientist challenges anti-GMO scare campaigns in Africa
Africa has a more urgent need than the rest of the world to adopt genetically modified organisms for agricultural improvement, ...
How long and how much? Bringing a biotech crop to market costs $116 million and takes 16.5 years
Farmers are increasingly faced with the need to produce more food from fewer resources and under less predictable growing conditions ...
‘No association between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma’: Independent scientific panel review challenges activist cancer claims
In an independent critical scientific review of the existing meta-analyses of studies on the potential health hazards of exposure to ...
