Up to €50 million has to be invested in an approval process for GM plants, and the smaller plant breeding companies are throwing in the towel, explained [agricultural economist Prof. Matin Qaim]. The high admission hurdles are politically and socially desired. If these were reduced, smaller breeding companies would also have a chance.

f you want advice on which coffee maker or space heater to buy, Consumer Reports (CR) is where you go. Their experts can help you select a Keurig and save a few bucks along the way like nobody else. Every so often, though, CR ventures far outside its area of expertise and publishes alarmist claims … Read more

Environmental activists rely on several go-to tactics when fomenting fear of pesticides. One of their favorite methods is recruiting fake whistleblowers, often retired government scientists, who will spread conspiratorial nonsense about regulatory agencies and other researchers. Here’s a real-world example of the “phony whistleblower gambit.”

Florida has many things to recommend, but the state’s top public health official isn’t one of them. Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has failed at every turn in managing the COVID crisis.

he less informed someone is about a topic, the more likely they are to overestimate their knowledge of it. This is a cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect; it’s a simple, compelling theory—and it may be incorrect. Is industry inherently untrustworthy? Activist groups have promoted that idea for decades, but there’s much more to … Read more

Ertharin Cousin has spent her entire life providing people with food: as a child of a restaurant owner couple in Chicago, later as head of the World Food Program of the United Nations. And today as head of a foundation with the declared goal of creating a new food system for the world. She says: … Read more

In the age of fake news and conspiracy theories, some find it seductive to assert that evil agrochemical lobbies would make rain and shine in agriculture. They would be so powerful that they would dictate policies to be held under the nose of political decision-makers or outright with their full cooperation.

For more than two decades, anti-GMO groups have resorted to the same dishonest claims about the risks of genetically engineered crops. One of their favorite tropes goes like this: “the surge in genetically engineered crops in the past few decades is one the main drivers of increased pesticide use and chemicals in agriculture.” That particular example comes from Greenpeace, though other activist outlets have used the same rhetoric to attack gene editing, a more recent class of breeding techniques used to enhance our food crops in all sorts of useful ways.

Are you confused about conflicting “research” findings on certain foods’ effects on our health? It would hardly be surprising. First, butter is the enemy; then, it’s solid margarine. Is caffeine good or bad for your heart?

art One of this essay on the evolution of anti-GMO activism ended with an introduction to the book The Rhetoric of Reaction by the development economist and political theorist Albert O. Hirschman published in 1991. The book argued that conservative political movements have a discernible pattern in making the case against progressive reform. They pursue … Read more