Stuart Smyth
Viewpoint: Environmentalists claim farmers can forego chemicals and genetically engineered crops and grow bumper crops with less environmental impact. If only farming was that easy
At the end of the 20th century, the United Nations (UN) launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were a list of ...
Viewpoint: The Green Revolution saved 1-2 billion lives globally. Activists say it was a failure. They’re lying
In the past few years, many environmental and academic activists have been undermining the work of Norman Borlaug and the ...
Stepping out of the shadows: UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization voices stronger support for crop biotechnology
While many private firms, research institutions and public agencies have been very active in communicating the benefits of agricultural biotechnology ...
Global food production has increased 390 percent since 1960. Here’s how farmers have done it
The use of modern seed genetics (which includes genetically modified (GM) crops, chemical and fertilizer use) greatly contributes to improved ...
Organic yields significantly lag conventional farming output. That gap will increase as gene editing accelerates in the U.S.
A lack of sufficient nutrient application and the limited ability to control weeds, insects, and plant diseases, results in organic ...
GM crops have enhanced environmental sustainability. As climate change roils farming, we’ll need even more biotech innovation
hen genetically modified (GM) crops were initially commercialized in the mid to late 1990s, many critics of the new technology ...
Viewpoint: Here’s why almost all international agricultural biotechnology regulatory structures are a scientific mess, and what reforms are needed
Inappropriate and often politicized regulations in many countries have limited the global benefits of agricultural biotechnology. The Cartagena Protocol on ...
Viewpoint: 50 years after Asilomar set a fractured framework for regulating agricultural genetic enginnering, it’s time to embrace the technology’s full potential
Fifty years ago, scientists developed a regulatory framework for the safe use of recombinant DNA that focused on potential biosafety ...
Viewpoint: Canada’s new greenwashing bill that bans deliberately misleading information will require anti-GM activists to take down or radically revise their websites
On June 20th, 2024, The Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023 (Bill C-59) came into effect. The Bill covers a wide ...
Viewpoint: Lower-yield agroecology promises ignore evidence that advanced plant breeding, modern fertilizers and other inputs needed to grow more food on less land
Calls for transforming food systems have grown over the past several years. International governance organizations, such as the Food and ...
The conflict between sustainable development goals and environmental activists
At the end of the 20th century, the United Nations (UN) launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were a list of ...
Sustainability will take a huge hit if Canada models its future agricultural production after Europe’s broken precautionary approach to innovation
The European Union is rejecting these proven strategies through policies that dramatically reduce fertilizer and chemical use and ban modern ...
As the EU’s regulatory stance on gene-edited crops slips back toward ‘precautionary inertia’, Europe’s over-precaution threatens global food security
Despite the much-hyped expectation that Europe was on course to follow other parts of the world in removing GMO-style regulatory ...
Viewpoint: ‘Environmentalists are wrong on opposing technological tweaks to agriculture’: How activists undermine society’s need for more climate-adaptive sustainable farming
Public concern about the environment has not always been part of the social conscience in North America. After all, European ...
Climate change agriculture: GM crops, no-till farming and judicious use of glyphosate and other herbicides help address disruptions, Canadian study finds
Ever since the first commercialization of genetically modified (GM) crops in the mid-1990s, researchers have considered the impact of these ...
25+ years into the crop biotechnology revolution, ‘Canadian prairie farmers are among the most sustainable on the planet’. Europe? Not so much
Canadian agriculture has embraced innovative technologies and products. Canadian farmers rapidly adopted genetically modified crops following their approvals in the ...
Social justice environmental activists move to block gene editing to control invasive species and promote biodiversity. Here’s why they’re misguided
Hawaii has emerged as ground zero for efforts to raise the awareness of the dangers of invasive species. Just last ...
Viewpoint: The difference between the science cited by academic researchers and activists? Peer reviewed, consensus evidence
In the 1660s, Robert Boyle advocated that the use of repeated experiments and written summary of the process, method and results, is ...
Viewpoint: How agricultural biotechnology can help North American farmers cope with climate change
The use of modern seed genetics, which includes genetically modified crops, chemical and fertilizer use, greatly contributes to improved agricultural ...
Viewpoint: Use of modern seed genetics greatly contributes to improved agricultural sustainability and climate change mitigation
The use of modern seed genetics (which includes genetically modified (GM) crops, chemical and fertilizer use) greatly contributes to improved ...
Viewpoint: Do we need to curtail economic expectations to ensure that we have enough food to feed the planet?
A little over 200 years ago, one of the noted economists and philosophers of the day, Thomas Malthus published an essay ...
Viewpoint: ‘Only 60 harvests remaining on Earth’? Environmentalist exaggerations obscure dramatic advances in biotechnology-boosted agriculture
A little over 200 years ago, one of the noted economists and philosophers of the day, Thomas Malthus published an essay ...
Using cost-benefit analysis: Crop biotechnology offers sizable yield and sustainability benefits when compared to non-GM farming
What are the costs of not adopting the best food producing technologies? The ability to quantify a choice that is ...
‘Mania of zero risk’: How environmentalists inflame concerns about farm chemicals, increasing anti-GM food rejectionism and the degradation of waterways
Food Watch warns, wrongly, that trace amounts of mineral oil can get into our food and seriously endanger consumers, calling ...
Video: ‘Media bashing of pesticides is hysteria wrapped around a kernel of truth’: Rethinking essential crop protection tools
Headlines about agriculture chemical use aren’t always the most kind to the industry. And while these headlines may be flashy ...
Viewpoint: ‘Less starvation and less malnutrition are a priceless benefit of GM crops’
Over the past 20 years, academics have analyzed the yield effects following the adoption of GM crops in every market ...
Targeting sustainable farming: Here’s how much money low and middle-income countries are missing out on if they reject genetically-modified crops
GM crops produce higher farm incomes plus reduced land tillage practices and lower insecticide use, bringing substantial environmental benefits. While ...
Viewpoint: Plants are ‘carbon sequestration factories’. It’s time to capitalize on their natural ability to address climate change
Could plants be created that have higher rates of photosynthesis to improve growth and yield? The short answer is yes ...
