Agriculture & Food
We eat to live. Humans use approximately 11% of Earth’s land for the cultivation of crops for food, but also for clothing, medicine and biofuels. Globally, major crops include sugarcane, pumpkin, maize (corn), wheat, rice, cassava, soybeans, hay, potatoes and cotton.
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Here are all the ways CRISPR gene editing is transforming Africa’s staple crops—and there’s a lot more innovation to come
CRISPR gene editing is already reshaping Africa’s most important food crops, from disease-resistant bananas to less toxic cassava, and a ...
Viewpoint: Even lousy scientific articles can shield authors when they hype dubious health claims and products
Peer review in reputable journals gives scientific claims an authority that commercial speech rarely enjoys. But what happens when scientists ...
Social media influencers are driving food misinformation across Europe
Scroll long enough and someone will promise that a supplement, superfood or detox tea can fix whatever ails you. Those ...
Viewpoint: Chipotle-inspired lesson: 10,000 sick customers suggest that processed foods can be safer than fresh ones
The Environmental Working Group recently compared ultra-processed foods across major fast-food chains and found one conspicuous exception: Chipotle. That makes ...
No, organic eggs are not more nutritious or necessarily healthier than regular eggs. They are far more expensive.
Organic eggs cost considerably more than conventional ones, but that premium mostly pays for how the hens are raised, not ...
Anti-GMO activists in Pakistan rev up their campaign of dire warnings
Pakistan is weighing whether to commercialize genetically modified maize, and critics of the technology are sounding the alarm, warning of ...
There has been a slew of recent reports of food recalls and foodborne outbreaks. Do we face an escalating problem?
Egg recalls, salmonella-linked jalapeños and a spike in cyclospora cases have dominated headlines this year, but the U.S. food-safety system ...
Viewpoint: America’s food-safety system is being methodically dismantled by the Trump administration.
America's food-safety infrastructure is being quietly hollowed out even as outbreaks grow more complex and harder to trace, journalist Eric ...
Viewpoint: Is corporate embrace of regenerative agriculture greenwashing?
Major food companies are racing to tout “regenerative agriculture,” but the term has no legal definition — and that vagueness ...
Viewpoint: How to ecologically damage America’s forests: Ban glyphosate
A recent Mother Jones’ investigation ran under the headline “We Are Bombarding America’s Forests With Roundup.” The authors claim that ...
From Malaysia to the world: A pioneering science communicator reimagines global science communication for a digital age
By 2024, I was exhausted. For more than a decade, I had carried The Petri Dish through the realities of ...
CRISPR fine-tuning unlocks vitamin C-rich potatoes without yield loss
Potato is a central pillar of global food security, yet its highly heterozygous, tetraploid genome has long frustrated conventional breeding ...
‘Glyphosate is not carcinogenic’: Independent EU chemical oversight agency reaffirms—for the 3rd time in 9 years—that the herbicide is safe-as-used
The European Chemicals Agency's Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) has reaffirmed, for the third time in nine years, that glyphosate does ...
Bayer urges court to approve $7.25 billion Monsanto Roundup settlement that could limit its future liabilities
Bayer is asking a Missouri court to grant final approval to a $7.25 billion settlement covering roughly 65,000 lawsuits claiming ...
Fibermaxxing: Latest Instagram diet craze raises hope that a fiber-rich diet can improve health
This article was originally published at Knowable Magazine. In the world of dietary trends, proteinmaxxing is taking a back seat ...
The GMO-seed sovereignty debate comes to Nigeria
Across Nigerian farms, market stalls and WhatsApp groups, one word is triggering fear, hope and fury in equal measure: Genetically ...
Con game: What happens when people are overly concerned they may be suckered
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Which would make you feel worse — losing $100 to a pickpocket ...
From smart packaging to bio-based coatings, scientists find new ways to reduce food contamination
In today’s world, food hunger and insecurity are not due to lack of food. Right now, the world produces enough ...
How climate change could impact food safety
Climate change isn't just fueling stronger storms and longer droughts — it's also making the food on your plate riskier, ...
Can cloud seeding ease the deepening drought across the American West?
A 26-foot tower resembling a football goalpost in Moab, Utah, pulses electrical charges into clouds — and its maker says ...
Politicizing science: Trump’s pick to head the FDA—Heidi Overton— promotes an ‘alternative system’ of ‘conservative-based science’
President Trump's nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration once called for conservatives to build their own scientific journals ...
Fact vs misinformation: An official EU guide to GMOs and gene-edited foods
The rules governing new gene editing techniques for plants – called "new genomic techniques" (NGTs) – are being changed at ...
Rising costs of fertilizer, fuel, and machinery: Tariffs and stalled Iran war weigh heavily on American farmers
American farmers are staring down what one Iowa grower calls "another farm crisis," as President Trump's tariffs and his war ...
Kennedy’s HHS set to define ultra-processed foods—but will the slippery designation make scientific sense?
The federal government is about to attempt what nutrition scientists haven't managed: a workable definition of "ultra-processed food." HHS Secretary ...
AI-driven crop innovation gets a boost from the USDA
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking steps to speed up progress in plant science by calling on universities ...
Viewpoint: Follow the money: How Bloomberg Philanthropies and the NGO Lighthouse Reports manufactured a Big Food safety scandal
What happens when you want to run a campaign, but you have very limited data and evidence? One strategy more ...
The perfect cookie? 3D-printed cookies made from upcycled plastic waste
Scientists at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have found a way to turn plastic bottles and crop waste into protein-rich cookies, ...
