Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
Happy New Year! Here is a post from Raoul at the Student Farm at UC Davis. From the vegetable’s point of view the holidays weren’t that great. Continuous rain or fog was only broken up by hard frosts. Our head rot resistant broccoli varieties proved to be not as resistant as advertised, hence there is…
Read More “Pami’s Purple Haze Carrots with oranges, ginger, and walnuts” »
The Digital CuttleFish writes another good verse. This one is for Dr. Oz. Tomorrow’s Table I’m healthy and wealthy; I’ve outgrown my past; When I need to lose weight, I can diet or fast; Starvation is not in the lot I’ve been cast– My perspective is clearly not skewed. I can buy the best produce…
Click here to see the Dr. Oz show on GE crops with yours truly. I tried to provide a science-based perspective to the audience. It was a tough go, though, because one of the other panelists (Jeffery Smith, a former Iowa political candidate for the Natural Law Party with no discernible scientific or agricultural training)…
Read More “Dr. Oz asks who can we trust when it comes to Genetically Engineered Crops?” »
These video photoessays – one interviewing Colombian coffee growers, another Ghanaian farmers – document how a 2-degree rise in temperature has already hurt some of the world’s most vulnerable people. The videos show how rising temperatures have damaged crops, led to increased pests and disease, and ultimately forced farmers to switch to less profitable crops…
Great article by Nicolas Kristof in the NY Times. He writes about the promise of biofortification for saving the lives of the poor and malnourished. Children have been dying for lack of vitamin A, iron and zinc for thousands of generations. These new seeds may finally help end the scourge of starvation in this century,…
On Monday afternoon, yours truly will appear with Dr. Oz, “America’s doctor,” (the tag bestowed on him by no less than Oprah Winfrey) before a live audience in New York City. Although I have never seen the show, a New York Times magazine article written by the brilliant Frank Bruni, suggests that the show, and…
Read More “On Monday night, Tomorrow’s Table meets Dr. Oz” »
In the recent debate on sustainable agriculture, I noted that “The likelihood of pollen from GE cotton causing harm to the environment is about as likely as a poodle escaping into the wild.” Amidst the avalanche of comments, noone rebutted the peer-reviewed data indicating that biotechnology has already contributed to enhancing the sustainability of our…
One more day to vote in the <a href="http://www.economist.com/debate/debates/overview/187", which asks the question “Is Biotechnology compatible with sustainable agriculture?” PZ Myers answers the question this way: “this is weird: agriculture is biotechnology, and just breaking ground with a sharp stick and throwing some seeds in is an example of an ‘unnatural’ human practice” He also…
The most devastating impact on biodiversity is caused by agriculture. Farming is already the greatest extinction threat to birds, and its adverse impacts look set to increase, especially in developing countries (Green et al. 2005). Thus one of the global challenges for the next century is the need to develop high-yielding varieties that require minimal…
Today is the first week of Fall quarter at UC Davis and the Student Farm has harvested some glorious vegetables. The tomatoes in the CSA (community supported agriculture) basket today came mostly from the farm’s Seeds of Change variety trial. The green striped, red striped, orange, dark striped, etc. tomatoes represent only a fraction of…
Read More “The UC Davis Student Farm Harvests Striped Tomatoes and Pumpkins” »