Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
Mark Henderson at the Times Online has just published an article about Genetic Engineering and Organic Agriculture. Organic farmers must embrace GM crops if we are to feed the world, says scientist. The scientist is non other than Agricultural Ecologist Sir Gordon Conway, and he argues that Organic Ag should be open to GE crops,…
The new year is here, and people everywhere are publishing their top 10 lists for the last year. Rather than try to come up with a similar list and fit exactly 10 items into it, I thought I would put together a short list of genetic engineering campaigns that rose and fell this year. Get…
Matt Ridley, author of an upcoming book on science called The Rational Optimist, wrote an article for The Economist called The new NUE thing. NUE stands for Nitrogen Use Efficiency, a trait that can maintain yields with lower applications of costly fertilizer. Nitrogen Use Efficiency has got him, well, rationally optimistic about the environmental benefits…
Maywa Montengro has a commentary on Seed Magazine about the opposition to genetic engineering that’s worth taking a read, and it’s right on-topic with what we’ve been talking about with anti-science. Here is a taste of A Natural Obsession. When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they…
Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the human body, and most of it is found in our bones and teeth. Without this element to form the hard structures of our bodies, life as we know it as mammals would be in peril. We need it for our nerves and muscles to function properly, too….
The USDA Report by Cyndi Barmore, The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production, has recently been pulled from the USDA website. This is the USDA’s explanation: “On May 26, 2009, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) posted a Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) report titled, “The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production.” This report should have been accompanied…
Or Cottonseed you can Eat thanks to Genetic Engineering. A few years ago, I read about a research group that had used genetic engineering to remove a poisonous compound from cotton seed. Now, it seems, they are one step closer to making a positive impact on the availability of food for people in developing countries…
There’s an Op-Ed in the New York Times today by Dickson D. Despommier: A Farm on Every Floor. Dr. Despommier is Professor of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences (and Microbiology) at Columbia University. One of his interests is vertical farming, as can be found on his website The Vertical Farm Project. The op-ed is brimming with enthusiasm that I heartily share.
This is a first. While browsing the news recently, I came across this article in Farm Weekly, an Australian site: GM silver bullet could shoot farmers in foot. In the short article, a representative from Network of Concerned Farmers, Julie Newman, says that conventional wheat farmers need to be protected – from being outperformed by…
A student in my Sustainable Agriculture program sent out an email a few weeks ago that really piqued my interest (I’m glad I finally have time to blog about it!). It included a link to the New Scientist article: Robot farmhands prepare to invade the countryside. The student said:
I wish this was a link to the onion, but it is frighteningly real. Do you think the cats at the “appropriate technology” center are talking about this? Doubt it. This is progress! I guess now I need a bumper sticker that says “Family farms not Robot farms”