Section » GMOs
Digest: Pass the potatoes, hold the pesticides, and Bittman takes a bite (of sardines)
Salmon dieu!: On Wednesday, the National Organic Standards Board will rule on whether any fish can be labeled organic. Under the guidelines as proposed, wild salmon will not make the grade but farm-raised salmon could, even if they eat fish meal, which is feed spiked with ground-up wild fish. (
More articles
Digest: A schizophrenic FDA, processed-meat worries, and survey says we want good food
The Digest is back! Several months ago, our weekly food-politics news digest went on hiatus. Maybe you missed it, maybe not; we did. So starting today, we'll do our very darndest to bring you regular roundups of the most Ethicurean-relevant news items. Got a tip? Send it to new Digest editor Elanor via
Florida citrus crops attacked by bacterium, future in peril
These days, everywhere you look, a new industry or service is marketed as "greening" itself — making it more environmentally conscious by reducing its carbon footprint or assuaging its corporate guilt through any number of steps. Usually that's considered a good thing. But an article
Defender of the seeds: Q&A with Claire Hope Cummings, author of “Uncertain Peril”
An environmental lawyer for 20 years, including four spent with the USDA, Claire Hope Cummings reports regularly on agriculture and the environment; she has also farmed
Mini-Digest: Monsanto wants to “save” the world, Kill Bill Vol. 247, SOLE research in the pipeline
You say crisis, we say …Croesus: Monsanto has launched a massive PR campaign (New York Times) promising to double the yields of corn, soy, and cotton using genetically modified seeds. Never mind that its most successful
“Climate-ready” seeds: Every cloud has a golden lining for these profiteers
Claire Hope Cummings is the author of the new book "Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds." An environmental lawyer for 20 years, including four spent with the USDA, Cummings reports regularly on agriculture and the
Everything looks better when your head’s in the sand: The USDA stops tracking pesticide use
When I was four, I ate my mother's houseplant. (I claimed to have thought it was salad.) As any responsible mother would, she freaked out and called poison control. The friendly folks at the 800 number — who must get these kinds of calls all the time, poor guys — immediately asked her the two most
Digest – News: GM soy underperforms conventional, food riots, raw-milk development
OK, please bear with us while we catch up on the last few weeks' worth of news and remember how to pun. The links in the Digest that got deleted are gone forever, however; apologies to readers who'd sent in tips. We did go back and hunt down a few of the biggest stories for the Re-Digest below. Obviously
Postcard from Orlando II: Look Closer … at the Farm Bureau
Although I'm no longer standing at the Farm Bureau-sponsored exhibit, The Great American Farm, at Disney's Epcot Center, I can't seem to shake the creepy feeling it gave me. One of the most visible parts of the exhibit are the Look Closer screens, which invite attendees to Look Closer at biotechnology: Prominently
Mini-Digest: New transgenic pigs, Wendy’s bird burgers, sodas with gas
The digest was contributed by Ethicurean buddy Barry Foy. Stop busting my chops: Researchers at Texas A&M have introduced a genetically modified hog that has a pair of succulent jowls at each end. Targeted at
Digest – News: So Monsanto, going to take on Wal-Mart? Meanwhile, raw milk’s losing
It ain't over until the biotech giant screams: Wal-Mart says its private-label milk will be produced with no artificial growth hormones, aka Monsanto's rBST drug Posilac. (Globe and Mail) Related: Kroger
Digest – Commentary & Blogs: Organic+GM0s=win-win?; Swim with Jim; PB & Jeffries
COMMENTARY This one's for you, Anastasia: Very interesting argument by Pamela Ronald, UC Davis plant pathology professor (and co-author with her organic-farmer husband of "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food"), that
Digest – Blogs: Obama comes to black farmers’ defense
40 acres and a runaround: Last week, the USDA kicked out government auditors who came to check in on the government's settlement in a discrimination case brought by black farmers. This excellent Daily Yonder
Comments Off • Read more »
Digest – Features: Raw-milk wars, young beekeeper, transgenic pigs
Please, wouldja stop saving us from ourselves?: David Gumpert details the jawdropping harassment tactics that New York and California state officials are using on small raw-milk dairies, including pouring bleach on their products. This despite the fact that a FOIA request from the US Centers for Disease
Comments Off • Read more »
Digest – Blogs: Biotech & veggie protectionism, revenge of spent cows
Magi-non! line: Biotech seed producers are sick of France's pesky anti-GMO firebugs, so they're moving to friendlier climes in the Midwest and Brazil. The only problem with Andrew Leonard's funny headline — "Give us your poor, your tired, your genetic modification experiments" —
