Improving wheat is a major challenge for agricultural scientists. The world’s population continues to grow – and so does its appetite. Sanjaya Rajaram, winner of the 2014 World Food Prize, used an innovative…
Canola fields: one of the battlegrounds of the debate over genetic modification.
Michael Jones/supplied
In a landmark West Australian Supreme Court decision, a farmer growing a genetically modified canola crop has been spared the blame after his neighbour accused him of contaminating his organic farm next…
GM crops are grown without fuss around the world, just not the UK and Europe.
EPA/Shepherd Zhou
Many people, including me, are pretty fed up with the continuing fuss about GM food and crops. Are they too dangerous to eat? Are they a hazard to the environment? Despite a “debate” stretching back to…
If you believe this article from Collective Evolution, a site that claims to be “one of the worlds most popular alternative media company”, there is currently DNA from genetically modified plants floating…
If we are going to reduce hunger in the world’s smallholder agricultural communities we need to look past genetically-engineered crops.
Flickr/davidsilver
The biotech industry has long sought legitimacy by claiming that its genetically modified crop technologies are “feeding the world”. However this relentless focus on increasing food production ignores…
Leading biologists argue the world must embrace GM plants.
Will de Freitas
Today’s wars are not about food, but not too far in the future they could be. The number of people dying of starvation has been falling for decades, but the decline in the numbers of hungry people is slowing…
The Slow Food movement has arisen to counteract fast food and fast life.
French Tart
There’s an old saying, you are what you eat. If you look at the average Australian diet, we’re in trouble. The rise of the 24/7 society, unsocial work hours and an accelerating pace of life have led the…
The French paper linking GM corn and cancer in rats should have been rejected on a number of grounds.
Vermario
Ashley Ng, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini caused quite a stir last week when he claimed he’d shown cancer in rats increased when they were fed genetically modified corn and/or water spiked with the herbicide…
Many people continue to worry about unexpected changes to food when it is genetically engineered.
asian farmer/Flickr
Humans have always faced tricky safety problems with food because we eat plants, which are the most ingenious pesticide chemists on the planet. Plants produce an amazing panoply of chemicals to deter animals…
Pester power … experts say junk food ads on children’s TV undermine good parental influence.
EPA/Sam Stephenson
More than 75% of Australians support a ban on junk food advertising in children’s television, and almost 20% support a total ban, according to a poll by the Australian National University on attitudes…
The agricultural use of genetically modified (GM) plants has been a subject of disagreement, debate and bitter conflict around the globe. Sectors of Australian science experienced this recently when field…
Canola is one of two GM crops approved in Australia.
Ngarkat
The Conversation recently published an article looking at the myths about genetic modification. This article is a rejoinder to that piece, and a contribution to the ongoing debate about whether there is…
Feeding the world’s poor may not really be the main concern of companies that take out gene patents on crops.
AAP
Michael Gilbert’s article starts with a title that poses a question - Will patenting crops help feed the hungry? Fair enough, except he then proceeds to provide an answer, which as the posted comments…
A recent report in the Wall Street Journal spoke of rootworms in the US state of Iowa that had evolved resistance to a strain of genetically modified (GM) corn developed especially to thwart those rootworms…
GM is not being used to make fishbread Frankenfoods.
Dave Lifson/Flickr
The Conversation asked CSIRO scientist, Richard Richards, to look at the top five myths about genetic modification (GM), and correct the public record. Myth one: GM is just haphazard, imprecise cross-breeding…
Despite attacks, CSIRO isn’t giving up on genetic research.
AAP
Just as medical researchers work to unlock the role our human genes play in disease, CSIRO investigates how plant genes can be used to boost the health benefits of food, increase crop yields and prevent…
Greenpeace’s wanton destruction of scientific research is a threat to farmers.
AFP PHOTO/HO/GREENPEACE
Early yesterday morning Greenpeace Activists broke into a CSIRO research farm and destroyed a field trial of genetically-modified wheat. I was appalled. “But it was only a field trial,” I can hear some…
Is our appetite or distaste for GM food palatable?
iklash
The debate between proponents of the use of genetically modified crops and opponents is not about the choice of the best available technologies to ensure food sufficiency in the developing world: it’s…