Farmed Fish Production Overtakes Beef
The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming—also called aquaculture—reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons. […]
How do you feed 9 billion people?
An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population – projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century – in the face of climate change. In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change, members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system […]
It’s Not Just Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Wheat: You May Already Be Eating Rogue GE Crops
Can humans control and contain genetically engineered crops? The answer appears to be no. Of the four major crops grown in the U.S., genetically engineered (GE) seeds are available for three: corn, soybeans and alfalfa. But a farmer growing the fourth major crop, wheat, could not (legally) plant GE seeds even if he wanted to. […]
How a new class of pesticides transformed the agrochemical landscape for bees
Even as Europe enacts a 2-year precautionary ban on neonicotinoid pesticide use on crops attractive to bees, the pesticide makers are crying foul—claiming that there is insufficient evidence for such supposedly drastic measures. With each new study, however, such claims are being increasingly tested. Whether it’s evidence that exposure to seed insecticide dust leads directly to bee […]