Search Results
Global Leadership Fellows vow to help smallholder farmers
The 2018 Alliance for Science Global Leadership Fellows have promised to bring change to their countries by making sure that science and technology are embraced to increase agricultural productivity and solve the many challenges that farmers face. Speaking during the program’s introductory week at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,…
The GMO debate
The issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as they relate to the food supply is an ongoing, nuanced and highly contentious issue. Individuals from the scientific and medical fields fall on both sides of the argument, some claiming that genetically modified crops are helping to solve issues concerning hunger, environmental…
Africa’s collaborative biotech research bears fruit
Dr. Priver Namanya adjusted her view in the microscope, trying to get a better image of the banana cells. Then a smile lit her face. After spending the day trying to ascertain that she had incorporated a vitamin A gene into the banana cells, she had achieved success. Namanya, a…
Bill Gates: Gene editing can help humanity
Philanthropist Bill Gates today strongly endorsed new gene editing techniques such as CRISPR, saying they could help humanity overcome some of its “biggest and most persistent challenges” in global health and agriculture over the next decade. “Eliminating the most persistent diseases and causes of poverty will require scientific discovery and…
New study challenges beliefs about organic ag
Organic agriculture is not as good for the environment as commonly believed, according to a new scientific study reviewing multiple lines of evidence over more than two decades. The study, conducted by German researchers Eva-Marie Meemken and Matin Qaim from the University of Goettingen and published in the journal…
Anti-GMO activists convene to target Golden Rice
More than two dozen anti-GMO groups are meeting in the Philippines in a last-ditch attempt to stop the deployment of Golden Rice, long proposed as a way to combat potentially life-threatening vitamin A deficiency among young children in developing Asian nations, such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Indonesia. Gathering for…
Rubber plantations are displacing Ghana’s small cocoa farms
Ghana’s cocoa farmers are being thrust into poverty as large commercial rubber plantations expand into major cocoa producing regions. As Ghana’s primary agricultural export commodity and main cash crop, cocoa has been a major contributor to the country’s socioeconomic development for several decades. It employs about 2 million Ghanaians on…