Aquaculture: The Good, The Bad and the Restorative
Reading Time: 2 minutesBY DR ANNETTE JAYA RAM, DR ABE WOO SAU PINN, DR AILEEN TAN SHAU-HWAI CENTRE for Marine and Coastal Studies (CEMACS) at Universiti Sains Malaysia is deep in research on cultivating bivalves and seaweeds as natural bio-remediators, to reverse the adverse effects of unchecked aquaculture farming. Penang’s aquaculture sector, though a thriving global export industry […]
Movie review: ‘Food Evolution’
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY KEVIN FOLTA LAST year a Pew Research poll gauged public sentiment toward genetic engineering of food crops (familiarly, ‘GMO’). The results showed that while the public is consumed with fear and suspicion, scientists view the technology as safe and effective. This divide may be due to the deep presence of non-scientific websites, books and […]
How GM crops can help us to feed a fast-growing world
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY STUART THOMPSON The United Nations forecasts global population to rise to more than nine billion people by 2050. Climate change may mean that the crops we depend on now may no longer be suited to the areas where they are currently cultivated and may increasingly be threatened by droughts, floods and the spread of plant […]
Bangladesh agriculture leaders keen to adopt biotech cotton
Reading Time: < 1 minuteBangladesh,the first country to plant biotech eggplant, is ready to adopt biotech cotton. This was expressed by the research and development leaders of the country during the seminar launch of ISAAA’s Global Status of Commercialised Biotech/GM Crops for 2016, held on July 9, at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) in Dhaka. Chief Guest Additional […]
Part of rice we don’t eat may be highly nutritious
Reading Time: 2 minutesRICE BRAN, the outer covering of the rice grain, has high nutritional value and is a rich source of proteins, fats, minerals and micro nutrients such as B vitamins, according to a study published in the open access journal Rice. Researchers at Colorado State University suggest that rice bran, which is removed from whole grain […]
Authorise and support GMOs, science and innovation, says advocacy group
Reading Time: 2 minutesBRUSSELS: It is time for the EU to authorise GMOs as well as support science & innovation, says the Brussels-based advocacy group, Europabio. The group is urging European decision-makers to play by the rules and endorse the evidence. This is in view of the expected vote on March 27, by EU member states on whether […]
Can technology-enabled urban farms be a winner for S’pore?
Reading Time: 4 minutesSINGAPORE needs to deepen its interests in food production, not just consumption, with strategic partners like Australia. One approach to this is redirecting some of its tech, digital strategies and sharing of IP to scaling up smart food zones based on technology-enabled farming (TEF). Agricultural technology – or agtech – has become a billion-dollar industry. […]
Research on jackfruit diseases gets underway
Reading Time: 2 minutesBy Dr Daljit Singh LANCHANG: The problem of browning of jackfruits or rust coloured specs or streaks appearing on the flesh of the fruits has inevitably caused a decline in jackfruit harvest yields in the country. This is because buyers refused to buy diseased fruits, causing the demand for jackfruits to be less favourable. The […]
Genetically engineered crops: Fake news disappointments
Reading Time: 6 minutesFake news plaguing the progress of genetically engineered (GE) crops is nothing new since their first commercial cultivation 21 years ago. One of the most recent examples of fake news reports was churned out by economist, Jomo Kwame Sundaram and his co-author Tan Zhai Gen, http://ipsnews.net/2017/05/genetically-engineered-disappointments. The article lacks all the criteria of a valid, […]
Non-browning apples set to hit the market
Reading Time: 2 minutesOkanagan Specialty Fruits, the company behind the non-browning Arctic Apple sets to commercial launch with US retailers this fall, following the completion of successful market testing. Arctic Golden apples, whose polyphenol oxidase (PPO) genes have been silenced through genetic modification was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) […]