Abstracts, Papers &

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Sustainability

We’ve scanned the web to bring together a library of interesting, thought-provoking articles, blogs, reports and academic papers that explore the issue of genetic engineering in food and farming from broader and deeper perspectives. Browse for inspiration or search by theme.

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FarmingFood systemsSustainability

Pesticide-free agriculture: Is a third way possible besides organic and conventional agriculture?

Diana Carolina Ortiz-Vallejo et al
Publication date: 18/02/2026
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Rés0Pest implemented cropping systems that excluded all pesticide use, including seed treatments, while maintaining synthetic fertilizer inputs. The systems were co-designed through participatory methods, following a system experiment approach that evaluates the effects of a combination of cropping practices and their interactions on cropping system performance over the long term. Results showed that in pesticide-free systems, it is possible to achieve yields comparable to conventional and higher than organic systems and, in some cases, generate higher net farm income. Pest and pathogen crop damage did not significantly increase over time, although weed management remained a key challenge. These findings suggest that technically and economically viable pesticide-free arable systems are possible under certain conditions, and that new solutions are needed to support their adoption across a wider range of contexts.

Resource type: article: Web Page
ConservationLegislation & RegulationSustainability

Chimera: The Genetic Modification of Nature

GeneWatch
Publication date: 01/09/2025
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This briefing summarises concerns about the genetic modification of nature, which involves the use of genetic engineering (including gene editing) to create genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for release into the wild. It is written to draw the attention of members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to serious problems associated with plans to develop the use of so-called synthetic biology in nature conservation.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingFood systemsSustainability

The Enduring Fantasy of “Feeding the World”

Adam Calo, Maywa Montenegro, Alastair Iles, and Ben Iuliano
Publication date: 15/07/2025
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This article challenges the dominant idea that global hunger can be solved simply by producing more food. The authors argue that this “feed-the-world” narrative—rooted in colonial and capitalist logics—frames hunger as a problem of insufficient supply rather than inequality and access, while legitimising industrial agriculture and corporate control over land and resources. Despite decades of yield increases, food insecurity and ecological harm persist, revealing the limits of productivist solutions. Instead, the article calls for a shift toward agroecology, food sovereignty, and justice-centred approaches that prioritise local autonomy, ecological health, and the right of all communities to define their own food systems.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingScience & TechnologySustainability

Agroecology and Digitalisation: Traps and Opportunities to Transform the Food System

Francesco Ajena, Nicola Bossard, Chantal Clément, Angelika Hilbeck, Bernadette Oehen, Jim Thomas, Eugenio Tissell
Publication date: 01/06/2025
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This IFOAM report explains why digitalization should not be conceived only as a technological fix to the current input-intensive agriculture model, aimed at alleviating marginally some of its destructive impacts while increasing corporate control and further disempowering farmers. Issues of control and ownership of data are by now well-identified in the public discussion, and digitalization and agroecology sometimes appear in the debate as two dominating and conflicting narratives on what the future of agriculture should be.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingScience & TechnologySustainability

Robots in agriculture – A case-based discussion of ethical concerns on job loss, responsibility, and data control

Sune Holm, Søren Marcus Pedersen, Tseganesh Wubale Tamirat
Publication date: 01/12/2024
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There is a growing interest in using robots in agriculture due to increasing challenges of labour scarcity and cost. Field robots are expected to help overcome these challenges and to contribute to financial, environmental and social sustainability. However, socially responsible introduction of field crop robots will require awareness and consideration of ethical trade-offs by stakeholders including farmers, regulators, and manufacturers. In this article we discuss the ethical themes of job loss, moral responsibility, and data control in light of the results of sixteen interviews with key stakeholders conducted in 2022 under a European research project named Robs4crops.
Resource type: article: Web Page
Legislation & RegulationScience & TechnologySustainability

Socio-economic assessment and genetically engineered crops in Africa: Building knowledge for development?

Brian Dowd-Uribe, Genowefa Blundo-Canto, Dominic Glover, Sélim Louafi, Helena Shilomboleni, Joeva Sean Rock, Enoch M. Kikulwe, Klara Fischer, Pierre-Benoît Joly
Publication date: 01/09/2024
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How could we know if agricultural development interventions make contributions to sustainable development goals (SDGs)? Genetically engineered (GE) crops are celebrated as a class of technological interventions that can realize multiple SDGs. But recent studies have revealed the gap between GE crop program goals and the approaches used to assess their impacts. Using four comprehensive reviews of GE crop socio-economic impacts, we identify common shortcomings across three themes: (a) scope, (b) approaches and (c) heterogeneity. We find that the evaluation sciences literature offers alternative assessment approaches that can enable evaluators to better assess impacts, and inform learning and decision-making. We recommend the use of methods that enable evaluations to look beyond the agronomic and productive effects of individual traits to understand wider socio-economic effects.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingScience & TechnologySustainability

Responsible development of digital livestock technologies for agricultural challenges

Hugh Williamson PhD, Sarah Hartley PhD
Publication date: 28/08/2024
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Digital livestock technologies (DLTs) are presented as solutions to grand challenges in post-Brexit British agricultural policy, such as climate change and food security. Evidence suggests technological solutions to agricultural challenges will be more effective with stakeholder and public engagement, yet there is little known about stakeholder views on these emerging technologies. We drew on responsible research and innovation, to analyse stakeholder perspectives on three case studies of DLT development through anticipatory focus groups with expert stakeholders in British animal agriculture. We found that stakeholders from broadly agroecological approaches to farming are at risk of exclusion from DLT development and policy, with negative implications for the ability of DLTs to resolve grand challenges in animal agriculture.

Resource type: article: Web Page
FarmingSustainability

Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture

Laura Vang Rasmussen, et al.
Publication date: 04/04/2024
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Agricultural simplification continues to expand at the expense of more diverse forms of agriculture. This simplification, for example, in the form of intensively managed monocultures, poses a risk to keeping the world within safe and just Earth system boundaries. Here, we estimated how agricultural diversification simultaneously affects social and environmental outcomes. Drawing from 24 studies in 11 countries across 2655 farms, we show how five diversification strategies focusing on livestock, crops, soils, noncrop plantings, and water conservation benefit social (e.g., human well-being, yields, and food security) and environmental (e.g., biodiversity, ecosystem services, and reduced environmental externalities) outcomes. We found that applying multiple diversification strategies creates more positive outcomes than individual management strategies alone. To realize these benefits, well-designed policies are needed to incentivize the adoption of multiple diversification strategies in unison.
Resource type: article: Web Page
Science & TechnologySustainability

Democratization through precision technologies? Unveiling power, participation, and property rights in the agricultural bioeconomy

Dr Sarah Hackfort
Publication date: 08/03/2024
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This piece addresses the political dimension of sustainability in the agricultural bioeconomy by focusing on power, participation, and property rights around key technologies. Bioeconomy policies aim to establish economic systems based on renewable resources such as plants and microorganisms to reduce dependence on fossil resources. To achieve this, they rely on economic growth and increased biomass production through high-tech innovations. This direction has sparked important critique of the environmental and social sustainability of such projects. However, little attention has been paid in the bioeconomy literature to the political dimension surrounding key precision technologies such as data-driven precision agriculture (PA) or precision breeding technologies using new genomic techniques (NGT). The political dimension includes questions of power, participation, and property rights regarding these technologies and the distribution of the benefits and burdens they generate. This lack of attention is particularly pertinent given the recurring and promising claims that precision technologies not only enhance environmental sustainability, but also contribute to the democratization of food and biomass production. This contribution addresses this claim in asking whether we can really speak of a democratization of the agricultural bioeconomy through these precision technologies. Drawing on (own) empirical research and historical evidence, it concludes that current patterns are neither driving nor indicative of a democratization. On the contrary, corporate control, unequal access, distribution, and property rights over data and patents point to few gains for small firms and breeders, but to a reproduction of farmers’ dependencies, and less transparency for consumers.

Resource type: article: Web Page