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FarmingScience & TechnologySustainability

Remote Control and Peasant Intelligence – On Automating Decisions, Suppressing Knowledges and Transforming Ways of Knowing

FIAN International, Friends of the Earth Europe and Coventry University's Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience,

Publication date: 14/11/2023

Digital technologies are often touted as a silver bullet to respond to the interconnected crises of food, climate and biodiversity. Although they are presented by their promoters in governments and corporations as a necessary tool for innovation and for making food systems more efficient and sustainable, the reality is much more complex.

This report examines the implications of digital technologies taking hold in European agriculture. It focuses particularly on frictions between new digital technologies and peasant autonomy, agroecology and food sovereignty.

Technologies are not mute objects. Their development, distribution and use are inextricably linked to economic and political interests, cultural meanings, different types of knowledge as well as social and ecological relationships. In a context where money, technological know-how and power are highly concentrated in the hands of a few large companies and countries, the digitalization of food and agriculture is set to reinforce inequalities and discrimination.

Resource type: article: Web Page

FarmingScience & Technology

Measuring agroecology: Introducing a methodological framework and a community of practice approach

Nina Isabella Moeller, Matthias Geck, Colin Anderson, Carlos Barahona, Caroline Broudic, Remi Cluset, Gisele Henriques, Fabio Leippert, Dave Mills, Ameen Minhaj, Anja Mueting-van Loon, Stephanie Piers de Raveschoot, Emile Frison

Publication date: 03/11/2023

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. In this article, we report on a process of collaboratively developing a methodological framework, using the High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on World Food Security 13 principles of agroecology as foundation. This framework overcomes some limitations of previous methodologies for evaluating degrees of agroecological integration (including those using Gliessman’s 5 levels of food system change) and facilitates a robust qualitative assessment of projects, programs, and project portfolios with respect to their “agroecologicalness.” The framework conceives of agroecology as paradigm-shifting rather than as incremental improvements to existing food systems. It enables global comparability as well as local contextualization of each principle. While the need for this framework arose from the desire to monitor—and increase—financial support for an urgently needed transformation toward agroecology, the framework can equally contribute to the design of projects and programs, which aim to radically transform food and farming systems. It also has value as an educational tool, in specifying through statements of value and concrete examples, what agroecological work aims at.

Resource type: article: Web Page

FarmingScience & TechnologySustainability

Genetic modification can improve crop yields — but stop overselling it

Merritt Khaipho-Burch, et al.

Publication date: 20/09/2023

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With a changing climate and a growing population, the world increasingly needs more-productive and resilient crops. But improving them requires a knowledge of what actually works in the field.

Resource type: article: Web Page

FarmingPlant & Animal BreedingScience & TechnologySustainability

Genetic modification can improve crop yields — but stop overselling it

Merritt Khaipho-Burch, Mark Cooper, Jose Crossa, Natalia de Leon, James Holland, Ramsey Lewis, Susan McCouch, Seth C. Murray, Ismail Rabbi, Pamela Ronald, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, Detlef Weigel & Edward S. Buckler

Publication date: 20/09/2023

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Over the past two decades, many journals have published papers describing how modifying one or a few genes can result in substantial increases in crop yields. The reported increases range from 10% to 68%, and the crops analysed include rice, maize (corn), tobacco and soya bean.

These studies have contributed important insights in molecular biology and gene discovery. But many are the results of tests conducted in greenhouses or in small-scale field trials — the latter typically involving plants grown in small plots. Few, if any, have used the experimental designs needed to evaluate crop performance in real-world environments. And hardly any findings have translated into yield increases on actual farms.

Especially in the context of climate change and a growing human population, the growth of misleading claims around yields has become a cause of concern to us.

Resource type: article: Web Page

Food systemsScience & TechnologySustainability

‘Feeding the world, byte by byte’: emergent imaginaries of data productivism

Maywa Montenegro de Wit, Matthew Canfield

Publication date: 13/08/2023

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Recent scholarship has shed light on how data-driven food systems may entrench productivist and neo-productivist visions of ‘feeding the world.’ In this paper, we examine the narratives and institution-building practices of global development actors, asking: What stories do they tell about how data will transform food systems? Whose ‘data’ are legitimized and whose are overlooked? Our findings point to an emerging imaginary of data productivism—which constructs the making and accumulation of data as a socially intrinsic good. We examine the implications of data productivism for reconfiguring global capitalism, reproducing the modern-colonial order, and inciting social movements to anticipate its hold.

Resource type: article: Web Page

Plant & Animal BreedingScience & TechnologySustainability

Gene Editing: the Ethical Questions

Ralph Early (Food Ethics Council)

Publication date: 28/07/2023

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This blog employs a food ethics lens to delve into some of the ethical issues surrounding gene-editing, assessing intended and unintended consequences. Issues discussed include patents, herbicide-tolerant traits, gene drives and food safety.

Resource type: article: Web Page

Legislation & RegulationScience & Technology

The need for assessment of risks arising from interactions between NGT organisms from an EU perspective

Franziska Koller, Meike Schulz, Matthias Juhas, Andreas Bauer-Panskus, Christoph Then

Publication date: 20/04/2023

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This review discusses the potential environmental and health risks associated with new genomic techniques (NGTs), which create novel genotypes and traits beyond those produced by conventional breeding or earlier genetic engineering methods. It highlights that large-scale releases of multiple NGT organisms—across species and traits—could lead to interactions and cumulative effects that exceed the risks of individual modifications. The authors argue that risk assessments must account for these combined and indirect effects, not just single events, and recommend a precautionary, prospective technology assessment to guide regulators in limiting release scales and minimizing unintended interactions in the environment.

Resource type: article: Web Page

FarmingLegislation & RegulationScience & Technology

Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing

Joeva Sean Rock, Matthew A. Schnurr, Ann Kingiri, Dominic Glover, Glenn Davis Stone, Adrian Ely, Klara Fischer

Publication date: 01/01/2023

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This article makes two interventions. First, it identifies the discursive continuity linking genome editing and the earlier technology of genetic modification. Second, it offers a suite of recommendations regarding how lessons learned from GM crops might be integrated into future breeding programmes focused on genome editing. Ultimately, the authors argue that donors, policymakers and scientists should move beyond the genome towards systems-level thinking by prioritizing the co-development of technologies with farmers; using plant material that is unencumbered by intellectual property restrictions and therefore accessible to resource-poor farmers; and acknowledging that seeds are components of complex and dynamic agroecological production systems. If these lessons are not heeded, genome-editing projects are in danger of repeating mistakes of the past

Resource type: article: Web Page

Plant & Animal BreedingScience & Technology

Unintended Genomic Outcomes in Current and Next Generation GM Techniques: A Systematic Review

Philomena Chu, Sarah Zanon Agapito-Tenfen

Publication date: 07/11/2022

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Here, we systematically review the scientific literature for studies that have investigated unintended genomic alterations in plants modified by the following GM techniques: Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated gene transfer, biolistic bombardment, and CRISPR-Cas9 delivered via Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer (DNA-based), biolistic bombardment (DNA-based) and as ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs). The results of our literature review show that the impact of such techniques in host genomes varies from small nucleotide polymorphisms to large genomic variation, such as segmental duplication, chromosome truncation, trisomy, chromothripsis, breakage fusion bridge, including large rearrangements of DNA vector-backbone sequences. We have also reviewed the type of analytical method applied to investigate the genomic alterations and found that only five articles used whole genome sequencing in their analysis methods. In addition, larger structural variations detected in some studies would not be possible without long-read sequencing strategies, which shows a potential underestimation of such effects in the literature. As new technologies are constantly evolving, a more thorough examination of prospective analytical methods should be conducted in the future.

Resource type: article: Web Page

Legislation & RegulationPlant & Animal BreedingScience & Technology

Unintended Genomic Outcomes in Current and Next Generation GM Techniques: A Systematic Review

Philomena Chu, Sarah Zanon Agapito-Tenfen

Publication date: 07/11/2022

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This review examines studies on unintended genetic alterations caused by traditional and modern genetic modification techniques, including Agrobacterium-mediated transfer, biolistic bombardment, and CRISPR-Cas9 (delivered by various methods). Findings show that these techniques can produce a wide range of unintended genomic changes—from small mutations to major structural variations like chromosome truncations and large DNA rearrangements. Only a few studies used whole-genome or long-read sequencing, suggesting many such effects may be underestimated. The authors emphasize the need for improved analytical methods to better detect and assess these unintended modifications, helping regulators evaluate the safety of genetically modified and gene-edited organisms.

Resource type: article: Web Page