Law professors from the University of the Philippines Law Center-Institute of International Legal Studies (IILS) shared their assessment on Bt talong and GMOs in the Philippines during their special Agriculture and Development Seminar Series (ADSS) seminars for the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) on July 20, 2016, at SEARCA, College, Laguna.

Stephen Campbell, research specialist and Professor David Stern of the Boyce Thompson Institute report the discovery of a repair system in the algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which uses chloroplast extracts and light to release an interrupting sequence from a protein. The discovery has implication in agriculture and biotechnology because it could potentially be harnessed to enable proteins to become active only in the light.

The international prices for major food commodities saw a modest decline in July, following five consecutive months of increases. The FAO Food Price Index (FPI) averaged 161.9 points in July 2016, slipping 0.8 percent (1.3 points) below its level in June and 1.4 percent below its level of July 2015. The overall decline of the Index was largely caused by drops in international quotations of grains and vegetable oils, more than offsetting firmer dairy, meat and sugar prices.

Scientists under the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project drawn from Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), African Agricultural Technology Foundation and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center have for the first time established a confined field trial for genetically modified maize resistant to African maize stem borer (Busseola fusca). The pest, which is endemic to African uplands 500m above sea level causes 13 percent loss of all harvested maize grain in Kenya.

In PNAS, we (1) highlight changes in the balance of oxidized and reduced nitrogen contributions to United States reactive nitrogen deposition, pointing out that decreases in nitrogen oxides (NO_x) emissions, combined with modest growth in ammonia emissions, have altered the inorganic nitrogen deposition budget from majority deposition by oxidized species (nitric acid and nitrate) in the early 1990s to majority deposition by reduced species (ammonia and ammonium) today

It is well recognized that the NO_X (NO + NO₂) emission has been reduced steadily in the United States, but NH₃ emission is increasing strongly without regulation. Li et al. (2016) estimate the NH₃ dry deposition by using the multilayer model (MLM) and bidirectional approaches, and conclude that the control policy for NO_X emission has now shifted the total (wet + dry) nitrogen deposition in the United States from the oxidized nitrogen-dominated to the reduced nitrogen-dominated pattern.

The Royal Government of Bhutan and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) recently agreed to revive and strengthen their partnership in rice research and development. Both parties reinforced the partnership as Bhutan’s rice industry faces mounting challenges and emerging needs. This was the focus of the discussion between IRRI and Bhutan in a meeting on 11 July. The IRRI delegation was led by Jacqueline Hughes, deputy director general for research (at right in photo), and Uma Shankar Singh, IRRI representative for India and Nepal. Nim Dorji, director general of the Department of Agriculture (at left in photo), and his senior staff represented Bhutan.

An international team of researchers from Germany, Israel, UK, and the US has successfully sequenced the genome of Chalcolithic barley grains for the first time. The 6,000-year-old seeds were the oldest plant genome to be reconstructed to date, retrieved from Yoram Cave in the southern cliff of Masada fortress in the Judean Desert, close to the Dead Sea. This prehistoric barley is very similar to present-day barley.

Sense about Science EU was launched during the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) conference in Manchester on July 26, 2016. Sense about Science is a London-based group that seeks to increase public understanding of science and promote evidence-based policy. The group has been active in implementing campaigns that call for open discussion about evidence, free from intimidation, hysteria, and political pressure.

Leaders of two United Nations agencies fighting hunger worldwide have applauded new legislation in the United States aimed at strengthening global food assistance programs in the years ahead. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) praised U.S. President Barack Obama for his 20 July signing of the Global Food Security Act (GFSA), after the bill was passed by the U.S. Congress on 6 July with remarkably broad support.