John Innes Centre (JIC) researchers discovered how rice plants have evolved custom-built defense solutions against different variants of the rice blast pathogen. The results of the study are published in Nature Plants.

An international team of experts from Denmark, Italy, France, and Japan identified a new receptor involved in symbiosis between legumes and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. The results are published in eLife journal. To start symbiosis, the legumes use certain receptor proteins that can recognize the Nod factor proteins produced by bacteria which are crucial in establishing the host-nonhost link between legumes and rhizobia.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has announced that the Philippine Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Plant Industry (DA-BPI) has given the approval for the conduct of public consultations on the proposed field trials for GR2E Golden Rice. The public consultation process is a key component of biosafety regulatory approval under the Joint Department Circular No. 1 series of 2016.

The American Soybean Association (ASA) has filed their comments with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) regarding its proposed rule to implement the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS). The letter accompanying their comments state "As farmers, we understand and support the consumer's desire to know what is in their food.

Experts say that if mankind embraces biotechnology, hunger would be conquered as the productivity of GM crops is estimated to be 7-20% higher than traditional crops, and 33% higher than organic crops. This was emphasized by Obike Ukoh, a Nigerian journalist, in his article in The Tide.

India is the world’s second-largest producer and biggest exporter (more than a fourth of the world’s exports) of rice, yet, paradoxically, its people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. To solve real-world problems such as these, we need to build a bridge between social science and agricultural research to form a better understanding—and find more accurate solutions—using interdisciplinary analyses of problems.

A new gene editing technique has the potential to confer broad-spectrum disease resistance to specific staple crops without affecting other physical traits, according to a scientist from Texas A&M AgriLife Research. Dr. Junqi Song, a plant pathologist in AgriLife together with his team of researchers, explores how a "knock-in" gene editing approach might achieve better disease resistance in many crop plants.

Auxin is a key plant hormone controlling a number of processes ranging from shaping the embryo in the seed to branching of the growing plant. It is previously believed that the main signaling mechanism of auxin operated in the cell nucleus and acted only by regulating gene transcription. Now, scientists led by Jiří Friml at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) showed that another mechanism exists which enables rapid adaption of root growth direction.

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) launched the annual report on the Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2017 (ISAAA Brief 53) through a media conference held on June 26, 2018 at Acacia Hotel, Manila, Philippines. The report is the 22^nd of the ISAAA series of global status reports documenting the latest information on the adoption and benefits of biotech crops.

Salmon or trout from the wild have pink or red flesh because of their diet, which includes crustaceans or insects. However, fish raised in ponds or sea pens often have pale pink flesh due to the feeds that they take in. Thus, fish farmers add dyes derived from petroleum to the fish feed to improve the fish flesh coloration.