In a study that aims to increase soybean plants' nitrogen-fixing ability, and thus reduce the need for chemical fertilizers, a research team from the University of South Dakota has discovered that the gene SUR2 plays a key role in the production of auxin, a hormone that affects nodule development in soybean plants.

Researchers from Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) and the Shanghai Normal University report a new draft genome of spinach (Spinacia oleracea). The researchers have sequenced the transcriptomes (all the RNA) of 120 cultivated and wild spinach plants, which allowed them to identify which genetic changes have occurred due to domestication.

The Director for Crop Resources in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries (MAAIF), Mr. Okasaai Opolot, has appealed to journalists in Uganda to increase their efforts in informing the public about the products of modern biotechnology.

FAO 24 May 2017, Juba, South Sudan - All parties to the conflict in South Sudan must cease violence and work together to ensure that food and other lifesaving support can reach people to end famine and severe hunger, the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said yesterday.

Attention turns to implementation at first Meeting of Parties on Port State Measures Agreement. FAO 29 May 2017, Oslo - The first Meeting of the Parties to FAO's bold new international treaty aimed at cracking down on illicit fishing opened today in Oslo, as delegates began hammering out ways to make the agreement a success.

Informal cross-border trading, in which transactions are not compliant with local tax and other rules,  accounts for a large share - between 20 and a hefty 70 percent - of employment in sub-Saharan Africa, and putting it on a regular footing can lift sustainable prosperity and markedly improve prospects for women, says FAO's new publication, "Formalization of informal trade in Africa".

Pakistan's Punjab government developed a strategy to introduce modern techniques in the agriculture sector to make it profitable. Under the directive of the Punjab Chief Minister, the Agriculture Department has formulated a three-year plan costing Rs 4.76 billion to introduce new techniques in agriculture to enhance yield and improve the economic conditions of farmers in Punjab.

A petition calling on the Indian government to approve the commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) mustard has been created. The South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC) in New Delhi, India started the petition that calls for the Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MOEF&CC), Dr. Harsh Vardhan, to approve GM mustard and allow Indian farmers to plant it.

Members of the Canadian Parliament have voted against the mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods in its second reading at the House of Commons on May 17, 2017. The C-291 bill, an Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (genetically modified food), sponsored by Mr. Pierre-Luc Dusseault, the NDP (New Democractic Party) MP for Sherbrooke, Québec, was defeated by a significant margin, with 67 yeas, and 216 nays.