A new study published in The Journal of Nutrition has found that daily consumption of meals with beans conventionally bred to be richer in iron help prevent and reverse iron deficiency in young Rwandan women in just four-and-a-half months. 

Early detection and response to effectively control a disease outbreak is a key component for pandemic preparedness.  To strengthen influenza surveillance capacity of the animal health authorities in Viet Nam, the Department of Animal Health within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (DAH-MARD) and the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) of FAO Viet Nam

Optimization is the mathematical quest for the best way to do something, from finding the shortest distance between two places to figuring out the best way to pack a suitcase. It often involves calculating the highest or lowest value of something. The applications are far-reaching. To Bosch, they also offered a pleasing aesthetic. “I wanted to convince my students that this material I teach is beautiful and incredibly applicable,” says Bosch, who teaches at Oberlin College in Ohio. “My mission was to show them that pretty much any field you could think of has optimization applications.”

This was the mantra of many during this year’s Philippine election season. While it is too early to say that change has indeed come following the recently concluded elections, it cannot be denied that the Filipino people are indeed hungry for it. Is it safe to say, then, that the status quo has become so stagnant that the electorate has opted to catapult a leader who is known to be a political iconoclast?

About 4,000 Vietnamese farmers are expected to be compliant with the global standard for sustainable and more efficient rice cultivation by the end of 2018. This is the goal of an agreement between the Loc Troi Group, the International Finance Corporation, and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) signed on 7 December. "Specializing in contract farming, Loc Troi wants to be among the first companies to produce sustainably certified rice," said Dr. Sarah Beebout, an IRRI scientist involved with the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP).

Scientists at Rothamsted Research and Oxford University have created a synthetic molecule that when applied to crops, increases the size and starch content of wheat grains by up to 20 percent. The study reports the method based on using synthetic ‘precursors' of the sugar trehalose 6-phosphate (T6P). This is a first-of-its-kind strategy that used chemistry to modify how sugars are used by plants.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completed the evaluation of genetically engineered pink flesh pineapple and concluded that it is as safe and nutritious as its conventional pineapple varieties. The pink pineapple was developed by Del Monte Fresh Produce with lower levels of the enzymes that convert pink pigment lycopene to the yellow pigment beta carotene.

Argentina's regulatory agencies have authorized the commercial release of a genetically modified (GM) corn from Syngenta. The release of GM corn event SYN-BTO11-1 x SYN-IR162-4 x MON-89034-3 x MON-00021-9 was announced in the Official Union Gazette through Resolution No. 96, signed by the Secretary of Value Added and New Technologies (Agregado de Valor y Nuevas Tecnologías), Néstor Roulet.

Governments from 167 countries have given unprecedented recognition to the need to protect biodiversity across the agricultural sectors as a key action to achieve sustainable development, including ensuring food security and addressing climate change.

ISAAA releases a new Pocket K on Anti-allergy Biotech Crops, which presents how GM crops tested for allergens and how biotechnology applications are used to remove allergens in food crops. Download a copy for free from the ISAAA website.