Much has been said and written of late about the linkages between conflict and hunger. There is good reason for this: 65% of the world’s acutely food-insecure people live in conflict-affected countries. Typically, two claims are made about the conflict-hunger linkage. First, that conflict breeds hunger. This claim is supported by so much evidence that in 2018 the United Nations adopted Resolution 2417 recognizing the direct impacts of armed conflict on food insecurity and strongly condemning the use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of warfare in conflict situations.

National surveys on genetic modification conducted in China showed that scientists are more sensitive to risk-related social norms, while the lay public is more concerned with norms linked to benefits. The results are published in Risk Analysis. Communication research about scientific topics was mostly focused on the deficit model, wherein it is believed that more scientific understanding leads to public acceptance. However, many questions about this model have been raised because of the inconclusive influence of knowledge on acceptance.

Japan requires confined field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops for environmental risk assessment. By comparing the GM crop with its non-GM counterpart in the trials, differences in growth in the local environmental settings will be considered. However, some events of GM maize and GM cotton have been exempted from such requirement and data from the trials conducted in other countries were considered.

A research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) will be developing a tasty, nutritious, and sustainable plant-based alternative to animal meat. This product may help offset the health risks of the Western diet, such as obesity, fatty liver, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. The new plant-based protein food uses tempeh, a fermented fungal food, that will transform the nutrients of chickpeas into a different compound.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) has released an update on the recent trends in genetically engineered (GE) crops in the United States. The data is based on the 2002 ERS report, Adoption of Bioengineered Crops (AER-810) for 1996-99 and National Agricultural Statistics Service, (annual) June Agricultural Survey for 2000-24. The adoption of GE seeds in the United States has grown significantly since its introduction in 1996. In 2024, over 90% of U.S. corn, upland cotton, and soybean crops were cultivated using GE varieties.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and smart agriculture technology leader XAG are set to accelerate agricultural automation and innovation in the Philippines through digital agriculture and precision farming using drone technology. Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), IRRI and XAG will collaborate to validate the application of smart agriculture technologies in rice-based cropping systems through experimentation and research.

Researchers at Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities in China reported that OsNCED5 confers cold stress tolerance by regulating reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis in rice. Their findings are published in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. Cold stress is a serious problem that impacts the growth and yield of rice. The molecular mechanism behind the role of plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) in managing cold stress remains undefined.

A study published in Molecular Breeding shows that MaGA20ox2f regulates flowering time and fruit yield in bananas. MaGA20ox2f is the closest homolog to the SD1, a gene that is known to increase yield in rice, in the banana genome. Previous studies found that two banana GA20 oxidase2 (MaGA20ox2) genes, Ma04g15900 and Ma08g32850, have vital roles in controlling the growth and development of bananas.

The genomes of two new Alopecurus grasses, blackgrass and orange/shortawn foxtail, have been sequenced by researchers from the Rothamsted Research, Earlham Institute, and the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) initiative, revealing how similar weeds can dominate wheat fields that are geographically separated by over 5,000 miles.

Researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and James Hutton Institute have investigated how spray-induced gene silencing affects other microorganisms for the first time. This method is a step forward for a more sustainable farming system through an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical fungicides.