Is Organic Food the Answer?
Category: agricultual policy
As every farmer knows, farming practices span a continuum. Each season, crop and location brings challenges.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 1:30 PM • 36 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Now on ScienceBlogs: Oldest Human-Made Object in Space
On this web log I explore topics related to genetics, food and farming.
Pamela Ronald is Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of
California, Davis, where she studies the role that genes play in a
plant's response to its environment. Her laboratory has genetically
engineered rice for resistance to diseases and flooding,
both of which are serious problems of rice crops in Asia and Africa. Ronald is co-author with her husband, an organic farmer, of "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food".
Ronald interviews, lectures and profiles
Article, The New Organic in The Boston Globe
Article, Making Rice Disease-Resistant in Scientific American
Category: agricultual policy
As every farmer knows, farming practices span a continuum. Each season, crop and location brings challenges.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 1:30 PM • 36 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
This fairly benign statement led to a press release suggesting that I was a stealth agent of the US government (for proof, you need only look at Wikileaks)
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 6:47 PM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
The Dr. Oz show demonstrates yet again that as scientists, we cannot dismiss the general anxiety about genetic engineering, and the distrust of science and scientists in general.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 8:20 PM • 213 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biofortified
On Monday afternoon, yours truly will appear with Dr. Oz, "America's doctor," (the tag bestowed on him by no less than Oprah Winfrey) before a live audience in New York City. Although I have never seen the show, a New...
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 7:12 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agricultual policy
Virtually every food we eat has been genetically altered. Unless you eat wild Alaskan salmon, chanterelles gathered from your local forest, Sierra Nevada yampah and wild blueberries, your diet consists entirely of foods that have been modified by humans and domesticated in artificial, fabulous ecosystems--called farms.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 3:17 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: food
Unfiltered rice wine (makgeolli) is made through the fermentation of a mixture of boiled rice and nuruk with water. Nuruk is a fermentation starter made from grains, Aspergillus, Rhizopus and yeasts. For a great site on the history of fermentation in Asia see the FAO
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 8:50 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agricultual policy
The growing of corn by an African peasant farmer from corn seeds that he has kept from the harvest of the previous year gives him more food security than growing a genetically modified seed, which may give a high yield, but over whose availability he has no control.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 1:50 AM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agricultual policy
Sustainable agriculture demands cutting edge science and agroecological farming practices.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 9:24 AM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Africa
Doing that also requires opponents to realize that by demonizing the technology, they've hindered applications of genetic engineering that could save lives and protect the environment.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 4:34 PM • 38 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: food
First, gather the ingredients from your garden.
Posted by Pamela Ronald at 6:30 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks