Biofuels produced from a gene-edited cover crop, pennycress, are now approved for the federal Renewable Fuel Standard. This should help cut emissions and improve soil health.

EPA approves RFS fuel pathway for CoverCress filed by REG | Biomass Magazine

The U.S. EPA on July 14 approved a RFS fuel pathway petition filed by Chevron Renewable Energy Group Inc. that will allow the company’s Geismar, Louisiana,

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Californians pay an extra $300-500 a year for utilities' wildfire mitigation & insurance. Ultimately, utilities spend about 10x more on wildfire mitigation than the state government does. This new report digs into how to fix that problem. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/rewiring-r...

Rewiring Risk

A Podcast With Lauren Teixeira and Eric Biber

breakthroughjournal.org

Plant breeders are developing pitless cherries, reduced-allergen peanuts, and other innovative crops. But outdated biotechnology regulations have prevented many from ever getting to market. Fortunately that's starting to change with big shifts underway in the US and even the EU. buff.ly/9k6xZ5G

Global Shifts in Plant Biotech Regulation

How the US and EU Are Rewriting the Rules of Agricultural Innovation

breakthroughjournal.org

California’s gas tax goes up on July 1 to 63 ¢/gallon, the highest in the country. But it’s not the only cost that's rising: the state’s program to decarbonize fuels is now adding nearly 20 ¢/gallon with more increases on the way. buff.ly/FSGKsBd

California's Hidden Gas Tax Is Due for Reform

With the gradual re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, gas prices have finally started falling.

breakthroughjournal.org

Meat is the largest share of people's grocery budget and central to their diets. Yet MAHA and the foodie left share a major blind spot: neither has a practical plan to make meat cheaper while reducing its environmental and animal welfare costs. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/you-cant-d...

You Can’t Defend Industrial Food Without Defending Industrial Meat

A Review of Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel Rosenberg’s Feed the People

breakthroughjournal.org

Here's a new study of organic & conventional farming. The 2 big findings: - Organic farms didn't store more carbon; organic matter was the same in both systems - Organic yields were 31% lower (primarily N availability) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thank your farmer AND your agricultural scientist Each new screwworm case reminds me how USDA researchers developed the sterile insect technique that once eradicated the pest. Now they’ve developing genetically engineered male-only flies to improve upon the approach. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/s...

MAHA’s call to eat more meat and “better” meat doesn't add up: more meat means more feedlots. The math does not work any other way. Existing US pastureland could support no more than 45% of current beef production.

MAHA’s CAFO conundrum

In its push for more meat eating, MAHA faces a challenging truth: current and future meat demand depends almost entirely on massive, concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs.

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Climatemaxxing livestock can worsen animal welfare. And yet many efforts to make livestock healthier are actually win-win-wins, raising productivity, improving animal welfare, and reducing environmental impacts, as I note in this @epayne.bsky.social article.

Breeding Climate-Friendly Livestock May Come at the Expense of Farm Animal Welfare

A new report argues that focusing solely on climate emissions can result in breeding programs that increase animal suffering.

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The problem with GMOs is not that there are too many, but that there are too few. Over 40 years after the first genetically modified plant, its nearly impossible to find any GMO fruits or vegetables. Federal regulations are a big reason why, I explain in @houstonchronicle.com buff.ly/YO3LhET

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houstonchronicle.com

Right now, if farmers lost access to glyphosate, many would till the soil more and spray worse herbicides. If we ever want to move beyond glyphosate, we need policy & an EPA that better supports innovation in weed management. agfundernews.com/guest-articl...

Guest article: The future of glyphosate may rest with innovators, not lawyers

"The way beyond glyphosate is not to wish it away. It is to outperform it," says Dan Blaustein-Rejto at the Breakthrough Institute.

agfundernews.com

Great to hear that Trump dropped Casey Means for surgeon general. Her misinformation about food safety and the risks of modern farming would have sowed unnecessary fear & distrust in science. Can't say I know much about the newly nominated Saphier though.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 3mo ago

Breaking news: President Trump announced a new pick for surgeon general, Nicole Saphier, putting an end to Casey Means’s stalled nomination process. Trump praised Saphier, who made false claims about CDC vaccine mandates, as an effective communicator.

No pesticide company should get a free pass. But glyphosate isn’t the problem most people think it is. After decades of study, regulators around the world (as recently as the EU 3 years ago) keep coming to the same conclusion: it’s one of the safest options.

Tamar Haspel@tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Glyphosate's combination of safety and efficacy makes it the best broad-spectrum herbicide we have. Of course it can cause harm! It's designed to kill things. But it is safer than anything that farmers would choose to replace it. @danbr.bsky.social is right. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Today the Supreme Court heard the Monsanto case about Roundup & cancer. MAHA supporters rallied outside, calling to ban the herbicide. Whatever you think about the court case, restricting the herbicide — one of the least harmful options farmers have — will make people & wildlife worse off.

Washington Post Opinions@postopinions.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Driving less harmful farming inputs off the market won’t make people safer or food healthier. Improving these tools will," writes Dan Blaustein-Rejto of the Breakthrough Institute.

MAHA’s efforts to restrict glyphosate (aka Roundup) would leave not just farmers but also the environment worse off. It‘s lower-impact than most alternatives farmers would use instead, as my op-ed today in the @washingtonpost.com explains. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Opinion | Driving this herbicide off the market won’t make people safer

Activists want to move beyond glyphosate. But the standard should be improvement, not purity.

washingtonpost.com

More bad news on gas prices: California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard is adding about 20¢/gallon, new data shows, its highest impact yet. The program pushes refiners toward more biofuels, but at a growing cost to drivers and w/ limited environmental benefit. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/paying-ext...

Really sophisticated discourse on cultivated meat going on right now.

The US has neglected agricultural R&D for decades. Government funding is down about 1/3 from its early-2000s peak and only half goes toward making farms more productive, finds this new report. That means less innovation to keep food affordable and farmers resilient. www.aei.org/research-pro...

Just one more way biofuels hit your wallet. After a record-high increase in the federal biofuel mandate, the price of chicken fat (one of my cat's favorites) has shot up. It's more than 40% higher now than in January. www.agri-pulse.com/articles/245...

Pet food makers sound price alarm over biofuel boost

A record-high U.S. mandate for biofuels is putting a new twist on an old debate: pet food versus fuel. Fuel producers have a financial incentive to make their products from animal fats, such as tallow...

agri-pulse.com

Brazil just approved growing a gene-edited banana that browns less when sliced. That brings it one step closer to grocery shelves. The developer, Tropic, says it plans a U.S. launch this year, potentially making it the first gene-edited food widely available.

California’s eye-popping gas prices are only made worse by the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The program adds about 17c/gallon. Worse, much of that money is going to biofuels that would have been produced anyway under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/paying-ext...

Its not all freeze-dried ice cream and aluminum tubes of food anymore. But space travel still showcases and drives some major food innovation. NASA even funded some of the first research on cultivated meat

Biofuels madness We're gonna import vegetable oil made from the ashes of rainforest to meet new biofuels mandate. EPA'S OWN ANALYSIS says this policy costs $20 billion/yr MORE than it saves, may increase emissions, will drive conversion of natural lands, degrade water quality, & raise food prices.

Yale Environment 360@yalee360.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The U.S. doesn’t produce enough vegetable oil to meet a new biofuels mandate, so suppliers will have to ramp up imports of vegetable oil, putting pressure on tropical forests overseas. via @insideclimatenews.org

EPA just announced its highest-ever renewable fuel mandate. Renewable fuels already use more than 1/3 of U.S. corn and soybean oil. Pushing that even higher will put more pressure on food & fuel prices at a time when many families are already stretched thin. thebreakthrough.org/press/releas...

Glyphosate isn't the terrible herbicide it's made out to be. I dug deep into its impact. Restricting glyphosate more would likely hurt wildlife and the environment in 3 big ways: increased toxicity, soil erosion, and greenhouse gas emissions. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/glyphosate...

Glyphosate’s Environmental Benefits

How the controversial herbicide saves wildlife and where it still falls short

breakthroughjournal.org

Have you ever heard that biotechnologyis going to revolutionize agriculture — but wonder where all the supposed products are? There's only 7 kinds of genetically modified produce available. Part of the problem is an inefficient regulatory system. thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...

USDA Regulations Stifle Innovation

thebreakthrough.org

The issue with Casey Means is not just her equivocating on vaccines. It’s that she brings the anti-vax playbook to food: distrust regulators, fear synthetics and cherry-pick evidence. That’s a recipe for worse policy, higher food costs, and more public confusion. www.agri-pulse.com/articles/244...

Opinion: Casey Means’ food agenda is an empty promise

Emily Bass, director of federal policy for food and agriculture at the Breakthrough Institute, says Casey Means, President Donald Trump's pick for surgeon general, has a vision for food and ag policy ...

agri-pulse.com

Important new @worldresources.bsky.social research shows that agricultural expansion isn’t only leading to forest loss - it’s leading to loss of grasslands, savannas, & wetlands too. From 2005-20, the 🌎 lost 95 Mha of non-forest natural ecosystems to annual crops, and another 95 Mha to pasture. 1/

Agriculture Is Taking Over Grasslands, Wetlands and Other Overlooked Ecosystems

A new study reveals that agriculture is rapidly replacing ecosystems like grasslands, wetlands and savannas, which are often ignored in sustainability policies.

wri.org

The Surgeon General nominee may be concerned, but you shouldn't be. Glyphosate isn't faultless, but its one of the most studied pesticides and deemed not to pose a health concern by regulators in the US, Europe, Canada and other countries.

USDA approved most biotechnology crops 2x faster last year than before, even though a court ruling in favor of anti-GMO groups had forced the agency to change its regulations, shows this new analysis from @TheBTI. thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...