(Bloomberg) -- Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., a global supplier of agricultural commodities, has pledged to curb deforestation that results from the farming of soybeans and palm trees.

Pizza delivery chain Domino’s has been selling genetically modified pizzas, despite its website claiming that it is ‘GM-free.’

Latin America has the planet's largest land reserves for agriculture and had the most rapid agricultural expansion during the twenty-first century. A large portion of the expansion replaced forests, as shown by many local and regional studies. However, expansion varied regionally and also replaced other land covers. Further, it is important to distinguish between changes in cropland and pastureland as they produce food at different levels of efficiency and intensity.

Do the wet savannahs and shrublands of Africa provide a large reserve of potential croplands to produce food staples or bioenergy with low carbon and biodiversity costs? We find that only small percentages of these lands have meaningful potential to be low-carbon sources of maize (~2%) or soybeans (9.5–11.5%), meaning that their conversion would release at least one-third less carbon per ton of crop than released on average for the production of those crops on existing croplands.

The need to intensify agricultural production due to a growing human population requires yield gaps to be closed. In 2009 and 2010, five management factors were assessed for their individual and cumulative contributions to reducing the corn (Zea mays L.) yield gap and yield components in a corn–soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation. Five management factors (plant population, transgenic insect resistance, fungicide containing strobilurin, P–S–Zn fertility, and N fertility) were evaluated.

In adapting US agriculture to the climate of the 21st century, a key unknown is whether cropping frequency may increase, helping to offset projected negative yield impacts in major production regions. Combining daily weather data and crop phenology models, we find that cultivated area in the US suited to dryland winter wheat–soybeans, the most common double crop (DC) system, increased by up to 28% from 1988 to 2012.

Monsanto Co. received final U.S.

Renewable resources may have finally reached their limits.

Permits renewed for research on several rice and corn strains, a move hailed by some scientists as a big step towards commercialisation

Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides world-wide, but their fate in the environment remains unclear, as does their potential to influence non-target species and the roles they play in agroecosystems. The researchers investigated in laboratory and field studies the influence of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam, applied as a coating to soya bean seeds, on interactions among soya beans, non target molluscan herbivores and their insect predators.

Pages