The first genetically engineered (GE) food crop (tomato) was introduced in 1995, followed by the successful development and commercial release of maize, soybeans, cotton, canola, potatoes, papaya, alfalfa, squash, and sugar beets with specific new genetic traits. Even though the safety of every new GE crop has been evaluated by various regulatory authorities throughout the world prior to its co...

Most dairy farms in Wisconsin continue to produce most of their feed and have sufficient land for recycling manure nutrients through crops. However, to remain economically viable, many dairy farms are increasing herd size and importing more feed. The increased importation of nutrients in the form of feed and fertilizer has resulted in excessive soil nutrient accumulation (Bundy, 1998; Proost, 1...

Political responses to novel foods and crops can be specific to the new traits of those crops (agronomic versus enhanced nutrients), to the intended uses of those crops (food for people versus feed for animals), and also to the methods used to introduced those traits (conventional breeding versus genetic engineering). This article describes variations in observed political responses to three di...

The presence of pesticide residues in feed and its animal products is in the focus at the present scenario in the view of WTO. The residues not only affect the public health but also cause economic losses to the livestock industry. Not only these affect the health of livestock and human beings but also affect the quality of animal products. Pesticide residues accumulate in the animals either by...

Sorghum and pearl millet are two important dry land crops that provide grain and fodder. India is the largest pearl millet producer and second largest producer of sorghum in the world. The productivity of these crops has been low due to various reasons such as unavailability of quality inputs to the farmers, lack of access to improved technologies for crop production, unavailability of credit o...

Genetically modified (GM) crops were first introduced to farmers in 1995 with the intent to provide better crop yield and meet the increasing demand for food and feed. GM crops have evolved to include a thorough safety evaluation for their use in human food and animal feed. Safety considerations begin at the level of DNA whereby the inserted GM DNA is evaluated for its content, position and sta...

Crops contaminated with fungal mycotoxins such as aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) are often downgraded or removed from the food chain. This study aimed to evaluate the tolerance and accumulation of AFB1 in two insect species to determine whether they could be used to retain condemned mycotoxin contaminated crops in the food chain. First, instar black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens, BSF) and yellow m...

More sustainable broiler meat production can be facilitated by the increased use of cheap by-products and local crops as feed ingredients, while not affecting animal performance and intestinal health, or even improving intestinal health, so that antibiotic usage is further reduced. To achieve this, knowledge of the relationship between the taxonomic and functional microbiota composition and int...

Because of the protein content of their seeds, grain legumes, pseudocereals, and other crops are candidates to satisfy the growing demand for plant protein for food and feed. Crop production worldwide is highly specialized and currently relies on a very small number of species, raising questions about the sustainability of farming (Tilman et al., 2002). The role of legumes in nutrition has been...

Hectares of genetically modified (GM) crops have increased exponentially since 1996, when such crops began to be commercialized. GM biotechnology, together with conventional breeding, has become the main approach to improving agronomic traits of crops. However, people are concerned about the safety of GM crops, especially GM-derived food and feed. Many efforts have been made to evaluate the uni...