Last year, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its partners released 44 new and improved rice varieties, taking the number to around a thousand since it was launched in 1960.
Leading food and drink makers including Nestlé, Unilever and Coca-Cola have made good progress in the year since Oxfam released its first Behind the Brands sustainability scorecard – and only one company made no progress, according to the NGO.
Australia’s Complementary Healthcare Council has responded to a raft of media articles about alleged mislabelling of complementary medicines by pointing to the strict regulations herbal products must adhere to in the country.
Scientists from the University of Western Australia are developing rapid and non-destructive ways to assess the quality of food that they say will deliver significant benefits to industry.
Human patients infected with the A(H7N9) strain of avian influenza are not able transmit the virus to animals, including birds, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Nearly two-thirds of nutrition labels on a range of small pre-packaged food and drinks in Hong Kong are breaking trading guidelines by not being easy enough to read.
The Kellogg Company has pledged to source fully traceable palm oil by the end of next year, a move that has been welcomed by NGOs that have been fighting for the cereal giant to change its policies for months.
It took two years to develop, had the support of the Council of Australian Governments ministerial council and only lasted a matter of hours. Now the swift demise of the country’s controversial health star rating web site has left a minister and a senior...
India is expecting to post its highest ever level of foodgrain production this year, according to the country’s agriculture minister, who is hopeful that a bumper yield will cool down the fast-rising food prices that have been a feature of the last six...
One of India’s highest courts delivered a split verdict on whether the country’s relatively new food regulator had the right to subject existing products to its approval process.
A 21-tonne container of Chinese shellfish-sourced raw glucosamine powder has passed border inspection at a UK port, the first to do so since a January quality control crackdown on animal-sourced glucosamine, chondroitin and chitosan.
Dr Patrick Moore – Greenpeace founding member and GM defector – represents a fear that lurks in the heart of all ideologists: Am I on the right side of the fence? Am I the goodie or the baddie?
A ban on manipulative junk food advertising to children is urgently needed to help fight increasing rates of childhood obesity, say University of Otago Wellington researchers.
Strong suggestions that India is about to announce an increase in sugar export subsidies have brought a wave of criticism from competing countries, who say that what India is doing is wrong and “distorts" the sugar trade.
The US Food and Drug Administration’s commissioner, Margaret A Hamburg, will visit India next week on a mission to strengthen cooperation between the American department and its Indian regulatory counterparts.
University of Adelaide researchers have been using nanotechnology and the fossils of single-celled algae to develop a novel chemical- and resistance-free way of protecting stored grain from insects.
As milk prices go up by a further Rs2 per litre, India’s Supreme Court has gone on record to acknowledge milk adulteration as “serious”, and has demanded that individual states sentence those convicted of it to a maximum of life in jail.
Reducing salt consumption may help prolong the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease, a study from the University of Queensland study has found.
Efforts by successive Australian governments to make more healthy foods available in the country have failed, with few controls on food and beverage manufacturers being enforced, a new study has found.
South Korea’s government has committed to help developing countries to address serious issues related to fisheries and aquaculture as part of an agreement with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia (CHC) has called on the government to change its health focus from supporting what it calls “an ailing and expensive illness model” to one that promotes wellbeing.
New Zealand’s food and beverage industry has come out strongly against the possibility of a trans-continental trade agreement that does not fully abolish tariffs in the farm and food sector.
Health groups in Australia have hit out at fast food chains that they say are “cashing in” by promoting seductively cheap frozen drinks that in many cases contain what they call “surprisingly large” amounts of added sugar.
The Singapore government’s scientific agency has joined forces with a university in a US$20m joint-venture to develop a variety of bread that will reduce blood sugar, among other research projects.
Hong Kong’s food safety and health authorities have shifted gears and initiated counter measures after the discovery of the H7N9 bird flu virus in a batch of live poultry from mainland China.
Local food safety watchdogs are being armed and empowered by their provincial governments at a rapid pace, in line with the central government’s diktat on preventing food safety issues.
India’s Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) has urged agricultural businesses and ministers to translate the country’s soaring production wealth into comparable exports.
The New Zealand government has tightened its timetable to impose a total ban on shark finning after it received an overwhelming public response on the issue.
Human infections with the influenza A(H7N9) virus are on the rise again in China and the upcoming Chinese New Year festivities provide opportunity for further spread and human exposure, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned.
Nestlé has defended itself and its allergy charity consort against criticism of the marketing of its ''lunchbox friendly'' muesli bars to schools despite them being unsuitable for nut allergy sufferers.
A new comprehensive test that combines two well-known genetic analysis methods into a single test could help enforce stricter regulation of genetically modified foods in the future, say researchers.
Thousands of honey bees in Australia are being fitted with tiny sensors as part of a world-first research programme to monitor the insects and their environment using a technique known as “swarm sensing”.
India could prevent an estimated 400,000 people from contracting diabetes over the next 10 years if the government were to impose a 20% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), a new study has suggested.
University of Queensland scientists, in collaboration with the Australian sugar industry, have discovered a new species of bacterium that could potentially reduce the need for nitrogen fertiliser in cane farming while also improving yields of the crop.
Researchers in Japan have identified links between how palatable a taste is and blood circulation across different parts of the face—going some way to giving an explanation for the squinting mechanism caused by the taste of something bitter.
Industry, academics and NGOs from more than 70 countries recently gathered on Singapore to evaluate how successful a global initiative to promote food safety has been in its first year.
The newly installed, tough-talking chief executive of the Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia has a new target in his sights after hitting out at the “misguided approach” by some academics towards non-conventional medicine.
New research from the University of Adelaide has added to the debate about how our bodies respond to artificial sweeteners and whether they are good, bad or have no effect on us.
One month after Typhoon Haiyan struck a devastating blow to the Philippines, farmers who lost essential crops and supplies are receiving the first wave of emergency seeds, restoring hope for a productive planting season and much-needed food for the coming...
Hershey has committed to purchasing 100% traceable and sustainably-sourced palm oil by the end of 2014. Greenpeace has welcomed the move, but has reservations about timelines and terminology.
China has issued a new draft regulation that would give regulators the authority to blacklist food and beverage manufacturers that have breached food safety standards in the country.
The recent Fonterra whey protein concentrate (WPC) botulism scare was “not the result of any regulatory failure,” a New Zealand government inquiry into the incident has concluded.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has filed separate proceedings in the Federal Court against two major egg producers for misleading “free range” claims.
The news this week that Australia and South Korea have reached a free-trade agreement is a “tremendous shot in the arm for Australia's food and grocery manufacturing sector”.
The launch of the World Health Organisation’s new strategy for traditional and complementary medicines (T&CM) has met with approval from industry groups.
