Free Republic

The cost of a dozen eggs has now surpassed the price of a pound of beef, marking the first time that’s happened since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping data in 1980. The average price of a dozen large Grade A eggs ran at $4.82 in January 2023, while a pound of ground beef was $4.64. In January 2022, eggs were $1.93, and beef was $4.77, but egg prices have soared by 70% in the last year alone. Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy group, says the “real culprit” behind sky-high prices is a “collusive scheme” among top U.S....

In a way, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not really news anymore, since farmers have had access to that technology for a couple of decades already. So what is the new frontier in food production? The latest step in genetic engineering — at least as it pertains to our food system — is called synthetic biology, which applies the principles of engineering to the fundamental components of biology. Instead of mixing one engineered gene into an existing organism (which is what happens with most of today’s GMOs), these scientists are creating large clusters of genes synthetically. They can essentially design...