Today’s quick hits, July 19, 2021

Better than meat: Impossible Foods founder Pat Brown says cell-cultured meat “will never be done with the economics you need for food” while with plant-based foods, “we can make it more delicious than the animal. (Washington Post)

Scorched vineyards: Napa Valley wine makers have the money and incentive to out-wit climate change but their experiences show the limits of adaptation; ‘smoke taint’ that ruins a vintage, wildfires that char their vines and temperatures they blacken wine grapes. (New York Times)

Smaller ‘dead zone’: The ‘dead zone’ of water with low oxygen content in the Chesapeake Bay was the smallest on record at the start of June and slightly better than average in late June; forecasts call for a smaller than usual dead zone this year. (Maryland Department of Natural Resources)

Tai in Wisconsin: U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai visited a dairy farm and took part in a discussion with farmers in southwestern Wisconsin, saying afterward that “nothing substitutes” for “seeing the human face of our economy.”

GE crop exemptions: Public comment will be accepted until Aug 18 on a proposal to add three modifications, similar to changes that could be achieved by conventional breeding, that genetically engineered plants could contain and be exempt from USDA’s biotechnology regulations. (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service)