Actualité
01.01.1970
Maine (USA) Committee votes ?Ought to Pass? on GE food and seed labelling bill
On Tuesday, May 21, the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee (ACF) voted ?Ought to Pass? after a final review of language in LD 718: An Act To Protect Maine Food Consumers? Right To Know about Genetically Engineered Food and Seed Stock, which Representative Lance Harvell (R-Farmington) sponsored. This vote pushes LD 718, a bill requiring labels for many GMOs, to the House of Representatives. [...] ACF held a work session yesterday that resulted in positive results for pro-labelers, when legislators voted down a last-minute amendment to the bill
01.01.1970
Philippine Court of Appeals ruled Bt eggplant field trials unsafe for humans, environment
THE Court of Appeals ruled recently that ongoing field trials for Bacillus thuriengensis talong (eggplant) in the country pose risks to human health and the environment, it was learned on Wednesday. In a 25-page decision penned by CA Associate Justice Isaias Dicdican, the appellate court?s Special 13th Division issued a writ of kalikasan ordering the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and other concerned government agencies to stop the trials. CA Associate Justices Myra Garcia-Fernandez and Nina Antonio-Valenzuela agreed with the decision. According to the court?s ruling, the trials violated the people?s constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology.
01.01.1970
GMO critics fight for ban of GE crops in Hawaii (USA)
Genetic engineering opponents turned out in force Tuesday before the Hawaii County Council to support a bill that could determine the future of agriculture on the Big Island. The bill would prevent farmers from planting any genetically modified crops not already grown on the island, and has gained enthusiastic support from critics of the biotech industry. [...] More than 100 people from across the island signed up to speak before the council?s Committee on Public Safety and Mass Transit. A large majority spoke in favor of the bill, which will be discussed again at the committee?s May 29 meeting.
01.01.1970
Former U.S. FDA official on GMO labeling: ?Science doesn?t always win?
Whether the food industry likes it or not, when it comes to GMO labeling, the ?train appears to have left the station?, according to former FDA associate commissioner of foods Dr David Acheson. [...] ?But as a planet I don?t know how we are going to feed everyone without higher yielding and drought resistant crops. What?s the alternative?? The momentum building behind GMO labeling just shows what a ?small, highly vocal, well organized group of people can accomplish irrespective of the science?, said Dr Acheson. ?Science doesn?t always win.?
- Food Navigator, USA (17.05.2013): Former FDA official on GMO labeling: ?Science doesn?t always win?
- Staten Island Live, USA (19.05.2013): Don?t mandate labeling of genetically-altered food
- The Raw Story, USA (22.05.2013): Sen. Bernie Sanders pushes to allow states to label genetically engineered foods
01.01.1970
Second U.S. State senate votes for GMO labeling law
A second legislative body wants to require food manufacturers to label products with genetically modified organisms. The Connecticut Senate has voted 35-to-1 in favor of a GMO labeling bill, joining the Vermont House?s 99-to-42 vote on a nearly identical measure earlier this month. The Vermont Senate won?t take up GMO food labeling until at least 2014, and the fate of the bill in Connecticut is now up to House Speaker Brendan Sharkey, who has expressed concerns about the bill putting the small state at an economic disadvantage. As drafted, the Connecticut bill would not take effect until at least three other states adopted similar labeling laws for GMO foods. Sharkey says he?d like to see a compact with several states including a big one like New York State.
01.01.1970
Monsanto GE alfalfa can?t be limited as plant pest, U.S. Court of Appeals says
Alfalfa genetically modified to withstand Monsanto Co.?s Roundup weed killer was correctly deemed by U.S. agriculture officials not to be a plant pest that needs to be regulated, a federal appeals court ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco today upheld a lower-court ruling that unconditionally deregulated the product and agreed the Agriculture Department?s Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service lacks jurisdiction to regulate the plant. The suit was at least the second attempt by environmental groups to overturn the department?s decision to deregulate the genetically engineered alfalfa.
01.01.1970
Monsanto?s NK603 corn safety meets no consensus in Brazil?s biosafety commission
The document produced [by the National Biosafety Commission] is signed by four experts and repeats critics already answered by Séralini and colleagues in several interviews and on a letter to editors published by the same Food and Chemical Toxicology. CTNBio?s president paper was only discussed by its other members last April. After a hot debate, four members voted against it, stating that, since the way rapporteurs were chosen, the document failed to consider contradictory views that emerged inside the Commission. Fourteen members were in favour of the document, although one know that science is not made on a vote base.
01.01.1970
To fight hunger, Ghana must approve GE crops
Dr Margaret Atikpo, the focal person of the [Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology] Ghana Chapter, said government had passed the biotechnology bill after strenuous scrutiny and that was an indication that the Executive was satisfied with the benefits that the people would derive. [...] Dr Atikpo emphasised that biotechnology among its enormous benefits to food security would also to a large extent improve the welfare of farmers thereby reduce poverty. Professor Kwame Offei, Provost of the College of Agriculture, University of Ghana, on a Ghana Television Breakfast Show said modern biotechnology is an alternative to food security.
He said the country need to embrace it for the simple reasons that ?it will increase yield and reduce use of chemicals on our farms?.
01.01.1970
Kenya?s GMO ban has no legal basis, official says
A senior Kenyan government official has dismissed last year?s ban on the import of genetically modified organisms into the country ? calling it ill-advised and lacking the backing of law. Romano Kiome, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, says the ban cannot be enforced because it was imposed by the cabinet, which has no authority in law to do so. [...] According to David Wafula, Kenya coordinator at the Program for Biosafety Systems ― a partnership between USAID and the Kenya government supporting development and use of biosafety systems in agricultural innovation in Kenya ― the ban has not been published in the Kenya Gazette, an official government publication containing new legislation and notices required to be published by law or policy.
01.01.1970
Indian government hastily tables Bill on biotech regulation in Parliament
the Ministry of Science and Technology drafted the NBRA Bill. But it was soon withdrawn following severe criticism during public consultation. In 2009, the ministry drafted another version of the Bill, this time titled Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill. Contents of the draft were kept under wraps. In February 2010, the science ministry suffered a setback when the environment minister imposed a moratorium on Bt Brinjal and other GM crops in the country. This started a silent war within the government. There was discomfort in the Prime Minister?s Office too. But with the UPA term ending in 2014, a communication came from PMO to the science ministry, asking it to speed up the process of tabling the Bill.
01.01.1970
Maharashtra (India) farm widows and activists to oppose secrecy in GE crop approval
Widows of farmers who committed suicide in the Bt-cotton fields of Maharashtra-Vidarbha, along with tribal and agriculturists, are gearing up to intensify their agitation against the introduction of GM seeds into the food crops. [...] Last week, a state-appointed committee headed by Atomic Energy Commission -Member-Dr Anil Kakodkar quietly met at the Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, deliberating over proposals submitted by 29 seed companies seeking no-objection certificate for carrying out field tests of GM food crops in Maharashtra. The secrecy-filled meeting with members of the committee refusing to furnish details has invited wrath from environmentalists, ecologists and farmland activists.
01.01.1970
Indian Association of Biotech-Led Enterprises - Agriculture Group urges Union and Karnataka government to approve GE crop field trials
The Association of Biotech-Led Enterprises - Agriculture Group (ABLE AG) - the industry body representing agri-biotechnology companies, has sought action from the Minister of Environment & Forest Jayanthi Natarajan and the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee to permit field trials of biotechnology-enhanced seeds in the kharif season sowing, which is already under way, for continued R&D efforts by private and public sector institutions. [...] Member companies of ABLE AG are Advanta India, BASF India, Bayer BioScience, Devgen Seeds, Dow AgroSciences, JK Agri Genetics, Mahyco, MetaHelix, Monsanto, Nath Biogene, PHI Seeds and Syngenta India. Some of them have R&D centres in Bangalore while others are associated with Karnataka for purposes of transgenic crop trials.
01.01.1970
GM crops: Fooling ? er, ?feeding? ? the world for 20 years
Myths and outright lies about the alleged benefits of genetically engineered crops persist only because the multinationals that profit from them have put so much effort into spreading them around. They want you to believe that GMOs will feed the world; that they are more productive; that they will eliminate the use of agrichemicals; that they can coexist with other crops, and that they are perfectly safe for humans and the environment. False in every case, and in this article we?ll show how easy it is to debunk these myths. All it takes is a dispassionate, objective look at twenty years of commercial GE planting and the research that supposedly backs it up. The conclusion is clear: GMOs are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
01.01.1970
The inconvenient truth about GM: non-GM breeding is more successful
what emerges from [Sir Gordon Conway?s] book, One Billion Hungry, from this week?s breakthrough, and from a host of other evidence, is how little ? so far, at least ? GM technology is contributing to beating hunger. involved in the NIAB?s quantum leap, which was due to conventional breeding techniques. Nor was it involved, to give an example from Prof Conway?s book, in developing new varieties of African rice, called Nerica, which are up to four times as productive as traditional varieties, contain more protein, need a much shorter growing season, resist pests and diseases, thrive on poor soils and withstand drought. The same is true of another of his superstars, Scuba Rice, which beats flooding by surviving 17 days underwater and still achieving enhanced yields ? and, within three years, had been taken up by 3.5 million Asian farmers.
01.01.1970
Monsanto Protection Act may soon be repealed thanks to Senator Merkley
The notorious ?Monsanto Protection Act? rider stuffed into the non-related Senate spending bill may soon be repealed thanks to the massive amounts of activism and outrage that have now amounted into a legislative charge towards action. Action that has turned into legislation progress through Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who has announced an amendment that would remove Section 735 (the Monsanto Protection Act as its known) from the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 Senate spending bill.
01.01.1970
Former Monsanto employee put in charge of GMO papers at
Just months after a study was published showing that two Monsanto products, a genetically modified maize and Roundup herbicide, damaged the health of rats, the journal that published the study appointed a former Monsanto scientist to decide which papers on GM foods and crops should be published, a new article reveals. Monsanto and GM foods suffered a storm of bad publicity after a study published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology in September 2012 reported that a GM corn and Roundup caused organ damage and increased rates of tumors and premature death in rats.
01.01.1970
U.S. Biotechnology Industry Organization: It?s not too late to change the conversation on GMOs
When it comes to winning hearts and minds about the merits of genetically engineered ingredients (and whether to alert consumers to their presence on food labels), it?s fair to say that the biotech industry has not done a great job. But it?s not too late to change the conversation, Cathy Enright, executive vice president for food & agriculture at the Washington DC-based Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), tells FoodNavigator-USA. ?We haven?t spent enough time talking about the technology, the benefits and the products. It?s safe, and it can create a cleaner environment, but we need to do a better job of explaining why.?
01.01.1970
Best public relations money can buy - A guide to food industry front groups
Best Public Relations Money Can Buy: A Guide to Food Industry Front Groups describes how Big Food and Big Ag hide behind friendly-sounding organizations such as: the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, the Center for Consumer Freedom, and the Alliance to Feed the Future. The idea is to fool the media, policymakers, and general public into trusting these sources, despite their corporate-funded PR agenda. With growing concern over the negative impacts of our highly industrialized and overly-processed food system, the food industry has a serious public relations problem on its hands. Instead of cleaning up its act, corporate lobbyists are trying to control the public discourse. As a result, industry spin is becoming more prevalent and aggressive.
01.01.1970
A million acres of glyphosate-resistant weeds in Canada?
More than one million acres of Canadian farmland have glyphosate-resistant weeds growing on them, including 43,000 in Manitoba, according to an online survey of 2,028 farmers conducted by Stratus Agri-Marketing Inc. based in Guelph, Ont. The shockingly high Canadian numbers met with skepticism from some experts who suggest farmers might be mistaking hard-to-kill weeds with glyphosate resistance. But others say the farmers are probably right. Even though there hasn?t been a single documented case of a glyphosate-resistant weed in Manitoba, the 281 Manitoba farmers surveyed said they believe there?s glyphosate-resistant kochia on 23,000 acres in this province.
01.01.1970
USDA to tackle 2,4-D-resistant engineered crops without needed regulations
It is encouraging that USDA will produce an Environmental Impact Statement for crops resistant to 2,4-D or dicamba. These crops, through the herbicides they are designed to use, have potential to cause substantial environmental and human harm, especially due to drift and volatility. Weed scientists have projected dramatically increased use of these herbicides, and herbicides in general, if these crops are approved. Dicamba and 2,4-D herbicides have been known to travel considerable distances from the fields where they are applied, harming fruit, vegetable and other crops, and natural areas that provide pollinators and other beneficial organisms for crops.
