Actualité
21.01.2010
Lack of GMOs costs lives, claims leading UK scientist
Many human lives have been lost due to the reluctance of some countries to accept genetically modified crops, former government chief scientific adviser, Sir David King has claimed. [...] Sir David cited the example of flood-resistant rice which had taken over five years to develop using conventional breeding techniques and genetic markers, when it could have been done in two using GM technology.
- Farmers Weekly, UK (20.01.2010): Lack of GMOs costs lives, claims leading scientist
- University of California - Davis, USA (01.11.2008): From genes to farmers? fields: waterproof rice set to make waves in South Asia
- International Rice Research Institute, Philippines (IRRI) (09.08.2006): New flood-tolerant rice offers relief for world?s poorest farmers
- GM Freeze, UK (17.12.2007): Chief Scientist?s misleading GM claims: GM Freeze calls for a public apology
21.01.2010
?Thermometer? gene may secure global food security, scientists claim
What if we could create a food plant that defied all those doomsday scenarios where extreme temperatures take us all to oblivion, and instead kept growing and fruiting regardless of whether it got very hot or very cold? ?We would never run out of food!? remarked Philip Wigge, a scientist at the Norwich-based John Innes Centre, a member institute of Britain?s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
21.01.2010
Media education in Africa: GE crops are key to food security in Africa
Despite its spirited campaign against Africa embracing Genetically Modified materials, Europe has approved 87 recombinant [GM] drugs through the European Medicines Agency since 1982 says Prof. Paarlberg in 2009. According to him Europeans will die of diabetes and related ailments if they do not administer Humulin N (GM Insulin) for treatment of Diabetes and Hepatitis B virus vaccine. ?Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy, but starvation is the enemy.? Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, late Prof. Norman E. Borlaug wrote in 1970. To crown it, Dr. Mataruka said, ?It is high time farmers who are still using their ?grandmothers? planting material to shift their focus to hybrid seeds because the inherited materials are prone to drought, pests, insects, and diseases.?
21.01.2010
Can GM crops feed the hungry?
Golden Rice burst into the public imagination a decade ago, in the form of a cover article in Time magazine that claimed the genetically modified (GM) rice could ?save a million kids a year?. [...] But ten years later, Golden Rice is yet to cure blindness — and some believe it never will.
21.01.2010
Record GE crop harvest sends U.S. grain prices down
Grain and oilseed prices tumbled on Tuesday after the US government said the country?s farmers would harvest the largest ever crop of corn and soyabean. [...] In spite of the bad weather, the USDA raised its forecast for 2009-10 corn yields from 162.9 bushels an acre to 165.2 bushels an acre. Mr Wagner said the corn performance ?illustrates the importance of GMOs to US farm production?, adding that yields could have being higher ?if the growing season had been halfway decent?.
20.01.2010
Italy is ?weak point? of EU?s anti-GM defences according to U.S. report
Italy is the Achilles heel of the campaign to maintain Europe?s defences against genetically modified crops, a US report has said, adding that the region?s consumers are not as opposed to the technology as is portrayed. With 65% of Italians supporting biotechnology, and the Vatican a ?vocal advocate? of GM crops as a way of easing hunger in Africa, the country was a ?good place to start? a campaign to ?educate? Europeans about GM crops.
20.01.2010
Poland divided over GM crops
More than twenty Polish ecological farms have extended an invitation to MPs and senators to taste real organic food on the spot, at meetings organized in the second half of this month.
This is a part of a nationwide campaign [...] sponsored by the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside, which is fighting for a GMO free Poland. [...] A survey taken in three EU nations by the UK?s National Farm Research Unit found that support for GM crops among farmers was highest in Poland, with over 80 percent support, while 45 percent of British farmers wanted access to the crops.
20.01.2010
Bulgaria Parliament eases laws on GM crop cultivation
Bulgaria Environment Minister, Nona Karadzhova, stated that the amendments were necessary to bring Bulgaria inline with the rest of the EU and that they will not lead to the sale of GMO products in Bulgaria or the increased cultivation of GM crops. [...] ?The time for changes to the law on GMOs now is particularly inappropriate because the European Commission is currently discussing new legislation on GMOs, and in a few months it will be necessary to change the law again ? Agrolink Director Dr. Svetla Nikolova concluded.
20.01.2010
America?s agricultural angst - food fight in the USA
The romantic model being promoted by Time and agri-intellectuals like Michael Pollan hearkens back to European and Tolstoyan notions of small family farms run by generations of happy peasants. But this really has little to do with the essential ethos of American agriculture. Back in the early 19th century Alexis de Tocqueville noted that American farmers viewed their holdings more like capitalists than peasants. They would sell their farms and move on to other businesses or other lands--a practice unheard of in Europe.
20.01.2010
DuPont proceeds with stacked GE soybean amid court loss
DuPont Co., the world?s second- biggest seed producer, will continue creating modified soybeans that a court ruled violate a license with Monsanto Co. because it expects to prevail on other claims in the case. DuPont plans to begin selling Optimum GAT soybean seeds that include Monsanto?s Roundup Ready gene as soon as 2013, Paul Schickler, president of DuPont?s Pioneer Hi-Bred seed unit, said today in a telephone interview.
20.01.2010
U.S. judge gives narrow victory to Monsanto in patent dispute with DuPont
A U.S. District Court judge in St. Louis has issued a ? narrow? ruling in favor of Monsanto Co. in a dispute with rival E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Co. over a license agreement. In a 24-page order Judge Richard Webber ruled Friday that license agreements between the two companies contain an implied term that prohibits DuPont from stacking one if its proprietary genetic trait products, known as Optimum GAT, with Monstanto?s Roundup Ready trait.
- Money CNN, USA (16.01.2010): Judge gives narrow victory to Monsanto in dispute with DuPont
- The Washington Post, USA (16.01.2010): Court rules for Monsanto, antitrust case remains
- Main Justice, USA (18.01.2010): Court gives Monsanto win in long-running feud with Dupont
- DuPont, USA (16.01.2010): DuPont to proceed with license, antitrust, patent fraud claims against Monsanto
19.01.2010
Orissa (India) scientists want more studies on BT Brinjal
Participating in a consultation organised by the union environment ministry in Bhubaneswar, the scientific community said it wanted a thorough study. ?We need in-depth study before the introduction of BT Brinjal. The study which has been conducted so far is limited,? said Madan Mohan Panda, the director of research at Orissa University of Agriculture and Research.
19.01.2010
Gates Foundation sponsored C4 Rice Project is the ?Appollo Project? of IRRI
Known as the C4 Rice Project, the research is being carried out at the IRRI headquarters in Los Banos with the help of an initial US$11 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. [...] The goal is to genetically modify rice into a C4 photosynthesis plant, such as maize, so it can absorb sunlight faster, use less water and require less fertiliser. [...] ?It?s not unusual in the plant kingdom for a plant to move from C3 to C4. What we are trying to do is speed up evolution.?
19.01.2010
USAID brings Bt eggplants and late blight-resistant resisting GE potatoes to Bangladesh
The initiative to develop GM eggplants and potatoes was taken based on technical collaboration with Cornell University under the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II, funded by the United States Agency for International Development. [...] ?Our main goal is to raise production by preventing losses from diseases in eggplants and potatoes. We also aim to minimise health hazards to consumers due to pesticides,? said Dr Md Al-Amin, head of biotechnology at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute. ?We are getting good results in eggplant. We have also found potatoes moderately disease-resistant in trials last year,? he said.
19.01.2010
Monsanto to earn EUR 53 mill tech fee for Bt cotton in India
Monsanto will gross roughly Rs 340 crore [appr. 53 mill EUR] from licensing its proprietary Bollgard (BG) gene traits to Bt cotton hybrid seed firms in India this fiscal. In the recent 2009 planting season, [...] 250 lakh incorporated Monsanto?s BG-I or the second-generation BG-II gene constructs.
19.01.2010
Indian Government sidelines Kerala in Bt brinjal talks
Kerala, in spite of being a biodiversity hotspot, has been sidelined by the Union Government in the Bt brinjal consultations being held across the various states in country. The consultations are aimed at giving the public a forum where meaningful debate can take place before a final decision on the introduction of Bt brinjal is taken.
19.01.2010
Three main Indian brinjal-producing States oppose Bt brinjal
Three states which account for 60 per cent of brinjal production in the country have clearly told the Centre that they were not keen on introducing the genetically-modified version (Bt brinjal) in their fields. ?After West Bengal and Bihar, it is now Orissa Agriculture Minister who has written me a letter that they were opposed to the Bt brinjal,? Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said at the Editors? Conference on social sector issues, here today.
- Press Trust of India, India (18.01.2010): Orissa govt opposes introduction of Bt brinjal
- The Financial Express, India (19.01.2010): Govt to tread cautiously on Bt brinjal
- ThaiIndian News, Thailand (18.01.2010): Genetic engineering okay, but safety first: Jairam Ramesh
- The Times of India, India (18.01.2010): ?Govt clearing Bt brinjal on manipulated data?
- Indian Express, India (17.01.2010): ?It would be dangerous to approve Bt Brinjal?
- Rediff.com, India (18.01.2010): How good is Bt brinjal
18.01.2010
US top court to decide Monsanto alfalfa case
The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday it would hear an appeal by Monsanto Co of a ruling that barred the company from selling its genetically modified alfalfa seed, until an environmental review is done. The justices agreed to review a ruling by a U.S. appeals court in California that upheld a federal judge?s injunction barring the sales until the federal government finished an environmental impact study on how the Roundup Ready seed could affect nearby crops.
- Reuters, UK (15.01.2010): US top court to decide Monsanto alfalfa case
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, USA (15.01.2010): Supreme Court to hear Monsanto appeal
- Center for Food Safety, USA (15.01.2010): Supreme Court to hear first genetically engineered crop case
- PR Newswire, USA (15.01.2010): U.S. Supreme Court to review delay on Roundup Ready(R) alfalfa
- Stock & Land, Australia (19.01.2010): US green light for GM alfalfa
18.01.2010
Secondary insect control in the USA pushes Bt cotton costs higher
[Jeff Gore, research entomologist at the Delta Research and Extension Center] said that in 1995, the cost of planting an acre of cotton ranged from $12.75 an acre to $24 an acre depending on at-planting insecticide and fungicide treatments. ?In 2005, if you had planted Bollgard, Roundup Ready cotton varieties with a Cadillac seed treatment, you would have spent about $52 an acre. Now in 2010, with Bollgard II and Roundup Ready Flex, you?ll be spending $85 or more an acre.?
18.01.2010
Using Bt cotton to alleviate poverty in Northern Ghana?
While Ghana only managed to produce 36,000 metric tons of seed cotton in 2006/7, Burkina Faso produced a colossal 700,000 metric tons. The fortunes of Ghana Cotton Company Limited (GCCL) have drastically declined over the years due to both internal and external factors. [...] Major policy decisions including the adoption of Genetically Modified (GM) technologies and drip irrigation systems to improve productivity and to reduce costs ought to be considered.
- Ghana Web, Ghana (18.01.2010): Using cotton to alleviate poverty in Northern Ghana
- Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Kenya (AGRA) (13.11.2009): Over 500 agro-dealers certified to supply farmers with inputs
- My Joy Online, Ghana (16.12.2009): The debates on Genetically modified organisms at crossroads: Which way for Africa?
