Actualité
06.02.2007
Hungary hopeful it can keep its GMO ban
Hungary’s government sees a good chance that an upcoming meeting of European Union environment ministers will allow it to maintain its ban on genetically modified crops, the Environment Ministry said on Monday. Hungary, one of the bloc’s biggest grain producers, became the first country in eastern Europe to ban GMO crops or foods when it outlawed the planting of MON 810 maize seeds, marketed by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto, in January 2005.
06.02.2007
Synthetic hormones banned in Sinton Dairy’s (USA) milk cows
Sinton Dairy Foods, responding to consumer demand, today launches its new product line, which uses milk only from cows not treated with synthetic hormones. It’s an across-the-board makeover, with the 127-year-old Colorado Springs dairy making sure every milk product, culture product and ice cream mix it sells — all 1,700 items — is naturally produced, free of rBST, recombinant Bovine Somatotropin.
06.02.2007
GMOs: EU problem child
GMOs are still dividing the EU, both in Brussels and across member states, according to activists and MEPs writing in the latest issue of the Parliament Magazine. Simon Barber, the director of biotech lobby Europabio, argues that «Europe’s slow adoption rate to cultivate biotech crops simply hurts EU farmers and consumers". Barber says that in their first nine years, GM crops increased global net farm income by Euro23bn and reduced the environmental footprint of farming by 14 per cent. He adds that GMOs drastically reduce pesticide use.
06.02.2007
Hawaii bill to ban GMO taro gains
State lawmakers this week advanced a bill that would ban testing and growing of genetically modified taro for a period of 10 years. Senate Bill 958 was passed Monday by the Water, Land, Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs Committee by a 3-1 vote. State lawmakers debated similar legislation last year but failed to pass any law banning such research.
06.02.2007
Organic firms slam GM label plan
Rules for labelling food"s genetically modified (GM) content do not go far enough, say organic producers. The government wants labels to show all produce with more than a 0.9% GM element, but green groups say the threshold should be nearer 0.1%.
The Conservatives back that call, saying customers need to have "clear information" to ensure trust in food.
06.02.2007
One million people waiting for labelling products from animals raised with GE feed
European citizens have long rejected genetically engineered (GE) food in their supermarkets but under the current EU labelling laws, animal products such as milk, meat and eggs coming from animals fed with GE feed can be sold without any labels warning of their GE content. One million people across the Europe Union (EU) want that to change.
05.02.2007
MPs’ demands for Premier of Kuwait to quit linked to self-interests: Saadoun; ‘Protect citizens from genetically modified foods’
Some MPs want the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah to discontinue the reform process and resign from his position as they are not able to achieve their own interests, says MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun. [...] Meanwhile, MPs Ali Al-Omair and Saad Al-Shuraie have demanded the government intervene and protect citizens and residents from genetically modified foods, reports Al-Rai daily.
05.02.2007
Chinese biotech hamstrung by production issues
s fast-developing biopharmaceutical industry is encountering a production bottleneck, challenging efforts to copy its success in other industries such as textiles and electronics. ”The production issue is quite important,” says Qihong Sun, a scientist at the Beijing-based Academy of Military Medical Sciences. ”If it is not properly handled, [China’s] progress in biotech research could be discounted.” Sun was referring specifically to delays in getting several biotech drugs made in China onto the market, long after their approval by regulators.
05.02.2007
DuPont to set up Rs 100 crore R&D centre in India
DuPont India, subsidiary of the US-based $29 billion EI du Pont de Nemours, is setting up a research and development centre in Hyderabad at an investment of over Rs 100 crore. The DuPont Knowledge centre will focus on basic research, application development and other knowledge services including IP management. Hyderabad, emerging as a favourite research destination, houses R&D divisions of Motorola and Novartis. ”The centre will be the sixth major R&D centre of the company outside the US. We are looking at employing about 300 scientists at the centre and it will be fully operational in the second quarter of 2008,” said Balvinder Singh Kalsi, president, DuPont India.
05.02.2007
Bt cotton delivers, awareness issues remain in India
The usage of Bt cotton has resulted in higher productivity and satisfaction levels, farmers in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka continue to show poor awareness about it and thus resulting in lower cotton yield nationally, a survey has revealed. According to an IMRB survey, farmers using certified Bt cotton seeds showed higher levels of satisfaction with increased productivity expectations as opposed to those who used non-Bt seeds. Also, there is enough awareness on Bt cotton seeds in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
- The Financial Express, India (01.02.2007): Bt cotton delivers, awareness issues remain
- The Financial Express, India (05.02.2007): ‘Critics of GM crops are selfish people’
- The Financial Express, India (02.02.2007): Bumper biotech harvest worldwide; criticism galore
- Central Chronicle, India (01.02.2007): Farmers discard BtGM variety
05.02.2007
Syngenta under fire in Brazil GMO dispute
The Swiss multinational seed and crop science corporation, Syngenta AG (SYT), is in the crosshairs of an anti-transgenic seed dispute it might not win in Brazil. On Nov. 9, for the first time ever in a Latin America nation, Syngenta had one of its genetically modified crop research facilities shut down and expropriated by the Parana state government in southern Brazil. No financial figure has been given, but some estimate losses in the millions of dollars for Syngenta.
05.02.2007
Bt cotton in India: Ganesh and Brahma bow to a new god
But as is so often the case, neither side’s explanation fully captures the situation on the ground. For that we must turn to a brilliant new paper by anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone, ”Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal,” from the February issue of Current Anthropology.
Since 2000, Stone has spent some 45 weeks doing field research on Warangal farmers’ cotton seed choice decision-making process. There is a granularity to his research, embedded in careful anthropological theory, that puts most conventional ”investigative reporting” to shame. And unlike so many commentators on the topic of genetic modification, he comes neither to promote nor condemn. His purpose is to understand.
02.02.2007
Commercialization of Bt cotton seen
The commercialization in three years of the genetically-modified Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton marks the revival of the local cotton industry that largely depends on import for its sustenance. After two years of going through import procedures for Bt cotton seeds to be shipped from China, the Philippines will finally be able to conduct field testings on the Bt cotton where authorities bank their hope on displacing the country’s yearly P2.4-billion cotton lint imports and raising farmers’ yield and income.
02.02.2007
EU considers overhaul of transparency rules
The European Commission is looking into how it can overhaul rules on public access to EU documents as citizens" requests for information increase year on year. Statistics show that the council - member states" secretariat - and commission turn down one third of the applications for information access, while the parliament refuses around 20 percent. [...] ”There is a culture of secrecy running through the European Commission, and the public and groups like Friends of the Earth must fight for every piece of paper to be made public,” said a Friends of the Earth campaigner last year after the ombudsman agreed that the commission had been wrong in refusing to release documents on scientific concerns about the safety of genetically modified foods.
02.02.2007
Can food from cloned animals be called organic?
There"s nothing like a tender steak from a free-range, grass-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, organic and -- oh, yes -- cloned cow. Or is there? [...] In the opinion of some in the biotechnology arena, the federal definition of organic food would allow them to label food from clones as organic, as long as those clones were raised organically.
02.02.2007
New Zealand"s records fail to keep up with seed imports
The nation’s biosecurity system of checking seed imports at the border is being manipulated, says a former secretary of the Justice Department. David Oughton, who was called in to run an inquiry into how two consignments of seed contaminated with genetically engineered seed entered the country late last year, said yesterday the manipulations were not from any ulterior motive ”but merely to clear the records”. He said biosecurity computer records showed 30 corn consignments during the past 12 months with incomplete records.
02.02.2007
Marriott eliminates trans fats, is largest hotelier to join ban
In a move affecting the cooking of more than 6 million pounds of french fries a year, Marriott International is eliminating frying oil containing trans fats from its more than 2,300 hotels in the United States and Canada. [...] For decades, restaurants have been using vegetable oils that have gone through a process called hydrogenation, which increases shelf life but produces trans fats. The new oils are made with genetically modified soybean oil that contains lower levels of an acid that reduces shelf life.
02.02.2007
Ancient genes used to produce salt-tolerant non-GM wheat in Australia
Two recently discovered genes from an ancient wheat variety have led to a major advance in breeding new salt-tolerant varieties. [...] «The two genes originally came from a wheat ancestor, Triticum monococcum,” says research team leader, CSIRO Plant Industry’s Dr Rana Munns. «They were unwittingly crossed into a durum wheat line about 35 years ago and are normally not present in any modern wheat.”
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia (01.02.2007): Ancient genes used to produce salt-tolerant wheat
- South East Farm Press, USA (30.01.2007): Researchers look for nematode resistance in corn varieties
- Food Navigator, France (01.02.2007): New player to tap tomato waste for cheaper lycopene
01.02.2007
Island Dreams - Puerto Rico has designs on becoming the next hub for both biotech manufacturing and research
map of municipalities of Puerto Rico supporting life science businessScanning down the list of companies packed onto the 100-mile-long island of Puerto Rico is like reading a who"s who of the drug industry; in the past few decades, nearly every U.S. firm has shipped at least part of its manufacturing to the commonwealth, largely to enjoy hefty tax breaks and an ample, affordable workforce. Firms providing support services have cropped up around the drug facilities, establishing the infrastructure for what is now widely recognized as a manufacturing powerhouse. [...] Yet all that investment in Puerto Rico isn"t happening in a vacuum. The commonwealth enjoyed decades of unmitigated success in attracting traditional drug companies, but competition for biopharmaceutical projects has quickly taken hold. Ireland and Singapore have become aggressive suitors for biotech business, and it is becoming apparent that Puerto Rico will need to step up its game to continue to be a major player. Puerto Rico "now realizes that Singapore wants what they have" and is going after it full force, says Paul Romness, an economic development consultant at Odell Simms & Associates.
01.02.2007
Speaking out for the consumer of Jamaica
MONTH after month he lobbies for consumers" rights... unpaid. For Carlton Stewart, the president of the National Consumers League (NCL), it is the intrinsic rewards that motivate him. Stepping inside his office on Beechwood Avenue - a small, sparsely furnished, wooden structure where he works along with two paid staffers - provides sufficient evidence that he is not about making money. [...] One of his main concerns is the issue of genetically modified food which he says is proudly displayed on shelves, many times with labels that do not reveal the truth about the actual contents of the packages.
