Actualité
10.01.2008
French experts say doubts remain on GMO maize risks
French experts said on Wednesday serious doubts remained over whether the only genetically modified (GMO) crop grown in France was safe, a move likely to prompt the extension of a current ban on GMOs. A government-appointed committee of scientists, farmers, politicians and non-governmental organisations had examined MON 810, a maize developed by US biotech giant Monsanto. ?The committee cannot say anything but that there are serious doubts on the use of MON 810,? the head of the committee, senator Jean-Francois Legrand, told a joint news conference with French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo.
- Reuters (10.01.2008): French experts say doubts remain on GMO maize risks
- Food Navigator, France (09.01.2008): France one step closer to extending GM ban
- Agence France Press, France (09.01.2008): Sarkozy ready to consider ban on GM crops in France
- Reuters (09.01.2008): French farm union says government playing GMO games
08.01.2008
Monsanto reaps huge rewards from its blossoming seed business
Genetic engineering was once an immensely controversial concept. A U.S. firm, Calgene Inc., created line of genetically engineered tomatoes and became the first genetic-engineering biotech firm to go public. But it found a lot of resistance, particularly in overseas markets, and Calgene ended up selling out - to Monsanto - in 1997. Once viewed as controversial, genetically engineered crops are now viewed as essential, if not crucial. And Monsanto is benefiting from the huge surge in demand that has resulted. The company has established firm footholds in markets around the globe. Farmers in China and India planted more than 17 million acres of biotech crops last year, according to BusinessWeek. Approximately 7% of the world?s farmland acreage is planted with genetically modified crops. If Monsanto?s profit is any indication, those numbers are likely to increase.
08.01.2008
Taiwanese Government says no to food from cloned animals
An expected decision from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to declare cloned animals safe to eat will not affect Taiwan?s policy on food produced from such animals, a Department of Health (DOH) official said yesterday. ?We have taken a go-slow approach and it will be a long long time -- if ever -- before food from cloned animals is allowed on the shelves [here],? Bureau of Food Sanitation (BFS) Director Cheng Huei-wen said. ?The US decision will not sway our judgement,? Cheng said.
08.01.2008
Cloned livestock poised to receive U.S. FDA clearance
Get ready for a food fight over milk and meat from cloned animals and their offspring. After more than six years of wrestling with the question of whether meat and milk from them are safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to declare as early as next week that they are. The FDA had asked producers of cloned livestock not to sell food products from such animals pending its ruling on their safety. It isn?t clear whether the FDA will lift this voluntary hold.
08.01.2008
UK govt scientist sees few benefits from biofuels
Rising production of biofuels has distorted government budgets, helped to drive up food prices and led to deforestation in south-east Asia, the chief scientist of Britain?s farm ministry said on Friday. ?The way we are currently producing biofuels is not the way to go,? former World Bank chief scientist Robert Watson said, citing the U.S. ethanol programme and German support for biodiesel as among the least cost effective. Watson told the Oxford Farming Conference that biofuels production from sugar cane in Brazil may be one of the only sustainable current methods.
08.01.2008
French government to debate GE crop policy
France?s environmental policy will be discussed in a hearing at the Senate tomorrow in the lead up to a vote on whether or not to extend the country?s temporary ban on genetically modified (GM) crops. Last October, President Sarkozy put into place a moriatum on the commercial cultivation of GM maize, meaning no new crops could be planted until the country?s biotech position is made clear. The ban is due to come to an end in February, by which time a decision is expected to be announced.
08.01.2008
Europe ?will be forced to re-think on GM crops?
High grain prices and new carbon-saving crop varieties will force Europe to rethink its opposition to genetically modified crops, the Oxford farming conference has been told. Neil Parish, Conservative MEP for the South West and chairman of the European Parliament?s agriculture committee, said that the likelihood of high grain prices for the foreseeable future would create a gap between domestic livestock and imports fed on cheaper GM grain. At the same time, the latest GM wheat and oil seed rape crops now predicted to hit the market within three years by Monsanto, the genetic engineering company, were capable of reducing the need for nitrogen fertiliser by 30 per cent.
07.01.2008
Update on GE pharma plants
SemBioSys Genetics Inc., a biotechnology company developing a portfolio of therapeutic proteins for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, today announced that it has signed an option agreement with The Instituto de Agrobiotecnologia Rosario S.A. (INDEAR) based in Rosario, Argentina. [...] Under the terms of the agreement, INDEAR will evaluate the utility of using plant-produced chymosin for the production of cheese in South America.
- SemBioSys, Canada (29.01.2008): SemBioSys signs option agreement for safflower-produced food ingredient
- Orlando Sentinal, USA (02.03.2008): UCF professor Henry Daniell works on diabetes cure
- Biolex Therapeutics, USA (07.02.2008): Biolex Therapeutics commences United States phase 2a trial of Locteron(R) in Hepatitis C
04.01.2008
Monsanto?s rich harvest
Forget the ?ag? label—its genetically altered seeds have helped quarterly earnings to nearly triple and share prices are tracking the rise of oil Monsanto?s profits are growing like kudzu. The St. Louis producer of genetically modified seeds has been a prime beneficiary of the growing demand for food and alternative fuel sources. Farmers around the world, but particularly in the U.S., Argentina, and Brazil, are planting more of Monsanto?s seeds, most of which are genetically engineered to resist herbicides and repel bugs.
- Business Week, USA (04.01.2008): Monsanto?s rich harvest
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, USA (04.01.2008): Monsanto soars on strong first-quarter earnings, product pipeline
- Bloomberg, USA (03.01.2008): Monsanto more than doubles profit, raises forecast
- Monsanto, USA (03.01.2008): Monsanto sees most robust R&D pipeline in company history
- Monsanto, USA (03.01.2008): Higher sales of Monsanto?s Roundup, seeds and traits businesses in Latin America drive first-quarter results
04.01.2008
Philippine Senator urges end of subsidies for hybrid rice and GE crops
Senator Loren Legarda on Wednesday urged the government to diversify its agricultural development program this year instead of limiting it to promoting hybrid rice and genetically modified crops. Legarda noted that while the hybrid rice subsidy program was supposed to have ended in 2007, the Department of Agriculture had sought for a three-year extension on the subsidy. [...] ?The contention basically is that increased hybrid rice adoption and production have not materialized,? she added.
04.01.2008
French anti-GM activist Jose Bove on hunger strike
French anti-globalisation activist Jose Bove has launched a hunger strike, saying on Thursday he would not eat until the government imposes a year-long ban on genetically-modified crops. The 54-year-old Bove launched his protest action with 15 supporters in a vacant building in Paris? financial district that was taken over last year by the homeless. ?I have stopped eating since last night,? Bove said.
04.01.2008
Vietnam creates first ever glittering GE sea horses
Under the blue light of a fluorescent lamp, 108 striped sea horses glitter like gold. These sea horses are worth their weight in gold ? literally: they are the first genetically engineered animals to be created in Vietnam. [...] These sea horses were born using the ?gene-shooting method? pioneered in this country by Phan Kim Ngoc and his colleagues at Viet Nam National University?s College of Science, in Ho Chi Minh City.
04.01.2008
India?s cotton sales may beat forecast on U.S. crop
India is forecast to gather a record 31 million bales in the year to September after farmers increased the use of genetically altered seeds, Commissioner Singh said. A bale weighs 170 kilograms (375 pounds). The U.S. will plant cotton on 9.19 million acres this year, the smallest in more than two decades and down 15 percent from the previous year, Tennessee-based Informa said last month. ?India is filling in the gap? created by reduced supplies from the U.S., Singh said.
03.01.2008
Jose Bové on hunger strike against GMOs
French activist and head of the farmers union Confederation Paysanne José Bove started a hunger strike demanding a moratorium on GMO cultivation in France.
03.01.2008
Safety of GE corn queried by scientist in New Zealand
Uncertainty over the safety of genetically engineered corn has not been reflected in Government announcements, a leading gene scientist believes. [...] University of Canterbury scientist Dr Jack Heinemann, the director of the university?s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety, has taken issue with the NZFSA. He said the authority had made some ?interesting comments? in its public statements that were inconsistent with the expert opinion it had sought from crown research institute ESR (Environmental Science and Research) on a report by Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
03.01.2008
South Korean government to toughen rules on GMO imports
A number of government agencies will collectively be in charge of monitoring the research and development of genetically-modified crops and animals, which may cause confusion and inefficiency in the regulating system. The Ministry of Science and Technology announced Friday that the research, development, import, export and distribution of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), or living modified organisms (LMO), will require prior approval from different government agencies from Jan. 1, depending on the safety level of the materials and the type of possible hazard it has for the environment or for people.
03.01.2008
Mercosur and EU to collaborate on biotechnology
The Latin American trade pact Mercosur and the European Union have agreed to develop a programme to fund agricultural biotechnology projects in Latin America. [...] The European Union (EU) has pledged US$10.4 million to the programme, with Mercosur members Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay investing US$1.4 million. [... BIOTECSUR] will fund four regional projects in four areas of interest: forestry, oilseeds, ovine (sheep) and avian (bird).
03.01.2008
Australia looks to GM crops after scorching 2007
Australia?s agriculture minister on Thursday hailed genetically modified crops as a means to help farmers combat climate change, as data showed 2007 was the country?s sixth hottest year on record. Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said Australia?s farmers needed to face up to climate change, foreshadowing major changes to drought relief payments worth billions of dollars. Burke said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd?s recently-elected government wanted to improve farmers? ability to deal with climate change, rather than simply propping them up as they struggled through the worst drought in a century.
03.01.2008
Thailand?s policy U-turn on GM has crucial ramifications
Despite strong opposition by environmental and consumers organisations, and also by traders of organic products, the Surayud Chulanont cabinet has decided to lift a ban on field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops. The policy U-turn on Dec 25, 2007, two days after the general election, was a slap in the face of political etiquette. Previously, the interim government had promised it would not pass any major policies and/or projects as their term of office was running out. The latest decision will have crucial ramifications on the future of farmers and export markets, worth several billion baht.
03.01.2008
Iran says first cloned sheep thriving
Iranian scientists said Monday that the country?s first cloned sheep is thriving 15 months after birth, eating well and frolicking among a flock of normal sheep. The cloned male sheep named Royana was born Sept. 30, 2006 in the historic central city of Isfahan, less than two months after the country?s first cloned animal, also a lamb, died within minutes of birth. But unlike it?s predecessor, Royana survived the postnatal complications typical for cloned animals and is now celebrated as Iran?s scientific breakthrough and achievement.
