Planet Diversity World Congress on the Future of Food and Agriculture

Actualité

01.01.1970

VJAS demand Indian Prime Minister to ban Bt cotton

The Vidarbha Jan Andolan (VJAS) activists have reported shocking facts, all types of plants and ruby crops are severely infected by Mealy Bug, a virus gifted by imported Bt.cotton supplied MNC Monsanto. The VJAS warned that coming khariff season will have it??s wider effect and larger area spread covering all most all crops and set to destroy of next year not only cotton crop but all the other food crops hence too plant eater killer. VJAS president Kishor Tiwari urged the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ban Monsanto Bt. Cotton seeds in agrarian crisis hit West Vidarbha in order to save more than 3 million distress and debt trapped vidarbha cotton farmers. He also demanded CBI probe over the Mealy Bug spread in Vidarbha region.

01.01.1970

The Bt corn hype on the Philippines

Searice conducted a study in 2006 mainly to find out the farmers? adoption and assessment of Bt corn. The study covered three of the top corn-producing provinces in the country: Isabela, Bukidnon and North Cotabato. The results showed that only 25 farmers out of 790 respondents or a measly 3.16 percent planted Bt corn during the main cropping season of 2006 amounting to only 3 percent of all the respondents? total corn area. The study also found out that prior to the first cropping season, few farmers who tried using Bt corn did not repeat planting its seeds.

01.01.1970

Call to resist Bayer Cropscience?s onslaught of GM cotton experiments in South Africa

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) condemns Bayer Cropsciences? spate of no less than 8 permit applications for field trials involving 8 Genetically Modified (GM) cotton varieties. These GM cotton varieties are to be tested in South Africa?s Limpopo Province, where the majority of the population is poor and marginalised. The applications come on the first anniversary of Bayer?s US$310 million acquisition of Monsanto?s of Stoneville Pedigreed Seed Company - a leading US producer of cottonseeds.

01.01.1970

Indian university ventures into developing transgenic hill banana

Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) is developing transgenic hill banana, which would be resistant to bunchy top virus (BBTV). Speaking to FE, P Balasubramanian of the TNAU?s centre for plant molecular biology said, ?We are planning to engineer resistance in the hill banana cultivar, Virupakshi against BBTV. A full-length 850bp replicase gene of BBTV from infected hill banana was isolated in our laboratory. The isolated sequence showed a high homology to the already reported BBTV replicase gene sequence from India in NCBI database.

01.01.1970

Greenpeace Romania launches ?Gene Detective? campaign

Greenpeace today launches the ?Gene detective? campaign to expose locations for cultivation of GM crops because Governments institutions keeps GMO data as secret. ?It?s time that somebody to defend romanians will not eat GMOs against agro-chemical companies and their satelites from the government that treat us as guinea pigs since they refuse to publish locations for GM crops cultivation and the result of lab analysis for suspect food.

01.01.1970

U.S. National Cooperative Grocers Association urges consumers to reject GE beets

With planting season underway in many parts of the nation, National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) wants consumers to know that a recent deregulation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will enable farms to plant potentially harmful, genetically engineered (GE) sugar beet seeds. NCGA is a business services cooperative representing 110 natural food co-ops nationwide.

01.01.1970

Germany?s ?GM-free? positive claims law now in force

The last hurdles for voluntary labeling ?ohne Gentechnik? [= no genetic engineering] of foodstuffs have now been removed. This was announced by [Germany?s] Federal Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer on Tuesday at a meeting with his EU colleagues in Brdo, Slovenia. [...] According to the new regulation, manufacturers can now add to the packaging of milk, meat and eggs the words ?no genetic engineering? ? even if the feedstuff may contain genetically modified additives.

01.01.1970

Food crisis may open door to genetically modified rice

Some rice-producing nations may drop their reluctance to use genetically modified (GM) seeds in the next few years to help offset a crisis that has forced millions to go hungry, a top expert said. ?If we consider the challenges that face us, I think we would be very foolish and actually irresponsible to not invest in the development of GM crops,? said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). ?I think that governments will take a hard look and say why again are we dragging our feet in adopting GM technology,?? he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

01.01.1970

GM crops needed to feed world?s livestock

Livestock farmers need access to genetically modified crop technologies if they are to help feed the burgeoning world population, says Barry O?Neil (pictured), deputy director general of MAF Biosecurity New Zealand and president of the World Organisation for Animal Health OIE. Speaking at a briefing in London he said the world population was set to rise by 50% by 2020. Already a third of all arable crops were grown for animal feed, with some fed through inefficient feed conversion systems. Unless efficiency improved output would fail to keep up with demand.

01.01.1970

High Court upholds procedures in GE brassica trials in New Zealand

The High Court in Wellington has upheld procedures followed by the Environmental Risk Management Authority in approving field trials of genetically modified vegetables. The decision follows a hearing earlier this year in which GE-Free New Zealand argued that ERMA?s approval for the trials breached legal requirements. Crop and Food Research planted the genetically modified cabbages, broccoli and other brassicas in 2007, after getting clearance for 10 years of field tests.

01.01.1970

UK activist occupy labs associated with GM trials

Environmental protestors from Earth First! UK today staged a peaceful protest at the laboratory and offices of the National Institute for Agricultural Botany (NIAB), in Girton, Cambridge. About a dozen activists invaded the site and hung banners from buildings in protest at a trial for genetically modified (GM) potatoes being carried out at the Institute by BASF, a German based company.

01.01.1970

Fine France daily for GM law - EU court adviser

France should pay a daily fine of more than 230,000 euros ($354,900) until it updates its laws on genetically modified (GM) crops and foods, an adviser to the European Union?s highest court said on Thursday. In an opinion given to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Advocate General Jan Mazak said Paris had failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that its statute book did not properly integrate an EU directive on releasing GM organisms into the environment.

01.01.1970

Scinetists advocate GE Bt cowpeas for Westafrica

AS WORLD leaders met earlier this week in Rome to find solutions to the global food crisis, a number of scientists and other stakeholders also converged on the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to consider the possibility of increasing Bt cowpea production in Africa to feed the continent. The three-day international conference, organized by the Nairobi-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) and the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, attracted participants from Australia, the United States and some African countries.

01.01.1970

Chairman of Syngenta?s board high on modern agriculture

Martin Taylor, the Switzerland based chairman of the board of Syngenta AG, is high on modern agriculture as a way to solve the food crisis and says Canada has a part to play. Stewart, on a two-week tour of Canada, addressed a group of farm leaders and agricultural journalists in Guelph Tuesday night. ?Agriculture is sexy for the first time since the Bronze Age,? Taylor said and the debate about how to deal with a worldwide food crisis is running high. But world leaders aren?t talking about adopting modern technology as a means of solving it.

01.01.1970

Fiddling in Rome while the world burns?

When the Chief Executives Board of the United Nations met in Bern, Switzerland, in late April 2008 to assess how the international community could best contribute to combating the global food crisis, they agreed to set up a High Level Task Force, chaired by the UN Secretary General, with the Director General of the FAO as the Vice Chair. The Task Force is composed of the heads of the relevant UN specialised agencies, funds and programmes, the Bretton Woods Institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund), and relevant parts of the UN Secretariat. The aim was to promote a unified response to this huge challenge.

01.01.1970

EU Environment Ministers agree GMO approval overhaul

EU environment ministers have supported a proposal from France to overhaul Europe?s approval process for genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday (5 June), the ministers decided that the risk assessment procedures within the GMO evaluation and authorisation system needed to be improved and there needs to be a longer-term discussion of their impact on the environment. ?The scientific advice provided by the European Food Safety Agency [the body that carries out the evaluation procedure] is of high quality,? said European environment commissioner Stavros Dimas speaking to reporters after the meeting.

01.01.1970

EU Environment Ministers agree GMO approval overhaul

EU environment ministers have supported a proposal from France to overhaul Europe?s approval process for genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday (5 June), the ministers decided that the risk assessment procedures within the GMO evaluation and authorisation system needed to be improved and there needs to be a longer-term discussion of their impact on the environment. ?The scientific advice provided by the European Food Safety Agency [the body that carries out the evaluation procedure] is of high quality,? said European environment commissioner Stavros Dimas speaking to reporters after the meeting.

01.01.1970

Indian experts cast doubts over GM crops? role in inflation control

Genetically modified (GM) crops do not help increase the production level and therefore are not an effective solution to check inflation that has been triggered by demand-supply mismatch, according to experts. ?There is no concrete evidence that GM crops increase production. They only control insects, which can well be done by some other organic methods,? Kerala Biodiversity board chairman VS Vijayan said. Speaking at a meeting on biotechnology and biosafety here on Wednesday, Mr Vijayan said apart from having health hazards, the GM seeds are also expensive.

01.01.1970

Destruction of Brazilian Amazon spikes in April

Destruction of Brazil?s huge swath of Amazon rain forest rose sharply in April, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite photos released by government researchers on Monday.? [...] To fight the upswing, the government will begin impounding cattle from ranches where illegal deforestation has been detected, [Environment Minister] Minc said. Cattle ranching, logging and soybean farming are among the main forces driving Amazon deforestation.

01.01.1970

Farmers bringing message to the Food Crisis Summit in Rome expelled

Farmer and civil society leaders carrying out a peaceful action today in Rome, Italy at the FAO Summit on the Food Crisis were forcefully removed from the premises. At around 1:30pm farmers and representatives of civil society organisations staged an action at the press room to deliver a message that millions of additional people are joining the ranks of the hungry as the corporations that control the global food system are making record profits.

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