Planet Diversity World Congress on the Future of Food and Agriculture

Actualité

01.01.1970

Tanzanian Minister of Agriculture calls for GE crops at USAID conference

A FOUR-DAY meeting organised by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Dar es Salaam is deliberating on and identifying priority areas for a five-year research initiative funded by the US Agency for International Development to be implemented in the country. The study will cost $3.2 million during the first year and will focus on management practices that integrate better cereals, legumes, vegetables, livestock and trees in mixedfarming systems and allow for more efficient use of resources, enhanced food production and higher farm incomes. The conference so far has highlighted the fact that government seems set to open the doors to genetically modified crops.

01.01.1970

Farmers at Monsanto Pakistan press conference urged for GE maize approval

The farming community on Wednesday urged the government to approve the genetically modified corn, which is being planted successfully across the globe, for commercial plantation in Pakistan. The farmers, belonging to Sahiwal, Okara, Pakpattan, Dapalpur and Chichawatni, made this demand during a meeting with the senior officials of Monsanto Pakistan, a leading agricultural company. Media representatives were also present on the occasion.

01.01.1970

Union of Concerned Scientists gives Monsanto an ?F? in sustainable agriculture

The Union of Concerned Scientists today published a new web feature documenting how agribusiness giant Monsanto Company is failing to deliver on its promise to make the U.S. agriculture system more sustainable. [...] ?Monsanto talks about ?producing more, conserving more, improving lives,? but its products are largely not living up to those aspirations,? said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with UCS?s Food and Environment Program. ?In reality, the company is producing more engineered seeds and herbicide and improving its bottom line, but at the expense of conservation and long-term sustainability.?

01.01.1970

Campaigners clash over industry claims of rise in GM crops

Pro- and anti-GM organisations clashed on Tuesday over the accuracy of industry figures which suggested a rise internationally of 8% in the acreage of GM crops in 2011, a 16th straight rise since they were first sold in 1996. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotic Applications, an industry body funded by GM companies including Monsanto, Bayer CropScience and CropLife International, claimed in its annual report that biotech crops grew by 12m hectares, to 160 million hectares, in 2011.

01.01.1970

Industry figures confirm GM food is a commercial flop in Europe

Annual industry figures to be released on Tuesday are expected to confirm the commercial failure of genetically modified food in Europe, said Greenpeace. Only around 0.06% of the EU?s farmland was used in 2011 to grow GM food, according to data in the report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a group funded by the biotech industry to promote GM crops. [...] After 16 years of aggressive commercialisation, over 80% of global GM crop production is still restricted to only four countries in the Americas: the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. Recent attempts to introduce GM food to China (GM rice) and India (GM aubergine) have failed.

01.01.1970

Global status of commercialized biotech/GM crops: 2011

?Unprecedented adoption rates are testimony to overwhelming trust and confidence in biotech crops by millions of farmers worldwide,? said James. ?Since biotech crop commercialization in 1996, farmers in 29 countries worldwide made more than 100 million decisions to plant and replant more than 1.25 billion hectares ? an area of crop land 25 percent larger than the total land mass of the United States or China.?

01.01.1970

Gujarat (India) kids forced to work in Bt cotton fields

Four years ago, 15-year-old Sugna Kumari thought she would never get out alive from the sexual exploitation she suffered in Gujarat. She was also made to work in a cotton field. The plight of Damini, 16, was no better. She was forced into prostitution and taken to several states. The two tribal girls of Rajasthan are victims of a larger racket. Over 1,00,000 children in Udaipur have been sexually exploited and used as bonded labour in the Bt cotton fields of neighbouring Gujarat.

01.01.1970

Indian meeting on GE crops for food security

Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education and the Association of Biotechnology-Led Enterprises will hold a conference on ?Biotechnology crops for food security in India' in February 27 in Bangalore. [...] ?The moratorium on Bt brinjal and delay in functionalising Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India are results of opposition by anti-technology activists. This is keeping us away from benefiting from biotech,? FBAE said.

01.01.1970

From food security to food justice in India

If the malnourished in India formed a country, it would be the world's fifth largest ? almost the size of Indonesia. [...] Yet, the Indian elite shrieks at the prospect of formalising a universal right to food. Notwithstanding the collective moral deficit this reveals, it also shows that the millions of Indians whose food rights are so flagrantly violated are completely voiceless in the policy space. India's problem is not only to secure food, but to secure food justice.

01.01.1970

Untangling India?s Bt cotton fraud

WHEN the much-awaited public sector Bt or genetically modified cotton was released for cultivation in 2009, there was celebration in the scientific establishment. [...] Now, almost two years down the line the full details of the unsavoury episode have emerged and, according to old ICAR hands, this is possibly the biggest research scandal involving as it does the Indian Agriculture Research Institute?s prestigious National Research Centre for Plant Biotechnology.

01.01.1970

Monsanto caught illegally planting GM maize in India

"Monsanto's GM maize trials have been going on for several seasons now in various locations around the country. It took a rare scientist in one monitoring team to point out the fact that planting of the herbicide-tolerant GM maize took place without permission from competent authorities! What is more damning is that there is no evidence of any discussion or action by the regulators on this finding. This clearly demonstrates that the regulators are unconcerned about biosafety violations or contamination and are protecting and supporting offenders like Monsanto", said Kavitha Kuruganti, Member, Coalition for a GM-Free India.

01.01.1970

Bangladesh approved Golden Rice field trials with modern high-yield variety

The state-run Bangladesh Rice Research Institute late last month got the approval for procuring seeds of the transgenic rice, popularly known as ?Golden Rice?, for its first-ever trial production in the country. [...] Bangladesh?s most productive rice variety - BRRI Dhan-29 - along with an IRRI variety IR-64 and a Filipino variety RC-28 have gone through the process in which these were genetically engineered to have greater expressions of corn gene responsible for producing beta carotene, a source of vitamin A.

01.01.1970

Danish EU Presidency propose compromise on partial GM ban

Biotech companies should be allowed to grow genetically modified crops in some EU countries if they agree to avoid sales into the countries that want to ban them, a draft compromise proposal drawn up by Danish EU diplomats shows. The compromise is designed to break a deadlock in talks among member states on draft EU rules to allow them to decide individually whether or not to ban GM cultivation - a proposal by the European Commission in 2010 that has made little headway so far.

01.01.1970

French food companies can use ?GMO Free? labels, government says

French food companies can label products as ?GMO Free? to indicate they contain no or trace amounts of genetically modified crops, the government said. Rules will take effect July 1 for producers that want to label foods as biotechnology-free after ministers signed a decree yesterday, according to a joint e-mailed statement from four ministries today. Existing regulations require labels to indicate the presence of genetically modified organisms, according to the statement.

01.01.1970

GE food safety data from Monsanto do not meet basic scientific standards

In a letter to Commissioner Dalli, Testbiotech and GeneWatch UK give new evidence of EFSA´s failure to perform risk assessment of genetically engineered plants. A detailed analysis of original documents as filed by Monsanto for their genetically engineered maize sold under brand of Genuity VT Triple PRO shows that crucial documents do not meet the standards of so called Good Laboratory Practice. As for example the company states in their investigation of the combinatorial toxicity of insecticides produced in the plants ?there was no intention to conduct this study according to Good Laboratory Practice Standards.?

01.01.1970

Opposition to Monsanto´s patent on Indian melon

The renowned Indian activist Vandana Shiva and the European NGO-platform ?No Patents on Seeds? joined forces today to file an opposition against European Patent EP1962578. This patent claims melons with a natural resistance to certain plant viruses originating in India. The patent was granted in May 2011 as an invention to the US company Monsanto by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, Germany. Critics point out that the patent was granted even though European Patent Law does not allow patents on conventional breeding. Furthermore, the reasons for the opposition also include the issue of biopiracy, which is why Vandana Shiva and her organisation Navdanya from India are engaged in this opposition.

01.01.1970

GE papayas for Japan regarded as ?Super Bowl? test case for GE food acceptance

They are the only gene-altered fruit on the market today in Japan, a country with strict laws regarding genetically-modified organisms. [...] U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Dennis Gonsalves, who helped develop the new fruit variety, may be its best salesman. [...]
Gonsalves calls it the ?Super Bowl? of marketing challenges: getting a population that?s still widely skeptical of genetic-engineering technology to enjoy a beautiful, delicious papaya with a GMO label on it.

01.01.1970

EU arable farmers must embrace new tech or risk being overtaken

Speaking at the annual Nuffield Ireland conference in Killkenny this month, arable consultant Mr Hughes, who also farms carrots and daffodils with his father, said producers in developing economies such as Argentina had slashed costs while increasing production levels. Meanwhile, producers in Europe had been forced to focus on short-term environmental protection rather than investing in technology that could produce more food while impacting less on the land.

01.01.1970

China won?t have genetically modified crops in 2012, official says

China hasn?t approved large-scale commercialization of genetically modified grain seeds and won?t produce GM crops this year, Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Rural Work Leading Group under the State Council, said at a press conference in Beijing today. The nation has no corn shortage and imported the grain last year to balance supply and demand made difficult by geographical issues, Chen said.

01.01.1970

Support Ugandan farmers to save their indigenous seeds from GMOs

Uganda has a National Biosafety Policy (2008) in place and is also in the process of formulating a law to officially introduce GMOs in the country. Surprisingly, the absence of the biosafety law has not stopped laboratory and field testing for GMO crops such as GM bananas in Kawanda, BT cotton in Serere, GM maize in Kasese (under Water Efficient Maize for Africa -WEMA project), and cassava, rice and sweet potatoes at Namulonge research institute. [...] Ugandans should note that introduction of GMOs is likely to quicken the distortion of Uganda?s rich biodiversity and cause farmers to be dependent on external inputs for their livelihoods.

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