Actualité
01.01.1970
Greenpeace forces Carrefour to withdraw genetically modified soy bread in Romania
Carrefour Romania withdrew from its shelves all Snack Attacks products on Monday, reasoning that its bread contains genetically modified soy bread. The action comes after Greenpeace protesters argued with proof that the white bread does not contain any GMO labelling for consumers. The bread was provided by Snack Attack, a well known fast food chain. State authorities were taken aback by the decision but said that they would meet with both Greenpeace officials and Snack Attack representatives on Tuesday to analyze the situation.
01.01.1970
All About: GM Rice
Feed the world’s starving. Cure vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Put an end to crop failure. Combat global warming. Such are the promises of genetically modified (GM) rice. But if it all sounds too good to be true, environmentalists say, that’s because it is. For proponents of GM rice, GM food is the obvious solution to the ongoing problems of population growth, changing climate conditions and malnutrition. For its opponents, it’s an unnecessary and potentially catastrophic exercise which only feeds corporate interests and does little to solve the real problems of global food supply, malnutrition and farming practices.
01.01.1970
Cloned pine trees failing in New Zealand
New Zealand’s world status as the leader in pine tree cloning could be threatened if scientists can’t solve a problem with some of the ’super trees’ grown in Whakatane. Horizon2, a forestry biotechnology company in the Bay of Plenty, has gone global in its efforts to find out why some of the mother plants from one of its elite pine tree breeding programmes are mysteriously failing. An expert on somatic embryogenesis - the process used to clone the trees - flew in from Ireland to assist the company. Dr David Thompson, will try to work out why some of the mother plants are turning yellow and then becoming so weak that they snap off at ground level.
01.01.1970
Sacred plants might stop Bt eggplant trials in Karnataka (India)
Heritage and the humble brinjal have come in conflict in India’s southern Karnataka state, with the controversy even threatening to halt a US funded biotechnology project. [...] But Ramesh Bhat, one of India’s leading biologists and former deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, [...] says field trials of Bt-brinjal carry the danger of the Bt gene contaminating the native variety of brinjal called Mattu gulla which people consider ’sacred’ because its seeds were reportedly given to the people of Mattu village by the 15th century Hindu saint Vadiraja.
01.01.1970
Genetically modified plants vacuum up toxins
Scientists have figured out a way to trick plants into doing the dirty work of environmental cleanup, U.S. and British researchers reported on Monday. Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically altered poplar trees to pull toxins out of contaminated ground water, offering a cost-effective way of cleaning up environmental pollutants. A group of British researchers, meanwhile, has developed genetically altered plants that can clean residues of military explosives from the environment.
01.01.1970
China to continue actively developing stem cell research, GM crops - official
China will pay close attention to ethical issues as it continues to support stem cell research and the development of GM (genetically-modified) crops, a senior official from the Ministry of Science and Technology said. ’Our stance on these frontier technologies is very clear. We are actively developing these technologies -- they do involve moral issues and we have formulated guidelines about this,’ said Li Xueyong, China’s vice minister of science and technology.
01.01.1970
Bangladesh says new flood-resistant non-GE rice offers hope to farmers
A new strain of rice may be able to resist floods that destroy vast tracts of paddy fields in Bangladesh each year, offering hope to millions of poor farmers, researchers say. The farmers lose their rice crops when fields are submerged by annual floods triggered when rivers, fed by heavy monsoon rains and melting Himalayan glaciers, burst their banks. [...] Swarna Sub-1 was invented in 2004 after IRRI researchers implanted a submergence-resistant gene in a massively popular high-yielding Indian rice variety through conventional breeding.
01.01.1970
American expert thanks Poland for keeping GMO-free
Jeffrey Smith, an American expert on genetically modified food has thanked the Polish government for its efforts to keep Poland a GM foods - free country. Genetically modified food is not natural and not safe for your health, Smith told a press conference at the Polish environment ministry. [...] Polish environment minister Jan Szyszko stressed that Poland wants to keep its GMO free status because of which our food products are especially valued on the European market.
01.01.1970
Protests over Biosafety Bill in Kenya
The battle against the Biosafety Bill went a notch higher on Tuesday when civil society groups took to the streets to urge President Kibaki not to assent to the Bill. The groups claims the Bill seeks to introduce Genetically Modified Food products through the back door. [...] With only a few days before Parliament is prorogued it is uncertain whether Mps will be able to finalize debate on the Biosafety Bill or it may just have to wait until the tenth Parliament.
01.01.1970
Agric biotechnology — Mixed blessing for Zimbabwe
WHILE Zimbabwean scientists are upbeat about the need to use biotechnology to improve agricultural productivity, agronomists and environmentalists argue that emerging technologies could have serious implications on the operations of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole. Agronomists and environmentalists who attended a three-day workshop on the implications of Economic Partnership Agreements and the need for the protection of farmers’ rights which was held last week in Harare said modern biotechnology is very expensive in terms of access, affordability and suitability for smallholder farmers in developing countries.
01.01.1970
On GE food labelling in Qatar and India
Qatar may become the first Gulf country to issue legislation regulating the market for genetically modified food, local media said recently. According to the local daily Peninsula newspaper the Supreme Council for Environment and Natural Reserves (SCENR) is seeking approval to form a committee that will address the flow of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and related health concerns.
01.01.1970
GE moss protein factories scaled up in Germany
Normally, they are green, sort of spongy and found in dank nooks and crannies - but mosses have now been designed as therapeutic protein producing factories and are being implemented on a grand scale. Germany-based biotechnology companies Sartorius Stedim Biotech and Greenovation Biotech have come together to provide commercial scale operations of proteins produced by mosses. [...] Sartorius will provide the first photobioreactor within the next few months.
01.01.1970
Columbans warn pro-GM food lobby has eyes on Australia
The Columban Missionaries say the biotech industry which promotes GM food as a solution to global hunger is trying to get GM food crops into Australia. In a statement for World Food Day today, the Sydney-based Columban Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice warns there is strong pressure on State Governments to lift moratoria which were placed in 2003/04 on the growing of GM crops. [...] The Columban Centre for Peace Ecology and Justice on World Food Day 2007 calls on the Australian State Governments to continue the GM Food Moratoria till 2015
01.01.1970
Expected EU GMO corn approvals still seen lacking
US corn experts on Monday welcomed what looked to be impending European Union approval for certain biotech corn varieties, but said the real-life impact on US farmers and seed companies could be minor without further actions to advance a broader acceptance of genetically modified crops in Europe.
01.01.1970
Slow GE feed approvals might lead to mass slaughter and food insecurity in the EU
The ’zero-tolerance’ stance of the EU relating to the presence of genetically modified (GM) plant materials in imported goods has been a point of contention for years, but a report is suggesting new ways it could wreak havoc on the region—by creating a shortage in livestock feed. The report from the European Commission’s (EC’s) agricultural directorate (DG Ag) depicts an EU cut off from its principal supplies of animal feed within two years, if grain-producing countries in North and South America move to so-called ’second-generation’ genetically modified varieties of corn and soy. In a worst-case scenario, that could mean the mass slaughter of livestock in Europe and the loss of the region’s status as a net food exporter, but even less pessimistic estimates have the EU facing a 3.3 million ton feed shortage by 2009–2010.
01.01.1970
Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines campaigning for GMOs
If Filipinos are worried about modified foods, say officers of the Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines, then it’s way too late. That’s because since birth we’ve been nourished on a diet rich in patis, toyo, bagoong, buro, taho, tokwa, not to mention cheese, wine, bread and other foods that have undergone some form of modification. Dr. Saturnina Halos, the coalition’s research director, says food modification is ”the use of living materials to produce or change food,” such as the use of fermentation to change salted fish into patis, soy beans into toyo or soy sauce, or milk to cheese.
01.01.1970
’Modern technology or modern starvation?’, asks British Crop Production Council
”We must defend our ability to protect our crops against pests, diseases and weeds by the appropriate use of modern technology. ”If we do not, we shall legalise modern starvation.” [...] Mr Oliver-Bellasis, who is also chairman of Royal Agricultural Society of England, said in a speech entitled ’Modern technology or modern starvation?’ that a lack of information ensuring that producers had a clear picture of ”tonnes required”, was a contributory factor to the global problem of hunger.
01.01.1970
Bioscience promises foods with therapeutic value, says ISAAA AfriCentre
THE current Parliament has a historic opportunity today to vote and pass into law the Biosafety Bill 2007 to enable Kenya, like other countries, to gain from opportunities presented by biotechnology. As poor and nutrition-deficient country, we need to produce more high-value foods using all available technologies including organic, conventional and biotechnological methods to cushion our people against hunger and diseases.
01.01.1970
Russian scientists stand for GMO
Several respected scientists have spoken in behalf of genetically modified products during last week’s press conference. Among them mass media spotted the director of Research Institute for Nutrition, the dean of Moscow State University’s biology faculty, the head of virology department of Moscow State University and the director of the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology.
01.01.1970
Norman Borlaug hails Brazil scientists to convert natural ecosystems into monocultures
Embrapa owes much of its reputation to its pioneering work here in the cerrado, the vast savannah that stretches for more than 1,000 miles across central Brazil. Written off as useless for centuries, the region has been transformed in less than a generation into Brazil’s grain belt, thanks to the discovery that soils could be made fertile by dousing them with phosphorus and lime, whose optimum mixture was established by Embrapa scientists.
