Planet Diversity World Congress on the Future of Food and Agriculture

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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.

01.01.1970

GM mosquito release not transparent, say German scientists

A group of independent scientists say that the release of genetically modified mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Brazil was not sufficiently transparent or properly regulated which risks undermining the research of what they say is promising technology. The German scientists published a paper on Monday based on their analysis of the insect release which found a deficit in the scientific quality of regulatory documents and a general absence of accurate experimental descriptions available to the public before the release started.

01.01.1970

U.S. National Public Radio?s bias against genetic engineering

Among the most egregious previous transgressions by NPR of fair, professional journalism was a series of programs called ?The DNA Files,? which set up a false moral equivalence by juxtaposing the views of polymathic Princeton Professor Lee Silver against those of Margaret Mellon, long-time NGO-dweller, troglodyte and antagonist of any and all applications of biotechnology. This pairing was a typical example of NPR?s notion of ?balance? ? really ?pseudo-balance?: an eminent mainstream, nonideological academic versus an intransigent, anti-industry, anti-technology, uneducable activist.

01.01.1970

Landmark lawsuit against Monsanto gets day in court

On Jan. 31, a Federal District Court judge agreed to hear oral arguments for a landmark lawsuit - Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al. v. Monsanto.
Over 300,000 people are represented by 83 plaintiffs from 36 organizations in the case against Monsanto. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate Monsanto?s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated because they drift through the air.

01.01.1970

Many speak out on GMO food and labels in Washington State (USA)

Two bills in the Washington Legislature would require labels on genetically modified food, but many proponents talk more about food than labels, a senator says. Reflecting on a hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Water and Rural Economic Development Committee, Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, said he noticed a common theme among many people supporting one of the label bills, Senate Bill 6298. Their testimony ?wasn?t about a labeling bill, but about some people?s opposition to GMOs.?

01.01.1970

GE mosquito industry and scientists develop risk assessment and approval procedures

Mosquitoes such as Aedes aegpyti are less likely to play a significant ecological role compared with species associated with natural wetlands that may be an important food source for birds, bats, fish and other animals. But this doesn?t mean that the community or government regulators will be immediately supportive of GM mosquito release. So while there?s no doubt that any new technology that assists the fight against malaria or dengue will be welcome, the question of how the environmental risks associated with GM mosquitoes will be assessed, on balance, with the potential benefits to human health remains unanswered.

01.01.1970

What should the public know about GM insect trials?

Guy Reeves, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, and his team analyzed publicly available information on the safety assessments conducted by government regulators for the Oxitec trials [...] Too often scientific information important to determining the safety of the releases was not available, Reeves says. [...] ?I entirely understand his calls for transparency in the context of public confidence in the process,? Alphey says. ?But I think he confused transparency and scientific quality.? Just because some safety data is not public, does not mean it is not of high quality, he says.

01.01.1970

U.S. researchers launch first anthocyanin-rich non-GE tomato

OSU horticulture professor Jim Myers says the fruit?s genisis began in the 1960?s when two breeders, from Bulgaria and the U.S., cross-cultivated tomatoes with wild species from Chile and the Galapagos Islands. [...] ?It is the first improved tomato variety in the world that has anthocyanins in its fruit,? he says. [...] ?It?s also important to know that genetic engineering techniques are never used to develop these lines ? these tomatoes are not GMO,? says Myers.

01.01.1970

Japan receives first shipment of Hawaiian Rainbow GE papayas

After 13 years of negotiations, Japan has approved its first shipment of genetically-modified Rainbow papayas from Hawaii. ?The fact that the Japanese have tested it to the nth degree and evaluated its food and environmental safety proves it?s a good product,? said Rod Yonemura, consultant to the 160-member Hawaii Papaya Industry Association based in Hilo, capital of Hawaii?s Big Island. The Dec. 5 shipment consisted of 1,248 5-pound cases for sale and 32 cases for sampling at Coastco Japan, Yonemura said.

01.01.1970

EU GMO honey ruling can be challenged, claims legal expert

Honey producers and importers in the EU and elsewhere face legal and economic uncertainty arising out last autumn?s European Court of Justice?s ruling, claims a legal expert calling for an amendment of the Regulation to exclude honey. [...] Teufer argues that the ECJ ruling goes against the spirit and purposed of the original legislation covering GMOs in food with the European legislator having purposefully excluded several scenarios from the application of the Regulation in order to make it work in practice.

01.01.1970

British farmer union calls for government to show leadership on GMs

The government should show leadership over the issue of genetically modified crops and be more prepared to explain the potential benefits of modern technology, the NFU has warned. NFU president Peter Kendall said there were too many senior politicians who did not grasp the realities of biotechnology in modern agriculture, but made sweeping comments about how the technology was not needed.

01.01.1970

Election of Boulder County (USA) Commissioners to become political battlefield

Commissioner candidates are being asked if they would support a countywide vote by residents on the issue, said Mary VonBreck, a GMO-Free Boulder spokeswoman. ?We want to work with people on how they?ll go about implementing a policy,? Von Breck said. ?It?s a platform issue, and we?re going to take it all the way to November.? GMO-Free Boulder has not yet decided which candidates to support for the county commissioner election, and has not spent any money yet on campaigning, VonBreck said.

01.01.1970

Biosafety and biotechnology reinforce Nigerian economy

Bio-safety can enhance the national economy by providing a useful regulatory framework on the use of genetically modified organisms, Mr. Rufus Ebegba, the Assistant Director, Bio-safety Unit, Federal Ministry of Environment, has said. [...] ?Biotechnology itself as a tool of enhancing the economy in the agricultural and industrial sectors in the country will be regulated by bio-safety.? According to the environmentalist, a lot of industries can come into biotechnology activities, thereby generating employment, while new products will also generate revenue for the nation.

01.01.1970

DuPont?s crop protection and seed business soars in Latin America

DuPont reported tough markets for several of its key businesses for the end of 2011, but once again, it was agriculture that led the way: Latin America is simply dominating growth at the multinational chemical companies. [...] DuPont, which received regulatory approval last summer for Optimum AcreMax and Optimum AcreMax Xtra, expects to get clearance for the next product in the genetically engineered insect-resistant corn line, AcreMax XTreme, in the first half of this year. [...] Sales for its Pioneer Hi-Bred International seed business posted a 17% gain for the year to $6.3 billion, boosted by volume growth and higher prices.

01.01.1970

No opposition against GE banana trials in Australia

WHILE other food crops have faced considerable hurdles in both public and industry acceptance of genetically modified products, the ?GM bogey man? has seemingly not raised his head when it comes to bananas. [...] ?We?ve had no push back at all, which has been wonderful,? [Prof James Dale] said. In January last year, the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator authorised the QUT?s application for controlled release of 151 lines of genetically modified banana at Litchfield Municipality, Northern Territory.

01.01.1970

Will the GM mosquito be the feared dragon?

the announcement that the Malaysian government is keen to release GMMs in areas occupied by humans has raised more questions and concerns than the earlier trial release in uninhabited areas. It has been pointed out that while dengue is a serious problem, there are other effective, safer and less costly alternatives exist to reduce the number of dengue hotspots like the ministry?s Communication for Behavioural Impact programme. What would likely escalate this whole affair into a crisis would be a move to now release GMMs into the open without consulting local residents and keeping in the dark the very people who would be exposed to the creatures.

01.01.1970

Philanthropy is the enemy of justice

It?s strange that at this week?s World Economic Forum the designated voice of the world?s poor has been Bill Gates, who has pledged £478m to the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, telling Davos that the world economic crisis was no excuse for cutting aid. [...] Am I saying that philanthropy has never done good? No, it has achieved many wonderful things. Would I rather people didn?t have polio vaccines than get them from a plutocrat? No, give them the vaccines. But beware the havoc that power without oversight and democratic control can wreak. [...] top-down nostrums for the rural poor don?t end well. The list of autocratic hubris in pseudo-scientific farming is long and spectacularly calamitous.

01.01.1970

Washington State (USA) wheat farmers back labels for GM foods

Some Washington state wheat farmers have thrown their support behind legislation requiring labeling of genetically modified foods, giving food safety advocates fresh hope that lawmakers also will get behind the bill. They haven?t been receptive to the idea in the past, and lawmakers at the national level and in more than a dozen states have rejected similar proposals in the past year. But in an unusual pairing, a handful of Washington wheat farmers have joined so-called ?foodies? to back the latest bill, fearing exports will be hurt if and when genetically modified wheat gains federal approval.

01.01.1970

USDA greenlights Monsanto?s utterly useless new ?drought resistant? GE corn

The drought-tolerant corn the USDA signed off on in December is the first approved crop of that kind. The trouble is, it doesn?t work very well. [...] It makes clear that the product?s ?drought tolerance? extends only to ?moderate? drought conditions, and it has the same ?minimum water requirements? as conventional corn. And then it drops this bombshell, citing Monsanto?s own field tests: ?It is prudent to acknowledge that the reduced yield-loss phenotype of MON 87360 does not exceed the natural variation observed in regionally-adapted varieties of conventional corn (representing different genetic backgrounds).?

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