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2007-06-01 |

Swiss National Fund supports GE wheat development

The Swiss National Science Foundation has released details of a four-year SFr12 million ($9.8 million) programme involving genetically modified (GM) plants. [...] ”GM plants offer a wealth of possibilities that can’t be reached via traditional breeding,” said the heads of National Research Project 59 (NRP
59) at a news conference on Wednesday. [...] Eights projects have amalgamated to look into plant resistance and various environmental risks by carrying out three proposed field experiments with transgenic wheat.

2007-06-01 |

GMO wheat still in the distance

Remember the important announcement that was going to come out on the use of GMOs in wheat? Don’t hold your breath. ”As the soldiers went back to headquarters the generals apparently put a damper on the enthusiasm. I had suspected this might happen and hoped that my comments would provide some incentive to make a more bold and unified statement.”

2007-06-01 |

Monsanto still sees Europe as future market for GM crops

The European Union is making slow progress — but progress nonetheless — toward acceptance of genetically modified crops, said Hugh Grant, chief executive of Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co. At the moment, ”financially it’s immaterial, but strategically it’s important” to Monsanto, Grant told analysts at the annual Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York.

2007-06-01 |

Monsanto, D&PL deal gets nod from Justice

The Department of Justice on Thursday altered the landscape of the U.S. cottonseed industry by giving its blessing to Monsanto Co.’s $1.5 billion plan to buy Delta & Pine Land Co. Now the deal awaits approval by federal court. If it goes through, D&PL will end its reign as the last major cottonseed company not engaged in developing its own biotech traits. Biotech crop companies that don’t own cotton seeds will be forced to partner with a competitor.

2007-06-01 |

Opponents to Monsanto/Delta deal await DOJ ruling

The U.S. Department of Justice is expected to approve Monsanto Co.’s planned $1.5 billion acquisition of Delta and Pine Land Co. as early as Friday but several key opponents continue to evaluate options to block the deal. Delta and Pine (DPL) operates the largest private cotton seed breeding program in the world, and would give Monsanto, already a global leader in biotech crops, a platform to expand its cotton specialty seeds and genetic traits business.

2007-06-01 |

Exeter (UK) scientists highlight potential for GM cross-pollination

Field trials could be underestimating the potential for cross-pollination between GM and conventional crops, according to new research by the University of Exeter’s School of Biosciences. The research team recommends a new method for predicting the potential for cross-pollination, which takes account of wind speed and direction.

2007-05-31 |

Finding the enemy within

Private investigators acting for a state-owned enterprise have hired spies to infiltrate and undermine protest groups in what’s believed to be a New Zealand first. Ryan is the kind of volunteer community groups dream of: reliable, keen and always offering to help when any jobs need to be done. [...] He has been working on behalf of the state-owned coal mining company Solid Energy and his job is to help undermine the environmental campaign.

2007-05-31 |

Row brewing over GM canola moratorium in Victoria (Australia)

The Organic Agriculture Association is urging dairy farmers to oppose the lifting of a moratorium on genetically modified canola. [...] ”The agricultural weeds that are on our roadsides now, they just can’t control it, they won’t be able to control it.”

2007-05-31 |

Biotech boom will drive India’s growth

stry convention lauds subcontinent market
BOSTON — India’s mushrooming biotech industry is poised to become one of the driving forces behind the country’s torrid economic growth in the near future, according to a panel of Indian biotech industry executives and government officials who convened May 7 at the BIO 2007 International Convention in Boston. But the group also concluded that India’s biotech elephant won’t grow to its full potential unless it can lure more foreign investors and partnerships to the country.

2007-05-31 |

US House may prevent states from protecting food supply

The United States House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture has begun the process of writing the 2007 Farm Bill. Of grave concern is language added and approved by the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry that preempts state restrictions of foods or agricultural products deregulated by the USDA. The added language reads, ”no State or locality shall make any law prohibiting the use in commerce of an article that the Secretary of Agriculture has inspected and passed; or determined to be of non-regulated status.”

2007-05-31 |

GM rice — proposed class action

Last August, markets reacted negatively when the USDA announced a Bayer CropScience GM trait had been found in the U.S. rice supply. [...] Since last August, Downing has filed suit on behalf of over 200 Missouri and Arkansas rice farmers. In the proposed class action, there are now some 460 rice farmers representing over 248,000 acres of rice. In an April filing, Downing said total compensatory damages for plaintiffs and other members of the proposed classes may approach or exceed $1 billion.

2007-05-31 |

GM rice — proposed class action

Last August, markets reacted negatively when the USDA announced a Bayer CropScience GM trait had been found in the U.S. rice supply. [...] Since last August, Downing has filed suit on behalf of over 200 Missouri and Arkansas rice farmers. In the proposed class action, there are now some 460 rice farmers representing over 248,000 acres of rice. In an April filing, Downing said total compensatory damages for plaintiffs and other members of the proposed classes may approach or exceed $1 billion.

2007-05-30 |

CSIRO ’dumps’ anti-GM expert

ONE of Australia’s leading specialists on biological farming says he was dumped by the CSIRO because of his criticism of genetically modified crops. [...] He told The Sunday Age that senior CSIRO management bullied and harassed him and tried to gag his criticisms of GM crops. He left in March after his position with CSIRO’s plant industry division was made redundant.

2007-05-30 |

France could follow Germany in GM corn restriction

France may follow Germany in imposing restrictions on a strain of genetically-modified corn made by the US giant Monsanto, french daily Le Parisien reported, citing comments from ecology minister Alan Juppe. ’Germany has just suspended authorisation for MON 810 seed. In this particular instance, we must be steered by the German case,’ the newly-appointed minister told the daily Le Parisien.

2007-05-30 |

New statute protects the DNA of wild rice in Minnesota (USA)

The DNA of Minnesota wild rice gets special protection under a new state law adopted this year with the backing of Indian tribes. Genetic modifications to wild rice will be watched more closely, with environmental impact statements required and permits controlled by the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board. The board is also required to keep tabs on genetic modifications to wild rice throughout the country and notify wild rice farmers, Indian tribes and legislators if permits for genetically altered wild rice are issued in any state.

2007-05-30 |

ERMA New Zealand places strict controls on GM Brassica test

The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA New Zealand) has approved an application by the New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research to field test genetically-modified brassicas in the Lincoln region. However, ERMA New Zealand has included strict controls to manage the risk of GM material escaping from the site.

2007-05-30 |

Burkina Faso delays production of genetically modified cotton

Burkina Faso has postponed until 2009 the start of genetically modified cotton production, a controversial process that the country’s authorities say is necessary to compete. ”We cannot produce the cotton this year on a large-scale, but certainly by 2009, after we have increased the number of transgenic seeds sufficient in quality and quantity in 2007 and 2008,” said Georges Yameogo, an official with Sofitex, Burkina’s textile and fibre company.

2007-05-30 |

US still bullying EU to market GMOs

New documents obtained by Friends of the Earth reveal that the United States continues to pressure the EU to market new genetically modified (GM) crops and foods, despite the World Trade Organisation"s recent verdict that the EU has a right to protect itself against GMOs. In an email exchange, US officials even insisted that the EU should steer clear of the term "GMOs" in order to minimize public opposition to its policies.

2007-05-29 |

BT seeds to gain half of India’s cotton area - trade body

The total area under cotton in India, the world’s third largest producer, may see little change in 2007/08, but genetically modified varieties would account for half of it, a trade body official said on Tuesday. Kishorilal Jhunjhunwala, president of the East India Cotton Association, told Reuters the crop had covered 9.1 million hectares in 2006/07, with good yield and prices. Thus, farmers would have little incentive to shift to any other crop now. ”Any kind of change in area will not be more than 5 percent down,” he told Reuters over the telephone.

2007-05-29 |

There’s a new, exciting story on the cotton campus. It’s called apomictic hybrid

In what could be an important breakthrough in agro-technology, scientists at the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) have been able to apply apomixis—a technique to develop cotton hybrids that behave virtually as varieties—enabling the farmers to replicate the seeds themselves. It promises an end to the costly hybrid bargain for cotton farmers before every sowing season, and if everything goes well, farmers using other crops will also benefit.

2007-05-29 |

Supreme Court upholds importance of biosafety

In the orders passed after the May 8th hearing in the GMOs PIL filed by Aruna Rodrigues and three others, the Supreme Court of India clearly upheld once again the importance of biosafety when it comes to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The Union of India applied for a vacation of the Court’s orders in September 2006 which directed the GEAC (Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, the apex regulatory authority in India) ”to withhold (any) approvals till further directions are issued”. [...] All in all, despite some misleading and gloating headlines and editorials in several newspapers, the biotech industry and the GM regulators have an uphill task ahead in the coming year, having the Supreme Court, the state governments and various political parties holding them accountable, unlike in the past.

2007-05-29 |

The story of the basmati rice patent battle

In its wisdom, the US Patent Office in September 1997 judged the result, named basmati 867, sufficiently novel to grant it patent #5,663,484, entitled ”Basmati Rice Lines and Grains”, giving RiceTec exclusive rights to any basmati hybrid grown anywhere in the western hemisphere. Besides the highly questionable ”novelty” of the invention (cross-breeding has been practised for centuries, including by Punjabi farmers, who produced a variety of basmati rice), what is striking is the inequity and asymmetry of the approach.
By including basmati name into the patent definition, RiceTec could claim wide-ranging rights over a traditional name, for which it did not acknowledge the origin or the originality, let alone the copyright. The practical impact of RiceTec’s patent would be to jeopardise the prospects of Indian basmati rice suppliers seeking to export to the US and other western countries.

2007-05-28 |

Genetically modified crops survive weed-whacking herbicide

By splicing in a gene that allows crops to resist this plant-killer, farmers can apply it with abandon, cutting costs and reducing the need for tilling. But this success has sown the seeds of its own destruction by speeding the evolution of weeds—such as giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida)—into varieties that also have inborn resistance to the herbicide. Now researchers at the University of Nebraska have successfully modified crops to resist yet another herbicide—dicamba—that would eradicate the ”pernicious weeds,” researchers report in Science.

2007-05-28 |

GMO products spread in SADC - Study

GENETICALLY Modified Organism products and seed are fast spreading into most Southern African countries which lack the technological capacity to screen and detect GMOs, a new study has revealed. A preliminary GMO Spread Survey report done by the Biotechnology Trust of Zimbabwe in collaboration with the Community Technology Development Trust, Tobacco Research Board and other research institutes in Zambia, Namibia and Swaziland even shows areas where GM crops are suspected to be grown.

2007-05-28 |

Ignorance reigns as GMOs take root in Tanzania

There is need to create awareness about genetically-modified organisms because biotechnology is rapidly developing with more GMOs being released into the environment and causing risks to animal and human health. The remarks were made yesterday by the Director of Environment in the Vice President’s Office, Erick Mugurusi. ”Information should be availed to the public on GMOs that have been received or denied authorization into the country,” he said.

2007-05-28 |

Argentina is the land of plenty for new soya king

At 28, Santos is well on his way to achieving those goals, making him a lord of the pampas, literally master of all he surveys, and one of Argentina’s most eligible bachelors. His company owns more than 100,000 hectares of farmland in Argentina and Uruguay, is expanding into Brazil and has plans for Ukraine. The empire, however, is controversial -- it is built on soya. Fast-expanding soya plantations are blamed for the destruction of forests across South America, posing an even graver threat than logging. The outcry has led to the tabling of a ”forestry emergency” bill in Argentina’s lower house of Congress. It would usher in a one-year moratorium on deforestation and oblige all 23 provinces to control and protect the region’s biggest and most diverse eco-system outside Brazil.

2007-05-28 |

WHO to ban genetic engineering of smallpox virus

The World Health Assembly has decided to ban genetic engineering experiments on the smallpox virus but postponed a decision on the destruction of the virus until 2010, when a ”major review” of the research results on smallpox will be held. This review is to assist the WHA in 2011 to reach a consensus on the timing of the destruction of the smallpox virus stocks.

2007-05-28 |

Genetic Modification laws too risky

NEW EMERGENCY powers that allow Australian authorities to fast-track the release of genetically modified organisms could pose unacceptable risks, say critics. According to a bill passed by the Senate this month, the Health Minister could hypothetically order the rapid approval of a GM vaccine to fend off a bird-flu pandemic, or a GM bacterium to ”eat” an oil spill. But critics are concerned emergency powers in the Gene Technology Amendment Bill 2007 could lead to inadequately tested GM organisms being released.

2007-05-28 |

University of Queensland (Australia) receives funds to overcome sugercane"s resistance to GE

The Australian Research Council has given almost $1 million to the University of Queensland (UQ) for further research into making sugarcane more productive by modifying its genes. [...] But UQ Professor Robert Birch says sugarcane has so many different genes it can mysteriously turn some off - meaning the introduced ones do not work.

2007-05-25 |

Swiss National Fund excludes prominent researcher from risk assessment program on GE plants

The National Fund is going to assess the benefits and risks of GE plants. A renown researcher of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, ETH) will be left out. [...] If the winners of the moratorium initiative are as well of the opinion that the program is "balanced" is right now questionable - at least.

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