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2009-10-08 |

South American GM soy close to get carbon credits - Agrobusiness lobby in the climate negotiations

As the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) gets closer, a new agreement has to be signed for the period after 2012. It is becoming clear how agribusiness attempts to gain profits from the massive carbon credits market. Under the term ”Conservation Agriculture”, Monsanto and other biotech allies have penetrated the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aiming to get carbon credits for agribusiness. A voluntary ’responsible’ label for Roundup Ready soy sponsored by World Wild Life Fund (WWF), and a newly approved Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) methodology are important steps for Agribusiness to get access to this three billion dollar business.

2009-10-08 |

GMOs could do more harm than good in Africa

Lewis was critical of Bill Gates’ role in developing Africa and his partnership with Monsanto Corp. [...] ”I’m not expressing outright condemnation,” he said. ”I have a natural apprehension about the behaviour of multinational corporations. Nothing that has happened in the last two years makes me confident about corporate social responsibility.”

2009-10-08 |

U.S. trade consultant predicts mass slaughtering in Europe due to zero tolerance

AfricaBio, an organisation that is in favour of genetically modified organisms, grown and traded under strict conditions, has a terrible warning for South African farmers. [...] As a result imports of soya are likely to be banned, which means that very shortly there will not be enough oil seed to maintain animal feedstocks, which will mean that animals will have to be slaughtered. There will eventually be a shortage of meat, and meat will have to be imported.

2009-10-08 |

Kenya conducts research on GMOs but does not import them

Agriculture minister William Ruto [...], who was fielding questions from journalists at his Kilimo House office after inaugurating the board of directors for the Kenya Plants Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) on Tuesday, also denied that GMOs have been on sale in the country. ”Until we develop our own local variety no GMO food will be imported here,” the minister said.

2009-10-07 |

Brazil approves new varieties of GMO corn

Brazil’s biosecurity regulator, CTNBio, approved two new varieties of genetically modified corn on Thursday, both of which have been engineered to resist pests and glyphosate-based herbicide. The seeds were developed by the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto and the world’s largest agrochemicals company, Syngenta. A third variety developed by Syngenta, with insect resistant properties only, was also approved, bringing to nine the total number of GMO corn varieties approved for use in Brazil.

2009-10-07 |

Mexico to decide in October on test GM corn plantings

Mexico will decide in October whether it will allow experimental plantings of genetically modified corn, an agriculture ministry official said on Monday. DuPont Co, Dow Chemical and Monsanto have filed applications with the Mexican government for permission to begin testing their genetically modified corn strains. ”At this point we are working to draw up the permit necessary to authorize an experimental planting in the (winter) season,” said Enrique Sanchez, the agriculture ministry’s director of plant and animal health, in an interview.

2009-10-07 |

Spanish environmentalists seek ’agricultural asylum’ in French Embassy

Environmentalists dressed as giant ears of corn Tuesday asked for ”agricultural asylum” in the French embassy in Madrid in a protest over genetically modified crops. The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth organised the symbolic act to protest Spain’s ”large-scale” production of genetically modified corn, which is banned in France. Around 20 protesters from several European countries and dressed as corn cobs demonstrated outside the French embassy in central Madrid.

2009-10-07 |

GM canola growing by the road in Australia

The Minister for Primary Industries Ian Macdonald agrees with Monsanto. He says under European Union standards farmers are allowed to have a small percentage of GM grain in their crop: ”I think there’s a lot of exaggeration here. I don’t believe that it’s springing up everywhere on a volunteer basis. And remember even if it does occur on a volunteer basis, the studies show that it doesn’t persist and can be easily treated.”

2009-10-07 |

U.S. GE sugar beet growers pin hopes on winning legal battle

Northwest sugar beet farmers still hope to grow Roundup Ready varieties next season even though a court ruling casts doubt on the future of the genetically modified crop. Nearly all sugar beets grown in Idaho and Eastern Oregon this year were Roundup Ready varieties and farmers aren’t making any plans to go back to conventional seed, industry officials said.

2009-10-07 |

Europe finds GMO in 11 Canada flax shipments

The European Union has found genetically modified flaxseed in 11 Canadian flax shipments in less than one month, dimming prospects for farmers selling this year’s crop. [...] They state that buyers distributed the contaminated product to 24 more countries -- Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Romania in the European Union -- as well as Croatia, Iceland, South Korea, Norway, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Mauritius and Switzerland outside the EU.

2009-10-06 |

Vatican officials and biotech promoters say GE crops will improve African farming

African farmers should be able to use new biotechnology, including genetically modified organisms, to help lift their continent out of poverty, Vatican officials and agricultural experts said. Focusing on agricultural development is the key to improving the lives of Africans and their economy, and all tools must be considered to further that goal, according to speakers at a symposium Sept. 24 in Rome on the topic ”For a Green Revolution in Africa.”

2009-10-06 |

Maui Council (Hawaii, USA) approves ban on GMO taro

The taro bill prohibits anyone from testing, propagating, growing or introducing genetically engineered or modified taro, or kalo, within Maui County. Council members voted 9-0 to approve the ban, saying they believed taro’s cultural and spiritual significance to Native Hawaiians was more important than any other factor. Mayor Charmaine Tavares said after the vote that she would support the ban.

2009-10-06 |

Peru will ban trans-genetic seeds until 2014, Minister Brack says

Peru’s Environment Minister Antonio Brack told the press that the Executive will publish soon the Regulations on Agricultural Biosafety, which explicitly bans the entry of seeds genetically modified into Peru until 2014.

2009-10-06 |

India and Pakistan sow seeds of Bt cotton cooperation

Genetically modified (GM) cotton may achieve what months of diplomacy between India and Pakistan could not: cooperation between the two countries. India’s Bt Cotton seeds that helped the country double its cotton production in seven years will soon be available to farmers in Pakistan. Bt or Bacillus Thuringiensis is a bacterium that produces crystals proteins that are toxic to many species of insects and pests.

2009-10-06 |

European demand to lift Indian non-GE soymeal exports and price

Indian soymeal exports may surge in the coming months, pushing up local prices by 10 percent, as Europe buys more varieties that are not genetically modified (GM), top industry officials and analysts said on Sunday. ”It is a possibility that India will export non-GM soymeal to the European Union this year. I can’t say how much can be exported,” leading analyst Thomas Mielke told an industry conference. Demand for Indian soymeal might push up prices by 10 percent to over $400 a tonne, cost and freight by December, said Davish Jain, head of the Central Organisation for Oils Industry and Trade.

2009-10-06 |

Indian groups call for stop of GE crop field trials

COALITION FOR GM Free Madhya Pradesh in an open letter to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan urged to concede to the demand of farmers’ organisations, people’s movements, consumers and other civil society organisations to immediately intervene with regard to the GM Corn trial of Monsanto being conducted in open air conditions in Jabalpur and stop it. Further, it requested him to announce a policy of making Madhya Pradesh free of GM crops/foods in keeping with your overall agricultural policy.

2009-09-29 |

New laboratory testing produce on GMO in Ukraine

A new laboratory for researching produce on GMO has been opened on the basis of the Dnipropetrivsk agrarian university, Segodnya newspaper reports. According to the chief of the laboratory Dmytro Masiuk, there were many calls from the Dnipropetrivsk food producers during the first days of work. They are bringing meat, meat and soya to the laboratory. Everybody is trying to legalize his food until a compulsory marking appears on the label about GMO.

2009-09-29 |

Agriculture needs better innovation, not technology

Insufficient attention may have been given to the fact that the capacity for innovation in agriculture is influenced not only by farmers’ skills and resources, but also by the wider network of links and relationships in which farmers are embedded, which help ideas to diffuse and find new uses. These hypotheses are currently being tested by a research project in India and Nigeria on the long-standing problem of fodder scarcity, using what is widely referred to as an ’innovation systems’ perspective.

2009-09-29 |

Roadblocks on the path to GM superfoods

GM foods engineered to contain high levels of nutrients could be a neat solution to micronutrient deficiencies in poor countries, but there are many scientific, social and political hurdles. [...] But many scientists remain confident that such obstacles will be overcome. ”Biotech will, in time, become the new conventional agriculture. The question is: how long will it be until that happens,” says Val Giddings, president of Prometheus Agricultural Biotech.

2009-09-29 |

Korean Catholic Farmers’ Movement campaigns against GM food

The diocese’s support for farmers has come both ”spiritually and materially,” says Isidor Kang Seong-joong, secretary general of the Andong unit of the Korean Catholic Farmers’ Movement’s (KCFM). [...] Outside the gymnasium, about 100 tents had been set up. The KCFM sold organic food in some of the tents and also collected signatures for a campaign against genetically modified food.

2009-09-29 |

Vietnam to label GM foods from 2015

Vietnam’s Government is drafting a decree governing the safety of biotechnology-based foods, so the labeling of genetically modified foods is expected to start from 2015, according to the HCMC Biotechnology Center. Duong Hoa Xo, director of the center, told the Daily on the sidelines of a seminar on biotechnology in the city on Monday that the Government had provided guidelines for the testing of gene modification on some farm produce.

2009-09-29 |

Industry and greens battle over pseudoscience in EU capital

An industry-bankrolled PR company has attacked what it calls pseudoscience in EU legislation, as a years-long war between the defenders of enlightenment and the partisans of obscurantism comes to Brussels. Grayling, the world’s third largest public relations company, on Monday launched ’ScienceMatters,’ a campaign to promote ”science-based policy-making.” The group wants to take on bad science and what it describes as scaremongering about technology.

2009-09-28 |

U.S. growers vow to fight GMO beet ban

Judge orders detailed studies on effects 
of Roundup Ready varieties
Commercial sugar beet growers aren’t going to give up Roundup Ready varieties without a fight, industry officials said after a federal judge overturned the USDA’s approval of the genetically modified crop. ”Our growers will vigorously defend their desire and their right to plant Roundup Ready beets,” said Luther Markwart, executive vice president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. ”We will fight vigorously to do that.”

2009-09-28 |

”GM-free” claim boosts Campina’s LANDLIEBE sales by 7.7 percent in Germany

While consumers altogether drink less fresh milk than one year ago and the overall market is declining, the feeding concept of the Landliebe premium brand has shown significant success. During the first seven months of 2009, sales of GM-free Landliebe Landmilch could be increased by about 7.7 percent. This development is supported by a new, broadly laid out TV campaign that has been aired since March of this year.

2009-09-28 |

Cyprus risks hefty EU fine over GE biofuel ban

CYPRUS RISKS a hefty fine from the European Union over its embargo on biofuel produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Parliament heard yesterday. The Cypriot law on the promotion of biofuels and other renewable fuel, passed in 2005 – to bring the island in line with EU legislation – contains a clause banning the supply and sale of biofuels made from genetically modified plants.

2009-09-28 |

GrainCorp promises segregation of GE canola in Australia

GRAINCORP is preparing its sites for the second season of GM canola deliveries – with segregations for ’canola’ and ’non-GM canola’ available. And non-GM producers looking to market their product specifically as GM-free will be pleased to know that moves towards a fee for testing to prove canola was GM-free have been abandoned. ”We have managed to negotiate with crushers and get an outcome that is good for growers, with no fees incurred for testing on the canola’s GM status,” said GrainCorp’s corporate affairs manager David Ginns.

2009-09-28 |

Australian farmers fear GM crop contamination

A group of concerned farmers in country New South Wales claims to have found genetically modified canola plants growing on the side of the road, just metres from their non-GM fields. It has been more than 18 months since the genetically modified crops were allowed to be cultivated in NSW and tensions about contamination are mounting. Thousands of tonnes of GM canola is being transported throughout southern farming country. The farmers who want to remain GM free are worried their international reputation is being ruined because the GM canola seeds could easily blow into their crops.

2009-09-28 |

Cert ID: A decade of Non-GMO commodity certification leads to ”GMO-free” claims

At least one important source has now contributed an element of clarity to the confused debate about the zero tolerance issue in regards to commodity imports to the European Union containing even traces of unapproved GMOs and about fears that the GMO-free soy production will soon come to an end. Specialty certifier Cert ID has continued the company tradition of publishing its annual volume statistics of Non-GMO certification.

2009-09-25 |

Roger Beachy of Donald Danforth Plant Science Center joining Obama administration

President Barack Obama has appointed Dr. Roger Beachy, founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, to serve as the first director of a new federal agriculture agency. Beachy will join the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency, on Oct. 5. The new agency will award competitive grants to fund research and technological innovations aimed at making agriculture more productive, environmentally sustainable and economically viable.

2009-09-25 |

Monsanto-WestBred sale could change wheat industry

A month after giant agricultural company Monsanto bought Montana-based WestBred for $45 million, little had changed around Westbred’s Four Corners research center. On a recent morning, researchers in white coats were testing the quality of Westbred’s wheat varieties. In a field west of the labs and offices, different varieties of wheat grew in blocks that were either withered or thriving, depending on how the grain had been bred to withstand herbicides and disease.

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