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2007-07-09 |

All India Crop Biotechnology Association sees no Bt cotton risks

Notwithstanding the controversies dogging it, Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech Limited is expecting 30 to 40 per cent growth in demand for its flagship Bt cotton (Bollgard I and II hybrids) this kharif. [...] Referring to the sheep and goat mortality in Adilabad and Warangal, Mr. Ketkar and R. K. Sinha, Executive Director, All India Crop Biotechnology Association dismissed it as ”localised phenomenon”. In its ten years of global Bt cotton experience, there has not been a single instance of harm to an animal that grazed on Bt plant material.

2007-07-06 |

GMOs next global lightning rod issue

Our ability to tinker with nature has outstripped our ability to regulate what we create, says Yves Tiberghien, a political scientist who specializes in global regulatory mechanisms for technology and trade. Consider that almost 70 per cent of the products we buy at the grocery store contain genetically engineered food. Yet we don’t know their long-term impact on our health, the environment, or how they may tip the future balance of power in the global economy.

2007-07-06 |

Sick lab rats prompt South Africa probe into GM maize

The government is assessing the safety of genetically modified (GM) maize in South Africa after a flare-up over its effect on laboratory rats that ate NK603 during a 90-day trial. A shocking report, commissioned by global environmental lobbyists Greenpeace, said that there were ”statistically significant” effects on the blood and organs of laboratory rats. [...] The cumulative area planted with GM maize in South Africa over the past six seasons is 2.686-million hectares, an area bigger than the Kruger National Park, according to a report commissioned by the maize industry.

2007-07-06 |

Brazilian judge orders CTNBio to obey the law and suspend release of GE corn

Last Thursday, June 28, 2007, Federal Judge Pepita Durski Tramontini Mazini, standing on the Environmental Circuit Court in Curitiba, suspended the technical decision published by the National Technical Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) to authorize commercial use of Bayer's LibertyLink corn in Brazil. Her ruling came in response to a class-action suit filed by several Brazilian NGOs, including Terra de Direitos, IDEC (Brazilian Consumer Defense Institute), AS-PTA and ANPA (National Small Farmers' Association).

2007-07-06 |

Primorye (Russia) MPs stand against GM food

The Primorsky Territory Legislative Assembly Committee on food safety and nature usage has adopted a decision on the necessity of the development of a purpose programme under the code name "On food safety of the population of the Primorsky Territory," the Parliament reports. As MP Alexander YERMOLAYEV says, the matter in hand is elimination of GM foods and vegetables and fruits that contain dangerous amounts of salts of heavy metals, nitrates, and weed killers.

2007-07-06 |

UK scientist urges GM crops rethink

One of Scotland’s top agricultural scientists has warned the country will pay a heavy price if it turns its back on genetically modified crops. No GM food has been grown in Scotland since protests against trials held at three farms in 2003 and 2004. Professor Howard Davies, from Invergowrie-based Scottish Crop Research Institute, said it made no sense to ignore a whole new industry. He recently received funding to examine possible side effects of GM.

2007-07-06 |

JK Group aims to triple market share of Bt cotton in India

Emboldened by the good response to its Bt cotton seeds from farmers and with the government approving five more of its hybrids, JK Agri Genetics aims to nearly triple its market share to eight per cent in this kharif season. ”Our target is to have a market share of 7-8 per cent in Bt cotton seeds,” JK Agri Genetics President P S Dravid said. The current share of the company in the Bt cotton seed, dominated by multinational giant Monsanto and its associates, is around three per cent, Dravid said, adding JK Agri Genetics entered the market only last year.

2007-07-05 |

On the Spanish movement against GE crops

The growing movement in Spain against the spread of genetically modified organisms originated with the personal experience of Josep Pàmies, a farmer who has always been committed to protecting farm food heritage and agricultural biodiversity. Pàmies, who is the leader of the Slow Food Convivium in Balaguer (Catalonia), has become the figurehead of this battle in Zapatero’s Spain.

2007-07-05 |

Two biotech perspectives on gene patents

Until the 1890s, the United States did not recognize the copyright of British authors like Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The United States only started to protect the copyrights of foreign artists once this country began to be an exporter of artistic talent. [...] Today, there is a similar debate over gene patents. Most biotechnology companies and lawyers accept patents as a given. Without patents, there would not be funding. And without funding, there would not be companies and clients. This leaves the academic and research community to argue the other side -- a more skeptical view of the value of mini-monopolies over the stuff of life.

2007-07-05 |

A challenge to gene theory, a tougher look at biotech

Last month, a consortium of scientists published findings that challenge the traditional view of how genes function. The exhaustive four-year effort was organized by the United States National Human Genome Research Institute and carried out by 35 groups from 80 organizations around the world. To their surprise, researchers found that the human genome might not be a “tidy collection of independent genes” after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function, such as a predisposition to diabetes or heart disease.

2007-07-05 |

Does the Knowledge-based Bio-economy add up?

Experts do not have an entirely unblemished record of predicting the future of agriculture. In the 1950s it was envisioned that agriculture would be irrigated with water from icecaps that had been melted by nuclear explosions, this water (naturally) would be stored in ponds, also ’dug’ by nuclear explosions. In the 1970s another generation of experts were predicting an era of remote control tractors and multi-story farms. Electromagnetic ploughing would prepare the soil for crops that would require only half an inch of recycled water per year and specially coated seeds would be blasted from pipes into crop-specific patterns channelled by underground magnetism. More recently, official predictions of the future have been more biological in character and centred on the ”knowledge-based bio-economy” (KBBE). This concept has been embraced by the European Union and governments around the world and is based for the most part on biotechnology.

2007-07-05 |

’Plants for the Future’ invites Europe to reap fruits of knowledge-based bio-economy

The EU-backed ’Plants for the Future’ Technology Platform officially released its full and final Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) at a lunch hosted by MEPs Giles Chichester and John Purvis in the European Parliament in Brussels today. The document backed by scientists, farmers and industry and other public and private stakeholders signposts a route for Europe to use plant sciences and biotechnology to enhance EU competitiveness and welfare.

2007-07-05 |

Interview: Europabio secretary general Johan Vanhemelrijck

Europe, says Vanhemelrijck, is the only region in the world that actually votes on the science. He argues that this is a major weakness - politicians can vote positively or negatively on an opinion without having to really justify their decision – in contrast to other regions of the world. Vanhemelrijck argues that outside influences have had a significant impact on the fact that European politicians have consistently voted against scientific evidence supporting the approval of genetically modified (GM) products.

2007-07-04 |

UK scientists develop new methods to assess risks of GE plants and food

SCIENTISTS at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), which is based at Invergowrie, near Dundee, have been awarded a share of a £400,000 grant to investigate techniques relevant for the safety assessment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Working in partnership with a team at the John Innes Centre in Norwich the scientists will research improved and more rapid methods for determining whether plant genes may be disrupted by the genetic modification process and if entirely new proteins might arise from the GM process.

2007-07-04 |

GM Crop Management Act Review in South Australia

A review of the Genetically Modified Crops Management Act 2004 has started. [...] ”Several years ago, community groups on Kangaroo Island and Eyre Peninsula were keen to establish GM crop free areas for marketing purposes,” [the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Rory McEwen] said. ”It would be good to know whether they are still keen to pursue this option or not, or whether new issues have arisen.”

2007-07-04 |

Rodney (New Zealand) pushes GE free

A campaign to make Rodney the first official ’genetic engineering free’ district is underway. Rodney is already branded ’organic friendly’. Moves to ban genetically modified organisms or GMOs, in the district plan have come from eastern ward councillor Colin MacGillivray.
He wants Rodney to lead the country in rejecting genetically engineered crops.

2007-07-04 |

Cyprus may enter into agreements with farmers to stay GMO-free

Answering to questions regarding Genetically Modified Organisms and Cyprus’ intention to declare itself a GMO free area, she said that this can be done without any previous approval by the EU. ”If Cyprus wants to declare itself GMO free this will depend on the support from the farmers. If a voluntary agreement can be made, then this is possible. But it is not possible to introduce a compulsory or legislative proposal that prohibits the farmers to use GMO production”, she said.

2007-07-04 |

Seeds of change - Portrait of Syngenta

Business in America’s corn belt hasn’t looked this good in a long while. Demand is booming, and so are the farmers’ incomes — at $4 a bushel, the price of corn recently hit a ten-year high, double the price of just a few years ago. It’s not surprising that researchers at the University of Iowa just announced that American farmers planted some 4m more hectares of corn this spring than the previous year. [...] This is where a CFO thousands of kilometres away, in Basel, comes in. Swiss agricultural-chemicals company Syngenta generates annual sales of $8 billion by selling not only the seeds, but also the fungicides, pesticides and other products that help farmers grow even more corn, as well as wheat, soybean, rice and other field crops.

2007-07-04 |

News on non-GE breeding successes

HarvestPlus has received a US$ 6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to introduce a nutritionally improved staple food -orange-fleshed sweetpotato- into the diets of the undernourished in East Africa. [...] Since the mid-1990s, CIP has been breeding sweetpotato varieties that are rich in beta-carotene and match local growing conditions and cooking preferences, but that was only part of what was needed. ”The Gates Foundation grant will allow HarvestPlus, CIP, and other partners to improve our understanding of markets and how to shift consumer preferences in order to more effectively reach end-users with biofortified sweetpotato and enhance our impact on reducing child and maternal mortality,” said Pamela Anderson, Director General of CIP.

2007-07-03 |

JK Group aims to triple market share of Bt cotton in India

Emboldened by the good response to its Bt cotton seeds from farmers and with the government approving five more of its hybrids, JK Agri Genetics aims to nearly triple its market share to eight per cent in this kharif season. ”Our target is to have a market share of 7-8 per cent in Bt cotton seeds,” JK Agri Genetics President P S Dravid said. The current share of the company in the Bt cotton seed, dominated by multinational giant Monsanto and its associates, is around three per cent, Dravid said, adding JK Agri Genetics entered the market only last year.

2007-07-03 |

GM giants pair up to do battle

Monsanto is making a bid to dominate commercialized plant biotech’s second decade. In March, it announced a $1.5 billion collaboration deal with BASF, of Ludwigshafen, Germany. The arrangement promises to be the anchor for much of Monsanto’s ongoing R&D, including the introduction of complex second-generation traits to counter drought tolerance, an issue of global importance to agriculture. Indeed, the BASF deal sets the scene for the next ten years of plant biotech, say crop industry analysts. The scale of the R&D cooperation poses a challenge to Monsanto’s main rivals in the genetically modified (GM) crop business—DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred, in Des Moines, Iowa, and Basel-based Syngenta.

2007-07-03 |

Cloned pigs help scientists towards a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s

The first pigs containing genes responsible for Alzheimer’s disease will be born in Denmark in August. This event is a landmark achivement in the effort towards finding a cure for the disease.

2007-07-03 |

Indian field trials of genetically modified rice plant encouraging

Field trials of a genetically modified disease-resistant rice plant developed in the Madurai Kamaraj University laboratory and conducted at three locations in the State have given encouraging results in the first phase. [...] The tests, held at Coimbatore, Aaaduthurai and Ambasamudram, showed that the transgenic plants developed resistance for ’Sheath Blight’ disease, common in paddy crop in the southern India. [...] Around 1,000 seeds of genetically modified rice plants were given to the TNAU for trials and it was found that the loss of yield due to ’Sheath Blight’ disease could be prevented.

2007-07-03 |

Brave new hay

Monsanto has wrapped its fight to keep Roundup Ready alfalfa from being outlawed in the rhetoric of “choice.” Following Breyer’s initial ruling in February, Andrew Burchett, a spokes-man for Monsanto, told Farm Industry News: “We’re going to do everything we think is appropriate to defend growers’ right to choose this technology. Our goal is to restore that choice for farmers.” It was a curious position to take, given that Monsanto has spent the last decade all but forcing farmers to buy bundled packages of its seeds and herbicides, while, opponents claim, systematically eliminating its competitors. In fact, the company now faces at least 20 antitrust lawsuits over its actions.

2007-07-02 |

Replacing a genome boosts race to develop designer bugs: study

Researchers transformed one bacterial species into another by swapping their genomes, a move that will accelerate the race to develop custom-built synthetic bugs, a pioneer on genetics said Thursday.
Craig Venter, who had a hand in mapping the human genome, said a team of his researchers had transplanted the entire genetic code of one bacterial organism into another closely related species.

2007-07-02 |

Creation of human stem cell lines that can become any cell type using unfertilized eggs

Scientists at Lifeline Cell Technology, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of International Stem Cell Corporation, have successfully created six unique human stem cell lines that appear capable of differentiation into any cell type found in the human body using an efficient method that does not require the use of fertilized embryos.

2007-07-02 |

BASF disappointed at Amflora decision delay

BASF is standing by the safety of its Amflora genetically optimised starch potato as the EU Council of Ministers postpones its decision on commercial optimisation, and urges swifter adoption of new technologies for the bloc. [...] The grounds for the postponement have not been disclosed, and it was not known at time of publication when a decision may be forthcoming. In the event that the vote in the Council of Ministers does not result in a qualified majority either, the European Commission will decide on the dossier. The ongoing delay is certainly a frustration for BASF, which has high hopes the potato will be the first genetically enhanced product to be approved for cultivation in Europe since 1998. A small number of GM products have been allowed however, as a result of a default process that applies after a period of non-agreement.

2007-07-02 |

Irish doctors should highlight risks of GM food

The Secretary of the Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA) has called on Irish doctors to highlight the dangers of genetically modified (GM) food and prevent the planting of genetically engineered crops here. Public health doctor Elizabeth Cullen, in an article in the most recent Irish Medical Journal, argues that GM food could have harmful effects on health. She writes that there is insufficient research on the effects of GM food products, but what little exists is troubling.

2007-07-02 |

Irish green GM stance to up feed prices

Feed prices, which have already increased by between 40 and 60% in the past year, look set to increase even further following a controversial EU vote on Monday to reject the use of a variety of Genetically Modified (GM) maize. In a move that has caused anger in the feed trade, Ireland abstained from Monday’s vote at the EU Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health. As recently as last Thursday, Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan had signalled that Ireland would be voting in favour of allowing the importation of ”Herculex” maize into Europe.

2007-07-02 |

EFSA rejects concerns over Monsanto maize MON863

The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) GMO panel has no safety concerns after reviewing data from French scientists suggesting toxicity concerns in rats fed the MON863 variety of GM maize from Monsanto. ”Following a detailed statistical review and analysis by an EFSA Task Force, EFSA’s GMO Panel has concluded that this re-analysis of the data does not raise any new safety concerns,” stated the authority.
The statement draws a line under the issue, raised when new data from a 90-day rat study, published in the peer-review journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology in March, indicated liver and kidney toxicity in the rats, as well as differences in weight gain between the sexes as a result of eating the transgenic maize.

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