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2009-05-07 |

Kenyan farmers set to cultivate first GM cotton seeds

Kenya is on the verge of growing genetically modified cotton to increase its production and help reduce rural poverty while enabling local textile manufacturers access to cheap raw materials. Genetically modified cotton seeds known as biotech seeds (Bt) are on their final field testing stage by the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute pending mass distribution to farmers in January next year, said Mr Joshua Oluyali, the acting chief executive officer of Cotton Development Authority.

2009-05-07 |

MP wants Kenya PM to explain GE maize saga

An MP wants Prime Minister Raila Odinga to explain why genetically modified and ”poisonous maize” was imported even after the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service raised the red flag. Kaloleni MP Kambi Kazungu told the House that even though 90 per cent of the maize imports from South Africa were genetically modified, its entry into the country was not blocked despite the ”obvious adverse effects associated with GMOs.”

2009-05-07 |

KARI now field-tests resilience of Bt Maize in Kenya

The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) reports that it has adopted Bt maize which is more resistant to crop pest, chief of which is maize stem borer responsible for up to 40 percent yield loss. According to Dr Joel Mutisya, KARI hopes the variety will be resistant and boost maize productivity; the trials would test the resilience of the breed. ”KARI is pleased to announce the planting of these trials after years of laboratory research, as part of approach to help Kenyan farmers fight Stem Borers,” he said during an interview.

2009-05-07 |

GM canola segregation row continues in Australia

GM campaigners continue to noisily protest against GrainCorp’s decision to mix genetically modified (GM) canola with conventional canola at some sites, in spite of GrainCorp’s assurance that GM-free segregations will still be offered. Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps said there was no longer any pretence GM and non-GM segregations would be maintained. ”GM companies have lied for 20 years, that GM and non-GM canola could and would be kept separate so farmers, processors and shoppers had GM-free choice,” Mr Phelps said.

2009-05-07 |

Uganda searches for resistant GE banana variety

THE National Agricultural Research Organisation has developed a system of improving banana varieties using genetic engineering. They have identified some genetically-modified banana lines from a confined field trial at Kawanda that exhibit improved resistance to the black sigatoka disease. Black sigatoka, which affects the East African highland banana, also known as matooke, is a leaf spot disease caused by a fungus. It causes about 30-50% yield loss.

2009-05-06 |

More GM maize planted in SA according to Monsanto

Plantings of genetically modified (GM) maize in South Africa have increased dramatically, agriculture company Monsanto said on Tuesday. Of the white maize planted in the Delmas, Nigel and Leandra in Mpumalanga 74 percent was GM and of the yellow maize 67 percent, Kobus Steenekamp, biotechnology and chemical products manager said a statement on Tuesday. While unable to give comparative figures, he said they had been ”substantially” lower in the previous year.

2009-05-06 |

News on the Vatican‘ GE crop conference

”There is a lot of propaganda being used by the two sides,” Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the academy’s chancellor, told [...] The majority of the 41 speakers listed on the academy’s Web site support the use of modified crops for boosting food production and the creation of new sources of energy from nonfood crops. The bishop said that’s because there are very few scientists who oppose the use of genetically modified organisms.

2009-05-06 |

NAFTA harming Mexico corn industry

Several interviews were broadcast on U.S. television news services that highlighted the fact that Mexican farmers cannot compete with subsidized corn imported from the U.S. These farmers were forced to move into makeshift dwellings in the shadows of Mexico City. As advocates for family farmers, in the U.S. and abroad, the American Agriculture Movement has worked to make this catastrophe known and has worked with Congress in an attempt to correct the injustice for many years.

2009-05-06 |

Pakistan to focus on GE crops to increase output

Pakistan would have to focus on genetically modified and hybrid crops to tap true potential of agricultural productivity in the country in the shortest possible time. This was the upshot of speeches made at a seminar on Challenges and Opportunities in Agbiotec in Pakistan. Provincial Minister for Agriculture Ahmad Ali Aulakh, LCCI President Mian Muzaffar Ali, Vice President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh and former LCCI Vice President Shahzad Ali Malik threw light on the issues being faced by the agricultural sector in Pakistan.

2009-05-06 |

Monsanto sues DuPont for Roundup patent infringement

US biotech firm Monsanto announced Tuesday it filed suit against chemical giant DuPont alleging infringement of its patents for ”Roundup Ready” herbicide-resistant crops. The suit filed in federal court in St. Louis, Missouri, names EI du Pont de Nemours and Company and its subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International for ”unlawful use of Monsanto’s proprietary Roundup Ready herbicide tolerant technologies in soybeans and corn.”

2009-05-06 |

Monsanto loses bid to lift German ban on MON810 GE corn

Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed producer, lost an emergency court request to lift a German ban on genetically modified corn. Germany’s prohibition on a strain of genetically modified corn made by Monsanto was justified because ”a preliminary assessment” showed the plant raises a potential danger, the Braunschweig Administrative Court said in an e-mailed statement today.
The law doesn’t require ”a scientific finding that shows a danger for the environment beyond doubt,” the court said in its ruling. ”It’s enough that new or additional information indicates that humans or animals may be hurt.”

2009-04-29 |

Canadian activists want Monsanto’s GM alfalfa banned

A coalition of farm groups and activists wants a ban on the commercial use of a genetically modified alfalfa, saying it could overwhelm natural varieties of the crop.
The plant in question was modified by Monsanto to be tolerant of the company’s Roundup weed killer, but opponents fear its genes could be spread far and wide by natural pollination. They also say there’s no need for the change, which would only serve to benefit Monsanto. The modified alfalfa was approved by the Canadian government in 2005, but cannot be used commercially until the company meets registration requirements.

2009-04-29 |

GMOs in the Caribbean region

Venezuela is regulating transgenic products through a controlled framework under study, reported the Ministry of Science, Technology and Intermediate Industries. [...] In a recent talk on transgenic products, Flores explained that although the purpose is to increase and improve food production, consumers demand information on the chemical and biotechnological additives and the effects on the body.

2009-04-29 |

Poverty: Supervitamin corn against world hunger

A transgenic hypervitaminised corn could be used in poor countries to deal with serious nutritional deficiencies caused by a poor diet often based on cereal crops. [...] Destined for farmers in poor countries, once it has passed laboratory tests, the hypervitaminised corn will be available for everyone: the University of Lerida guarantees that the seeds will be distributed for free and will be used for cultivation and consumption by small producer who are unable to afford them.

2009-04-29 |

Indian non-hybrid Bt cotton seeds ready for distribution in four states

After ten long years of research punctuated with technical delays, the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur is ready with 20,000 packets of desi Bt cotton seeds for distribution to farmers starting next month. The Bikaneri Narma (BN Bt), as it is called, is a variety and not a hybrid which was the only option available to farmers till date. [...] The seeds will be available for Rs 200 per 2 kg bag as against Rs 750 per 450 gm bag of hybrids currently sold by national and multinational companies like Mahyco, Rasi, Ankur and Nuziveedu.

2009-04-29 |

Is the UK ready to rethink its stance on GM?

Faced with climate change and a global population pushing seven billion, we need serious solutions, says ecologist Rosie Hails. And like it or not, she thinks scientists, politicians and the public need to reconsider GM. [...] we need a change in legislation. Current environmental laws have many strengths but focus on risks and do not consider benefits.

2009-04-29 |

New GE virus-built battery could power cars, electronic devices

For the first time, MIT researchers have shown they can genetically engineer viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a lithium-ion battery. The new virus-produced batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars, and they could also be used to power a range of personal electronic devices, said Angela Belcher, the MIT materials scientist who led the research team.

2009-04-29 |

Transgenic seeds in developing countries – experience, challenges, perspectives

Due to insufficient data, it is currently impossible to carry out a final evaluation of the size and distribution of profits in terms of business and economics which have been achieved by cultivating transgenic plants in developing and emerging countries. Studies which claim to be able to do this are not backed up scientifically and are based on unstable projections. Even the case studies from China and Brazil could not improve this situation: The studies published to date on the economic results of Bt cotton cultivation in China are, for instance, based on the data from just a few years and just a few hundred hectares (out of an overall acreage of 5.5 million hectares) and demonstrate enormous fluctuations; for Brazil, no publications at all exist on the cultivation results, only estimations.

2009-04-29 |

GE ’Mini-pig’ a promising sign for transplants for humans

A team of Korean scientists has successfully produced a genetically engineered and cloned piglet that is partially deprived of the genes that cause the human body to reject pig organ transplants, the Science Ministry said yesterday. The world’s second birth of a so-called ”mini-pig” is expected to pave the way for more successful pig-to-human transplants.

2009-04-29 |

More than 50 new non-GE drought-tolerant maize varieties released for African farmers

Maize is a highly diverse crop, ensuring ample scope for genetically enhancing its tolerance to drought through breeding techniques designed specifically for this purpose. CIMMYT and IITA work with national partners to adapt and apply such techniques in Africa. As a result, more than 50 new drought-tolerant varieties and hybrids have been developed and released for dissemination by private seed companies, national agencies and nongovernmental organizations. African farmers now grow many of those varieties, which yield 20-50% more than others under drought, on hundreds of thousands of hectares.

2009-04-29 |

Cattle, not soy, drives Amazon deforestation in Brazil

Cattle ranchers are far bigger culprits in Amazon deforestation than soy farmers, a study showed on Tuesday, as the environmental record of Brazil’s commodity exporters comes under increasing international scrutiny. The study, produced jointly by environmental groups and the soy industry, showed that only 12 of 630 sample areas deforested since July 2006 -- or 0.88 percent of 157,896 hectares (390,000 acres) -- were planted with soy.

2009-04-29 |

AGRA launches fund to jumpstart African seed industry

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, in partnership with the African Agricultural Capital group, today launched the African Seed Investment Fund. Over the next five years, it will invest in at least 20 small- and medium-size seed companies in Southern and Eastern Africa, infusing equity and expertise into an industry that has languished for decades, and paving the way for raising the productivity and incomes of at least one million farm households. ”The sole purpose of ASIF is to provide high quality seeds to smallholder African farmers, thereby improving income and quality of life,” said Dr. Namanga Ngongi, President of AGRA.

2009-04-29 |

On China’s problems with its soy production

Even as US workers complain about manufacturing jobs lost to China, Chinese farmers are struggling to compete with cheap imported soybeans from the West. Since 1995, China has gone from the world’s largest exporter of soybeans to the world’s largest importer. The nation now imports more than 70 percent of its soybeans, mostly from the US, Brazil, and Argentina. Most of the imports are genetically modified (GM) soybeans that have higher yields, more oil, and cost less to process.

2009-04-28 |

Transgenic crops and food in Latin America

In all these years of crisis [since the collapse of the Socialist Bloc], Cuba has demonstrated the wide potential of its economic, political, social and alternative system of organic agriculture that it has developed to face-tactically and strategically-the circumstances of this difficult stage. [...] Without detracting from the blessings of the so-called ”green revolution” [in the years of abundant Soviet fuel and cheap chemical fertilizers and pesticides] that the country undertook, we must learn from the problems we created.

2009-04-28 |

Germany to permit trials with Amflora GE potato

Germany’s Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said on Monday she will permit test cultivation of a potato containing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). Open air trails of the GMO potato Amflora, developed by German chemicals group BASF presented no threat to public health or the environment, she said. Aigner had this month said she would carry out a new review of an application for open-air trial cultivation of Amflora, which was test-cultivated on 150 hectares in 2008.

2009-04-28 |

Argentine scientist warning of health hazards of Monsanto’s herbicide receives threats

There are reports coming our of Argentina of attempts to intimidate the lead researcher of the study showing that Roundup - the glyphosate herbicide developed by Monsanto, could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in fetuses. [...] According to an article in the Argentine press, after news about the study broke, Dr. Carrasco was the victim of an act of intimidation, when four men arrived at his laboratory in the Faculty of Medicine and acted extremely aggressively. Two of the men were said to be members of an agrochemical industry body but refused to give their names. The other two claimed to be a lawyer and notary.

2009-04-28 |

U.S. Department of Agriculture says People’s Garden will promote organic standards

Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, who wrote the organic standards act when she worked for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is beloved in organic circles as the government mother of organic agriculture. But the industrial agricultural establishment, which uses synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to produce most U.S. crops and foods and ships them around the world, is afraid she will use her power to favor organic and local production.

2009-04-28 |

When big agro-business and academia mix, where is the line?

”Big companies like Monsanto,” related Chicoine in a telephone interview Tuesday, ”have contacts anywhere they find talent. Their only interest is high-quality work.”
Chicoine’s anywhere and talent, however, are very uncommon; He’s president of South Dakota State University, the state’s Land Grant university and its premier research and teaching institution. That makes him one of an elite group whose entire membership is fewer than that of the U.S. Senate. It also makes him, by anyone’s recollection, the first Land Grant president to sit on the board an agriculture-based, transnational corporation that contributes millions to fund ag research and infrastructure at Land Grant universities around the United States.

2009-04-28 |

U.S. researchers develop non-GE pest-resistant potato, soy and salad

In seeking alternatives to using chemical fumigants, ARS and collaborating scientists are field-testing a new russet potato breeding line that naturally resists the pests. Commercial varieties bred from line PA99N82-4 would be the first with resistance not only to CRN, but also to northern and southern root-knot nematodes, says geneticist Chuck Brown.

2009-04-27 |

Genetic modification: Is demonizing Monsanto blocking real progress?

Germans are celebrating the fact that the government has banned genetically modified corn. But the country’s almost blanket opposition to genetic modification ignores the fact that it might just help scientists find a solution for feeding a swelling global population. [...] The inhabitants of rural Bavarian towns, whose fields have become battlegrounds for people for and against genetic engineering, can now breathe a sigh of relief. But the real problems are just beginning -- only in other places.

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