GENET news: Protein

03.12.2008

Arcadia gets $3.6M USAID grant to develop crops with MAHYCO-Monsanto (India)

Arcadia Biosciences Inc. has received a $3.6 million grant to develop rice and wheat in India that use less fertilizer and water. The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded the three-year grant, according to a news release. Arcadia will work with Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co. Ltd. of India to develop and implement the program. Davis-based Arcadia signed an agreement with MAHYCO in April to commercialize new crop varieties in India and South Asia.

01.12.2008

Mississippi Delta’s GE cotton crop can’t weather economic downturn

The March price swing had already forced the U.S. unit of Switzerland’s Paul Reinhart AG, one of the world’s largest and oldest cotton merchants, to file for bankruptcy protection. Part of cotton’s problem is that corn and soybeans, despite a recent drop in prices, are benefiting from new demand from developing nations and biofuels makers. Meanwhile, cotton prices are being held down by rising yields resulting from the spread of genetically modified cotton seeds. U.S. subsidies are also under attack from overseas trade officials, who say they foster overproduction.

27.11.2008

Australian Government report endorses GM canola, cotton

”Access to GM cotton crops has made a significant contribution to the cotton industry’s sustainable management of insect pests and weeds, and to the environment,” Ms Schneider says. ”Reduced application and expenditure on insecticides has increased the profitability and ease of growing cotton and improved community perception of the industry.

27.11.2008

Obama, like Bush, may be ag biotech ally

The agricultural biotechnology business could hardly have had a better friend than George W. Bush. [...] But there are clues President-elect Barack Obama could be an ally of the industry, too, especially in the effort to put biotech crops into widespread use in Africa. These hints come from both statements of policy and the type of people from whom he’s taking advice.

26.11.2008

Obama, like Bush, may be ag biotech ally

The agricultural biotechnology business could hardly have had a better friend than George W. Bush. But there are clues President-elect Barack Obama could be an ally of the industry, too, especially in the effort to put biotech crops into widespread use in Africa. These hints come from both statements of policy and the type of people from whom he's taking advice.

26.11.2008

From genes to farmers’ fields: Waterproof non-GE rice set to make waves in South Asia

”Waterproof’ versions of popular varieties of rice, which can withstand 2 weeks of complete submergence, have passed tests in farmers’ fields with flying colors. Several of these varieties are now close to official release by national and state seed certification agencies in Bangladesh and India, where farmers suffer major crop losses because of flooding of up to 4 million tons of rice per year. This is enough rice to feed 30 million people.

26.11.2008

Gene identified as key to sorghum’s survival in toxic soils

Though many of the world’s acidic soils have aluminum levels that are toxic to food plants, subsistence farmers often depend on these soils to survive. ARS plant physiologist Leon Kochian has been a part of a multinational effort to find a gene in sorghum - a key food crop in Africa - to protect it against aluminum toxicity in acidic soils.

26.11.2008

FAO and EU launch non-GE virusfree cassava at 330,000 African smallholders

After years of massive crop losses caused by a devastating virus, farmers are harvesting healthy cassava - one of Africa’s principal foodstuffs - throughout the Great Lakes region, FAO announced today, hailing the achievement as a milestone in its ever stronger partnership with the European Union. By the last planting season, virus-free cassava planting material had been distributed to some 330 000 smallholders in countries struck by the virus - Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. The improved crop now benefits a total of some 1.65 million people.

25.11.2008

3000 hectares of illegal GM corn in Poland

Despite a national ban, Polish farmers have bought and sown GM maize seed maize. According to the Polish maize producers’ organization, 320 hectares of GM maize were grown in 2007 and 3000 acres this year, a 10-fold increase in illegal plantings.

24.11.2008

Indian Bt cotton farmers pip US counterparts in farm income

Indian cotton farmers have earned more income per hectare than their US counterparts, thanks to the adoption of genetically modified technology developed by companies like Monsanto, says a UK-based agri-economist. ”Farmers in developing countries like India are having better farm income benefits compared to the US, Australia and Argentina,” agri-economist Graham Brookes told PTI. After paying for GM technology, cotton farmers in India have earned an additional average income of 225 dollars (Rs 9,956) per hectare between 2002 and 2006 against 94 dollars per hectare in the US and 133 dollars per hectare in Argentina, he said.

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