GENET news: Protein

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.

21.11.2008

Who owns nature?

In a world where market research is becoming increasingly proprietary and pricey, ETC Group’s report names names, discloses market share and provides top 10 industry rankings up and down the corporate food chain. Not all the corporations identified in ETC Group’s new report are household names, but collectively they control a staggering share of the commercial products found on industrial farms, in our refrigerators and medicine cabinets.

21.11.2008

Coffee breeders select non-GE low-caffeine varieties

Mr. Illy assembled a team of nine agronomists and technicians, who spent the next five years identifying Laurina plants in the collection on which to build a low-caffeine bean. [...] By the time Illy began conducting more successful field tests of the plant in the rich volcanic soil of El Salvador in 2000, several companies had already begun assembling low-caf teams of their own, and others were soon to follow.

21.11.2008

Urgency eases for GM wheat as prices fall

The push to promote genetically modified (GM) wheat to combat global food shortages could slow as global commodity prices ease, a top industry executive said on Sunday. ”Now that prices have fallen off their peak, I don’t think it will be a priority,” said Vijay Iyengar, managing director of the Singapore-based grains trader Agrocorp International Pte Ltd.
”Because of the record high prices we saw the push for increasing supplies, and so the call for genetically modified grain seeds received a lot of attention.”

19.11.2008

The return of Bt cotton in India

The little evidence available suggests it is not Bt cotton per se that is responsible for the worsening farmers’ livelihoods but the context in which it was introduced along with environmental factors. Of course, their conclusion remains to be verified by the groups opposed to introduction of GM crops. But till then, the evidence is mixed and there is very little information from credible sources on the extent of Bt cotton or its impact on farming.

18.11.2008

Tumbling soybean prices worry Brazilian farmers

Within a decade, settlers founded the town of Primavera do Leste and rode a soybean boom that’s turned Brazil into a leading breadbasket to the world. Primavera do Leste swelled to 60,000 residents and is expected to double in size within 10 years. However, soybean prices have cratered in the past three months. Credit has disappeared. Many farmers face selling their crop next year at a loss, and they wonder how they’ll pay off loans taken out during the 2007-08 bumper harvest. In a town that’s dependent on soybean’s fortunes, fear and worry have replaced optimism and hopefulness.

14.11.2008

Government of Pakistan does not subsidies Monsanto’s Bt cotton

The government has turned down Monsanto’s offer of introducing second-generation technology of Bt cotton against billions of rupees as seed subsidy to the company for its intention of selling Bt cottonseed in the country. [...] The company during the next ten years of its technology transfers to the local seed companies would pocket $1.2 billion and the federal government would pay the sum in the name of seed subsidy to the company.

13.11.2008

BASF StrigAway Maize - Yet another quick fix for Africa’s farmers?

BASF has joined forces with two high-profile non-profit organisations, CIMMYT and AATF, to bring its technology to maize farmers in East Africa. The promise is that Clearfield maize seeds will rescue African farmers from the parasitic tentacles of the Striga plant, a weed that destroys huge tracts of Africa’s maize production. If things move according to plan, the seeds, which are called StrigAway or Ua Kayongo (Swahili for ”Striga killer”), will be commercialised in Kenya before the end of 2006.

12.11.2008

My two-day field trip with Germany’s BASF Plant Science

Of course, if you’re to believe BASF, there’s nothing at all to fear from genetic modification - or genetic ”optimization,” as it was repeatedly referred to there. A presentation by Graham Brookes, director of the England-based PG Economics Limited, showed hard evidence of the overwhelmingly positive economic and environmental impacts of the crops. Mind you, this is a man whose company gets a paycheck from such pro-GM trade associations as CropLife International and Green Biotech Europe, and who summed up his view of the Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva with the couplet ”bloody idiot.”

Go to page: ← 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 →

Home: GENET