Biodiesel from Washington-grown canola seed may be all the rage for people interested in a renewable, domestic form of energy. But a new law gives some farmers in one of the state’s oldest industries the power to keep canola away from their crops. ”All we wanted was a canola-free zone,” said Kirby Johnson, a Skagit Valley seed farmer. After a year of meeting with state bureaucrats and watching local and state leaders tout the benefits of fuel made from Washington-grown crops, seed farmers such as Kirby can now petition the Washington State Department of Agriculture to establish restrictive zones for canola production.

Minnesota has stopped the distribution and sale of a certain genetically modified variety of Syngenta seed corn because it doesn’t comply with state regulations. Farmers were told not to plant the rootworm resistant seed. Syngenta officials told the Minnesota Department of Agriculture on Friday that 7,480 units of ”Agrisure RW MIR 604” seed were distributed to 99 seed dealers in Minnesota.

”There"s now promise in the case of many of the biotechnologies in agriculture of fortifying nutrients in places where the people are facing massive nutrient deficiencies — of course, traits that protect against local pests and pathogens,” continues Sachs in an exclusive video interview and podcast available at the Conversations about Plant Biotechnology [...] ”Now there"s the possibility of drought-resistant varieties. … This would be a phenomenal breakthrough, especially for Africa, which is nearly a whole continent afflicted with the massive risk and reality of drought.”

Legislation allowing generic versions of medications made using biotechnology could result in dangerous treatments, a drugmaker and a senior U.S. senator said at a hearing yesterday. The proposed bill is flawed because it could permit companies to skip human trials before medications are approved, a representative of Johnson & Johnson, which makes biotech drugs, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at a hearing of the Senate health committee.

Facing the possibility of food from cloned animals ending up on supermarket shelves within a few years, consumer groups and lawmakers are sounding the alarm about potential dangers and looking to put new restrictions on the sale of such products in California. Several bills are now pending in the Legislature that would place new regulations on food created as a result of cloning or genetic engineering. One such bill, Senate Bill 63, by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, would require meat and milk produced from cloned animals to carry a label identifying it as having a cloned origin.

About a year ago, the USDA’s own inspector general issued a scathing audit criticizing USDA for failing to adequately regulate field tests of GM crops. The USDA was unaware of the location of many field trial sites and failed to conduct required inspections. [...] Want to know more about exactly what crops Monsanto will be growing, or where? Too bad! Monsanto claims it’s ”confidential” -- that is, none of your business. Oh, and the Hawaii legislators who refuse to hear bills seeking to restrict genetic engineering of taro, coffee, or anything else? Monsanto says it’s none of their business, either. We’re all Monsanto’s guinea pigs now.

When crop researchers target the poorest marginal environments, farmer participatory breeding puts them on the ground, as geographic information systems provide a bird’s eye view.

That international agricultural research has helped farmers and boosted food production is beyond doubt. But has it helped everyone? In particular, has it helped the poorest farmers in marginal areas? Yes, but it could do more, according to Mauricio Bellon, Director of the Diversity for Livelihoods Program of Bioversity International. He has just published a review examining the technical challenges and tools available to target poor farmers in marginal areas.

Using genetically engineered plants as a factory, scientists say they have produced a protein that could help them create an effective and safe smallpox vaccine. The findings are preliminary, since the protein has only been tested against smallpox in mice. But plants show plenty of promise as a manufacturing center for drugs, said study co-author Dr. Hilary Koprowski, the developer of the live polio vaccine.

A California company that seeks to create the nation’s first genetically modified rice crop plans to start small, contracting in April with Kansas farmers to plant about 200 acres of the grain.

Ventria Bioscience received preliminary approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture three weeks ago of a large-scale plan to grow rice modified to produce human proteins on more than 3,000 acres of farmland near Junction City.

Genetically engineered flu vaccine made from yellow striped caterpillars instead of hen eggs has been shown for the first time to keep people from getting the flu, scientists say. The results are preliminary but suggest the insect method could be a quicker, easier alternative to the lengthy, antiquated egg-based procedure now used and lead to a more rapid response to a pandemic, the study authors say.