Monsanto plans to reassess the long-term targets for global penetration of genetically-modified seeds amid surging demand from farmers for its most sophisticated products. The rise in demand for US corn for use as food and fuel has forced farmers to plant in more hostile terrain and encouraged a drive for higher yields to take advantage of record crop prices. Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s chairman and chief executive, said the US group would evaluate how the current US harvest proceeds, but said the demand for seeds improving the yields of corn, soybeans and other crops was already ahead of its existing targets.

Glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth could be the biggest pest in cotton since the boll weevil and has the potential to damage the cotton industry, says a University of Tennessee Extension weed specialist. At a Syngenta-sponsored Webinar Friday, Larry Steckel, University of Tennessee Extension weed specialist, responded to a question from the Mid-South Farmer regarding how big of a problem weed resistance could be in the South, by saying, ”Boll weevil ran cotton of the South and resistant Palmer pigweed can have that potential.”

Some native Hawaiians believe the taro plant is the greatest life force of all foods. That"s why about a hundred people protested at the state capitol this morning, against the genetic modification of taro. A senate bill, banning the genetic engineering of taro, could soon die in the 2007 legislative session.

As a farmer of more than 500 acres, Ted Crosbie sees competition among agricultural biotechnology companies as good, because it increases his seed options and drives down prices. As vice president of global plant breeding for Monsanto Co., he is in the race with other biotech company executives to get more farmers to purchase his company’s products. [...] This investment, said Crosbie, who also is Iowa’s chief technology officer, will help stimulate economic development in the state for years to come.

Given the huge shortage of donor organs, researchers have been trying to find ways to transplant animal organs across different species (known as ”xenotransplantation”), with the eventual aim of transplanting animal organs into humans. The major stumbling block, says Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin (US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute) in a paper in PLoS Medicine, is that the immune system in the animal receiving the organ tends to reject the transplant.

According to a report from biotechnology advocacy group, a record number of genetically modified organisms, or biotech crops, were planted last year. But, in Mendocino County, the numbers are virtually nonexistent, thanks to both a lack of interest and a 2004 county ordinance banning their use in unincorporated areas. According to the study, published by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, 10.3 million farmers in 22 countries planted 252 million acres of GMO crops in 2006, an increase of 13 percent from 2005. ”Here we have virtually no one growing GMO crops,” said Mendocino County Agriculture Commissioner Dave Bengston.

USA Rice Federation today filed comments with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection service (APHIS) asking ”in the strongest possible terms that the permit for Ventria [Bioscience]’s pharmaceutical rice be denied.” Ventria is seeking USDA approval for growing non-food rice bioengineered to contain the human proteins lysozyme, lactoferrin and recombinant human serum albumin.

Genetically engineered crops are back in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons:

- Twice in the past six months, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that rice planted in the United States (and then exported to our trading partners) contained small amounts of an unapproved genetically engineered rice variety.

- Last month, two federal judges admonished the USDA for not adequately evaluating the potential impacts of genetically engineered alfalfa and creeping bentgrass.

he current high demand and market value of corn makes continuous corn attractive to producers, but it will also attract more rootworm pressure than usual, a South Dakota State University specialist warned. SDSU Extension Entomologist Mike Catangui said in fields seeded to continuous corn, rootworms have a continuous food supply, resulting in the buildup of rootworm infestations of cornfields over several years.

Biotechnology was first applied in medicine, then farming. Today, dozens of lifesaving drugs are on the market, while many crops are genetically engineered to withstand weed killers. [...] After decades of unfulfilled promise and billions in government corn subsidies, energy companies may finally be able to produce ethanol easily and inexpensively thanks to breakthroughs in biotechnology.

Most of the five billion gallons of ethanol produced annually in the United States is still made by fermenting corn, but the crop is expensive, and its use in biofuels cuts into the nation"s food supply.