2012-05-18
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Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Thursday filed an amendment requiring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to ensure genetically-modified fish pose no risks. While the FDA is already examining the biological risks associated with what’s come to be dubbed ”Frankenfish,” no separate analysis is planned looking at the impact of genetically modified fish escaping into the ocean. Murkowski’s amendment would require that. ”We need to look before we leap here -- and make that long hard look,” Murkowski said in a press release.
2012-05-16
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the Obama administration and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack determined the need for addressing coexistence and a 23-member committee was established in 2011. [...] the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture has been given the job of addressing the size and scope of risks to coexistence, potential compensation mechanisms for crops contaminated, tools and standards to verify eligibility for compensation and figuring losses and finally who would have to pay. [...] There isn’t much talk about the first committee’s success or failure, but it doesn’t seem much came from that committee.
2012-05-16
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American farmers are increasingly expressing regret over the planting of GM crops, which are now causing major problems, and Europe must take note before it is too late – warns campaign group. The British House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee’s new report on sustainable food recommends government action to tackle the United Kingdom’s unhealthy and environmentally damaging food system. In addition to important recommendations to improve healthy eating and sustainability, the report highlights the need to diversify the research agenda in food and agriculture. The committee also questions the role of genetically modified crops in the future food system.
2012-05-16
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A fast-spreading plague of ”super weeds” taking over U.S. farmland will not be stopped easily, and farmers and government officials need to change existing practices if food production is to be protected, industry experts said on Thursday. ”This is a complex problem,” said weed scientist David Shaw in remarks to a national ”summit” of weed experts in Washington to come up with a plan to battle weeds that have developed resistance to herbicides. Weed resistance has spread to more than 12 million U.S. acres and primarily afflicts key agricultural areas in the U.S. Southeast and the corn and soybean growing areas of the Midwest.
2012-05-16
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Monsanto’s Roundup Ready weed-killing products may continue to lose their potency in the face of a growing epidemic of Roundup-resistant weeds but, according to a new video, industrial-scale farmers need not fear: Dow AgroSciences has come to the rescue. [...] At least, that’s what Dow is selling in its promotional video, which seems to be based on the premise that the herbicide-resistance problem created by genetically modified industrial agriculture can be solved only by the introduction of an intensified breed of genetically modified products.
2012-05-14
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A group of local farmers and food activists hope to convince the Jackson County Board of Commissioners to ban the planting of genetically engineered plants within Jackson County. But commissioners said the feasibility of such an ordinance has yet to be determined. Brian Comnes, representative for GMO-Free Jackson County, presented a proposal to the commissioners Wednesday, requesting the board pass an ordinance without a citizen initiative. Commissioners said the issue is already on their radar and they are looking into it.
2012-05-14
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In the early 1990s, we were really good at growing corn using bio-intensive integrated pest management. In practice, that meant crop rotations, supporting natural predators, using biocontrol agents like ladybugs and as a last resort, using chemical controls only after pests had been scouted for and found. During this time of peak bio-IPM adoption, today’s common practice of blanketing corn acreage with “insurance” applications of various pesticides without having established the need to do so would have been unthinkable. [...] Then, in the mid-to-late 1990s, GE corn and neonicotinoid (imidacloprid) seed treatments both entered the market — the two go hand-in-hand, partly by design and partly by accident.
2012-05-10
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APHIS regulates GE crops if the donor organism, recipient organism, or vector or vector agent meets the plant pest definition or the APHIS administrator believes the organism to be a plant pest. The agency’s regulatory decisions have met much criticism in the last decade, inspiring the U of M research team to determine if and where APHIS may have gone wrong. The team used past lawsuits as case studies to determine whether APHIS failed to recognize the environmental impacts of GE crops and made legal errors in failing to comply with the sometimes strict procedures of U.S. environmental law.
2012-05-10
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While criticism of genetically modified foods has received widespread media attention in the past few years, consumers remain generally supportive of food biotechnology, according to an industry-funded survey released Thursday. The evaluation - conducted by the International Food Information Council - found that 38 percent of consumers have a somewhat or very favorable opinion towards plant biotechnology, up from 32 percent in 2010. A smaller 26 percent were neither favorable nor unfavorable, and 20 percent were either somewhat or very unfavorable. The majority of the consumers also found no need to change the way foods produced with biotechnology are labeled.
2012-05-09
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The report, Public Research, Private Gain: Corporate Influence Over University Agricultural Research, provides a history of the land-grant university system including how, as public funding has stalled in recent decades, these universities have turned to agribusiness to fill the void, compromising the public mission of the institutions. “Private-sector funding not only corrupts the public research mission of land-grant universities, but also distorts the science that is supposed to help farmers improve their practices and livelihoods,” said Hauter. “Industry-funded academic research routinely produces favorable results for industry sponsors. And since policymakers and regulators frequently cite these university studies to back up their decision-making, industry-funded academic research increasingly influences the rules that govern their business operations.”
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