News
2011-10-05 | permalink
Battle escalates against genetically modified crops in the USA
Home to a fast-growing network of farmers’ markets, cooperatives and organic farms, but also the breeding ground for mammoth for-profit corporations that now hold patents to over 50 percent of the world’s seeds, the United States is weathering a battle between Big Agro and a ripening movement for food justice and security.
Conflicting ideologies about agriculture have become ground zero for this war over the production, distribution and consumption of the world’s food.
International Press Service, Italy (IPS): U.S.: Battle escalates against genetically modified crops- CBS, USA: Activists plan march against genetically-modified food
- National Public Radio, USA (NPR): Americans are wary of genetically engineered foods
- Business Week, USA: Monsanto spent $1.7 million lobbying gov’t in 2Q
2011-09-27 | permalink
Greenpeace reports suspension of GE rice commercialization in China
The Chinese government may be taking a bold new step by halting the commercialization of GE rice. It’s a move that we at Greenpeace would widely welcome as the long-term effects of GE products on human health are still unknown. China’s major financial weekly the Economic Observer quoted on Friday, Sept 23rd, 2011, an information source close to the Ministry of Agriculture that China has suspended the commercialization of genetically engineered rice.
2011-09-20 | permalink
Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, and Dow Chemical apply for larger GE maize trials in Mexico
Permits to plant large extensions of genetically modified corn for the first time in Mexico are likely to be approved before the end of the year, said a company lobby group on Monday. Monsanto, DuPont’s Pioneer seed unit and Dow Chemical’s agricultural arm have all applied to expand on tiny experimental plots of GM corn in northern Mexico, said AgroBIO, an organization that represents the biotech companies. The group expects the government will approve more sizable pilot plots for the corn-growing state of Sinaloa by the end of October and in Tamaulipas by November with other states following soon after.
2011-09-19 | permalink
Turkey – the delicate GM balance
Turkey’s economy grew in Q2 for the ninth successive quarter, and by 8.8% on the previous year. The rate of GDP growth surprised even the central bank, and while inflation is not yet a concern, food prices are high and rising. This has brought the complicated issue of genetically modified food to the fore, with a request to the government from feed, poultry and egg producers to allow imports of three types of genetically GM corn to be used as animal and chicken feed. “We can solve our raw material problem only through imports,” says Ulku Karakus, chief of the Turkish Feed Industrialists Union, explaining the problem. “Costly feed translates into expensive meat. Unless we pull down the cost of feed, we cannot drive down meat prices.”
2011-08-29 | permalink
US Embassy in Sofia (Bulgaria) backed pro-GMO lobby
According to the cables, GMO supporters in Bulgaria are actively backed and financed by the American Embassy, as Bivol writes. In a cable, sent in 2006, Charge d’Affaires, Alex Karagiannis, informs the US Department of State that the main obstacle for the passing of more liberal GMO legislation has been opposition coming from the President of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, Ivan Juchnovski. “According to Atanas Atanassov, Director of the Agro-Bio Institute, Juchnovski sent various “experts”, who knew little about the science of GMOs, to the Environmental and Agriculture Parliamentary Committees to critique the draft law.
