Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has recently signed an amendment on the law of animal feeding, which allows the use of genetically modified soybeans in animal nutrition starting 2016. He noted that this decision is “economically and socially reasonable.” He added that without this amendment, poultry and pork producers in the country could face difficulties. However, the decision was criticised by the Ministry of agriculture. “Poland should be free of GMO products. There are a lot of reasons for this for example the health of people, the protection of environment and the need for the maintenance of biological diversity”, said Mark Kalembe Minister of Agriculture of Poland, in an interview.

AN American university confirmed yesterday that it had used Chinese children as guinea pigs in a trial of a new type of genetically modified rice. The announcement, by Tufts University in Massachusetts, followed a denial by authorities in China's central province of Hunan that such a study had taken place. However, university spokeswoman Andrea Grossman told The China Press, a US-based newspaper, that it conducted the study in rural areas in Hunan with the aim of finding a solution to a serious health problem affecting developing countries.

How would you feel if I told you that a group of scientists had come to the United States, and fed a group of 24 children aged between six and eight years of age a potentially dangerous product that had yet to be tested on animals? What if I told you that state authorities had come out publically with clear directives against this very experiment, and yet the experiment had continued regardless? You'd be pretty outraged, right? Well, this is what we believe is happening, EXCEPT that it is happening on Chinese soil and on Chinese children (and I hope you've managed to maintain that outrage.)

While the battle against Genetically Modified food labeling rages on in the U.S. a definitive stand has been taken by Brazil. A court in Brazil has ruled that Nestle label all of its products with over 1 percent GMO. This ruling came about after Nestle's strawberry flavoured Bono Cookies were found to have transgenic material. In concordance with Brazilian law, all food manufacturers will now have to let the consumers know about the food products containing GM organism, reports GM Watch. The cookies were found to contain genetically modified soy. All food products containing GM content will now have to have a label: a yellow triangle with 'T' in the middle. This will be accompanied by the word ”transgenic” to indicate that the food is genetically modified.

THE FIRST steps were taken yesterday in a legal challenge to a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to allow genetically modified potato trials in Co Carlow. A group of environmentalists and organic producers sought, but were refused, a High Court order allowing them to legally challenge the Teagasc trial without facing the possibility of having to pay “prohibitively expensive” costs if they lost their case. The application was made by Co Kildare farmer Percy Podger on behalf of a group that included Green Party councillors Malcolm Noonan and Danny Forde and eight other organic producers and environmentalists.

In the first case of its kind in Argentina, the poisoning of people through the use of pesticides has been punished. Soya farmer, Francisco Parra, and pilot of pesticide-spraying aircrafts, Edgardo Pancello, were yesterday convicted of polluting the neighbourhood of Ituzaingó Anexo with glyphosate and endosulfan. Both were given conditional sentences of three years, along with community service. A third defendant, also a soy producer, was acquitted due to lack of evidence. In 2001, a group of community activists known as the Mothers of Ituzaingó started to document the high number of miscarriages, infant deaths and illnesses in the area. According to the public attorney, 169 of the 5,000 inhabitants of Ituzaingó Anexo died from cancer between 2002 and 2010. Following the verdict, one of the claimants, environmental activist Sofía Gatica, whose baby daughter died of kidney failure shortly after birth said “It is a historic sentence, but the fact that it is only a conditional verdict is a slap into the face for the victims.” Gatica was awarded the ‘Goldman Environmental Prize’ for her courage in the ten-year battle against pesticides earlier this year. In Argentina, 370 million litres of pesticides are used every year, especially on the soy fields where animal feed for Europe’s meat industry is produced. In September, Sofìa Gatica and Maria del Milagro Godoy will talk about their experiences at the GMO Free Europe Conference, as well as at different events taking place as part of a speakers tour across Europe.

Recent media coverage of Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, which would permit companies to label foods made with genetically engineered (GE) crops, highlights the gulf between citizens demanding the right to know what's in our food and corporations desperate to keep the public in the dark. According to the California secretary of state, Monsanto and the rest of the pesticide industry's "Big 6" have contributed $13.5 million so far to defeat this initiative, and have put stopping it at the top of their agenda. Add the money from "Big Food" companies and the opposition funding grows to almost $25 million, with an even bigger "gusher" of corporate cash on its way.

The Center for Food Safety (‘The Center’) is pleased to announce that the legal action filed yesterday at the State of Oregon’s Court of Appeals requesting an immediate stay on illegal planting of genetically engineered (GE) canola in the Willamette Valley was successful. The Court found sufficient cause to order an immediate halt to planting subject to further judicial review. The Center and its partners are gratified by the Court’s preliminary decision and look forward to a fair and open review process that reasonably evaluates the purported value and legal basis for ODA’s proposed opening of 1.7 million acres in the Willamette Valley to industrial, GE canola growth earmarked for biofuel production at the expense of Oregon’s invaluable organics industry.

Turkey's food industry has reversed plans that would have led to a fuller exploration of genetic modification (GM), bowing to pressure from a Greenpeace campaign.

Greenpeace Mexico made another step forward blocking transgenic soy sowing. In addition to the two suspensions handed down by the Courts of Yucatan and Campeche, on August 08 lawmakers of the Third Committee of Finance, Agriculture and Development, Communications and Public Works decided to call Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada, head of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), to submit a report - in a set time of 10 days - that supports with full, technical and scientific explanations his decision to adopt a favorable opinion for commercial cultivation of GM soy. The background to this decision was threefold:

- Greenpeace Mexico started a process for administrative responsibility to the Internal Control Body of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) against Alfonso Flores Ramirez, head of the Directorate General of Environmental Impact and Risk (DGIRA) and Mauricio Limón Aguirre, Secretary of Management for Environmental Protection, because they granted to Monsanto the permission for commercial cultivation of 253 500 hectares of GM soy -tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate- in the states of Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi, Veracruz and Chiapas despite of suspension by the First District Court of Merida (Yucatan) to plant 30 000 hectares of GM soy, requested by Monsanto in 2011, motived by of the irreparable damage that can cause to the environment and risks to human health.

- At the Session of July 4, 2012, Deputies urged Secretary of Agriculture (SAGARPA) to apply the “precautionary principle”, based on UNESCO’s international values and on national Biodiversity Law of Genetically Modified Organisms (LBOG, art. 90), because of the risks inherent in beekeeping and honey trade.

- At the Session of July 11, 2012, Deputies urged the Federal Executive Branch to report on the purpose for granting authorizations for the cultivation of 253 500 hectares of GM soy and suspend and / or revoke, as appropriate, these authorizations.