There"s nothing like a tender steak from a free-range, grass-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, organic and -- oh, yes -- cloned cow. Or is there? [...] In the opinion of some in the biotechnology arena, the federal definition of organic food would allow them to label food from clones as organic, as long as those clones were raised organically.

In a move affecting the cooking of more than 6 million pounds of french fries a year, Marriott International is eliminating frying oil containing trans fats from its more than 2,300 hotels in the United States and Canada. [...] For decades, restaurants have been using vegetable oils that have gone through a process called hydrogenation, which increases shelf life but produces trans fats. The new oils are made with genetically modified soybean oil that contains lower levels of an acid that reduces shelf life.

Will there ever be another horse like Barbaro? Maybe so, if it were up to cloning researcher Katrin Hinrichs. Theoretically, you could take a tissue sample from the now-dead racehorse, culture some cells and freeze them for future Barbaro clones, she said. ”It just seems to make sense to do that when you have an animal that’s genetically valuable,” the veterinarian who heads Texas A&M’s Equine Embryo Laboratory told me today. Not that you’d ever put a Barbaro clone in a race. First of all, the rules of thoroughbred racing bar horses produced through cloning, or even through artificial insemination. But there’s a more fundamental reason why clones don’t make good racers, Hinrichs said.

From the moment the first biotech patents were granted in 1980, the industry was hailed as a new frontier — uncharted territory where a new generation of scientist-inventors could reap the traditional rewards of innovation. But even as the gold rush began, critics as varied as scientists and human rights advocates declared that biotech’s new intellectual property frontier was already occupied. Claims of novelty and innovation as the basis for life patents, they said, disregarded the realities of not only nature, but also of research practices, democratic decision-making and global governance. [...] The title of an intriguing paper he wrote on the subject, “Acceptable Intellectual Property,” is a wordplay on the well-known concept of “acceptable risk” — that is, the level of risk a society considers acceptable, given existing social, economic and cultural conditions.

After reviewing the newest statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, local growers of designer gene crops are declaring that they have become the second biggest crop category in Hawaii. Hawaii’s genetically engineering seed industry is now valued at $70.4 million, according to the National Agricultural Service Hawaii Field Office, exceeded only by pineapple at $79.3 million. Sugar cane has slipped to third place with a value of $58.3 million.

The contamination of U.S. long-grain rice supplies by a genetically engineered variety appears to be more widespread than previously believed, the State Plant Board said Thursday. Traces of Bayer Crop-Science’s experimental variety LLRICE601 or two of its Liberty Link siblings have been detected in 10 samples of Clearfield 131 rice seed, the agency said. Since August, the U.S. rice industry has been aware that trace amounts of LLRICE601 were present in U.S. rice supplies. Until Thursday, however, such contamination was thought to be limited to only one variety, Cheniere.

Spencer Aitel grows corn, grains and alfalfa on his 275-acre organic farm in China. He stakes his reputation, and his family’s livelihood, on the fact that his crops are free of pesticides and added ingredients. Galen Larrabee also grows corn, about 400 acres worth, on his farm in Knox. He uses a genetically engineered variety of the grain that he says has increased yields. The two farmers soon may find themselves on opposite sides of a growing agricultural divide in the state over the use of genetically modified foods. It’s a debate that appears headed to the Legislature.

Will there ever be another horse like Barbaro? Maybe so, if it were up to cloning researcher Katrin Hinrichs. Theoretically, you could take a tissue sample from the now-dead racehorse, culture some cells and freeze them for future Barbaro clones, she said. "It just seems to make sense to do that when you have an animal that"s genetically valuable," the veterinarian who heads Texas A&M"s Equine Embryo Laboratory told me today. Not that you"d ever put a Barbaro clone in a race. First of all, the rules of thoroughbred racing bar horses produced through cloning, or even through artificial insemination. But there"s a more fundamental reason why clones don"t make good racers, Hinrichs said.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) today entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to cooperate for the continued adoption of agricultural biotechnology in the Americas as part of IICA’s Hemispheric Biosafety and Biotechnology Program (HBBP). As part of the Memorandum of Understanding, both organizations will promote agricultural biotechnology initiatives that benefit the Americas around the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the International Plant Protection Convention, and World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements.

Here we go again. Yet another technology in its infancy is likely to be introduced into the food supply, while industry remains cautious and consumers divided. The issue over cloned meat is not one of health and safety – the scientific evidence examined by US and EU regulators indicates a cloned cow is no different from regular meat. Instead the issue the industry must now face is whether it wants to test consumers" acceptance of such a new technology, given the current concerns – and controversy -- over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).