Articles

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forking over millions of dollars for a soybean program in Afghanistan that's running into major problems, with Afghan farmers slow to embrace a product that few Afghans ate before. The findings were included in a scathing new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), on the $34 million program. It found the program has been marked by mismanagement, poor government oversight and financial waste. Part of the problem is that Afghans don’t really like how soybean products taste and past measures to push the super-food onto the culture have tanked.

Are Europe’s polluters demanding more scrutiny of their operations? Well, unsurprisingly, no, but industry lobbyists putting pressure on the European Commission to increase the power of its chief scientific adviser does sound topsy-turvy. What the lobbyists have realised is that the more you concentrate scientific advice into the hands of one person, the easier it is to control the science. If on top of this that person is unaccountable and allowed to keep any advice secret, then that makes the job of anyone who wants to manipulate science even easier.

(.....) The situation in Brussels is no different. In the face of strong public opposition to GM crops and a divided scientific community, the Commission’s scientific adviser has repeatedly claimed that GM crops have no adverse effects on the environment. (.....) Scientific scrutiny in policy-making is essential. The question is how to ensure that policy-makers receive the best representation of wide-ranging and transparent scientific advice.

The more glyphosate in the feed, the higher the number of birth defects in the herd

Glyphosate has been found in malformed piglets. The research study was conducted by a team of researchers from Germany and Egypt in collaboration with the Danish pig farmer Ib Pedersen, whose pigs were analysed for glyphosate content.

The rate of malformations increased to one out of 260 born piglets if sow feeds contained 0.87-1.13 ppm glyphosate in the first 40 days of pregnancy. In the case of 0.25 ppm glyphosate in sow feeds, one out of 1432 piglets was malformed. In this case, therefore, a higher dose of glyphosate led to more malformations.

Testbiotech demands application for the placing on the market to be refused

Friday, 25. July 2014

Testbiotech is accusing the European Food Safety Authority EFSA of deliberately playing down the risks of an uncontrolled spread of genetically modified oilseed rape. The cause for concern is an application filed by Monsanto for the import into the EU of viable transgenic oilseed rape MON88302 kernels, which are to be processed to oil and feed in Europe. Similar rape plants have already spread far beyond the fields in various regions of the world, for example along transport routes. EFSA actually assumes in its opinion that seeds will be lost during transport within the EU, and that the genetically engineered plants will grow in the environment. Nevertheless, EFSA came to the conclusion that the risk of transgenes spreading into the environment is low.

The Council today adopted its first-reading position on a draft directive granting to member states more flexibility to decide whether or not they wish to cultivate genetically modified organisms

(GMOs) on their territory. The decision was taken at the General Affairs Council. The Belgian and Luxembourg delegations abstained.

The adoption follows the political agreement reached in the Environment Council on 12 June. The Italian presidency is expected to start negotiations with the newly elected European Parliament in early autumn 2014.

Watch a 26 minutes report about the problems related to GMOs in Spain.

Spain agriculture suffers from GMOs

In 2012, major portions of land in Spain were planted with MON810 corn, which is produced by the biotech transnational Monsanto based in the United States.

In a recent edition of “Fact Sheet,” a publication of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), writers Juan Lopez, Mariann Orovwuje and Nnimmo Bassey insist that Nigeria does not need genetically modified crops to satisfy its food and agricultural needs. They claim that the National Biosafety Bill is deficient and that President Goodluck Jonathan should not assent to it.

(.....) Nigeria does not need GM crops to satisfy its food and agriculture needs. We know exactly what we have to do and the Nigerian National Conference recently raised the caution with regard to the draft National Biosafety Bill.

Thousands of Black Angus bulls snort steam gently into the early morning air at Tasmania's largest cattle feedlot. They are being fattened up for the Japanese market where marbled Angus beef is in high demand. Tasmania's isolation and wilderness make the island one of the cleanest places on earth, and the bulls attract a high premium, thanks to Tasmania's status as the only Australian state that bans genetically modified food crops and animal feed. But Tasmania's powerful poppy industry, the world's largest supplier of pharmaceutical grade opiates for painkillers, is lobbying for the moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMO) to be lifted.

According to a survey released by Consumer Reports on 16 June, 60% of consumers look for the word “natural” on the foods they buy. Two thirds of those polled think it means that the product has no artificial ingredients, pesticides or genetically modified organisms – including artificial growth hormones, antibiotics or drugs in meat. And 80% think that the presence of “natural” on food packaging should mean those things. The problem is that ”natural” means just about nothing, in terms of US food labelling regulations. Products marked “natural” aren't certified or inspected to ensure they are, and the legal definition is vague at best.

A growing problem is creeping up among crops throughout North Dakota and Minnesota. Some weeds have become resistant to the herbicides used to control them. In some parts of the country, growers have lost their farms because they didn’t act in time and the weeds got so out of hand, says Rich Zollinger, North Dakota State University Extension Service weed specialist. (.....) Some growers are taking the issue of herbicide-resistant weeds seriously, but when a grower doesn’t address the problem, LaPlante says it not only affects his field, but his neighbors’ fields as well, often traveling through waterways. “If growers collectively as a whole don’t get everybody on the same wagon, it may very well end up as a serious problem like in the South,” Zollinger says. In the Southern part of the country, a weed called Palmer amaranth has become glyphosate-resistant and has taken over entire farms, Zollinger says. “That one weed is worse than all five of our bad weeds,” he says. It adapts quickly, competes aggressively with corps, and can produce anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 seeds, according to Purdue University Extension Service in Indiana, where Palmer amaranth has been confirmed. “It’s not too far away,” LaPlante says. “If that gets up into our waterways here, we’re all going to have a real serious problem.”