Articles

The article explores the background to the current push towards the introduction genetically modified (GM) crops into the EU. The most significant aspects of the current state of the legislation regulating the marketing of foods which inadvertently contain a GM element are described. The main protagonist in the industry, Monsanto is identified and its business model examined. The activities of this company are outlined and certain aspects of its legal and extra-legal activities are set-out. The article then examines two seminal cases, both of which were decided in the Canadian courts. Monsanto v Schmeiser and Hoffman v Monsanto are described and analysed. The conclusion is drawn that as precedents, these bode ill for the future of the regulation of the GM industry, particularly, in respect of their effect upon the legal redress available to conventional farmers who may be adversely affected by the unwanted presence of GM seeds and crops on their land.

Several counties in California have banned growing genetically engineered crops and livestock, and about 100 towns in New England have passed resolutions supporting limits on genetically engineered crops. In Nebraska, a bill aimed at assuring Nebraska towns and counties don’t stray into those kinds of bans is moving through the Legislature. The bill (LB263), which would make certain state law is pre-eminent and that it overrides city and county regulations of seed or fertilizer, gained first-round approval Wednesday.

Plantings of genetically modified (GM) maize in South Africa have increased dramatically, agriculture company Monsanto said on Tuesday. Of the white maize planted in the Delmas, Nigel and Leandra in Mpumalanga 74 percent was GM and of the yellow maize 67 percent, Kobus Steenekamp, biotechnology and chemical products manager said a statement on Tuesday. While unable to give comparative figures, he said they had been ”substantially” lower in the previous year.

”There is a lot of propaganda being used by the two sides,” Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the academy’s chancellor, told [...] The majority of the 41 speakers listed on the academy’s Web site support the use of modified crops for boosting food production and the creation of new sources of energy from nonfood crops. The bishop said that’s because there are very few scientists who oppose the use of genetically modified organisms.

Several interviews were broadcast on U.S. television news services that highlighted the fact that Mexican farmers cannot compete with subsidized corn imported from the U.S. These farmers were forced to move into makeshift dwellings in the shadows of Mexico City. As advocates for family farmers, in the U.S. and abroad, the American Agriculture Movement has worked to make this catastrophe known and has worked with Congress in an attempt to correct the injustice for many years.

Pakistan would have to focus on genetically modified and hybrid crops to tap true potential of agricultural productivity in the country in the shortest possible time. This was the upshot of speeches made at a seminar on Challenges and Opportunities in Agbiotec in Pakistan. Provincial Minister for Agriculture Ahmad Ali Aulakh, LCCI President Mian Muzaffar Ali, Vice President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh and former LCCI Vice President Shahzad Ali Malik threw light on the issues being faced by the agricultural sector in Pakistan.

US biotech firm Monsanto announced Tuesday it filed suit against chemical giant DuPont alleging infringement of its patents for ”Roundup Ready” herbicide-resistant crops. The suit filed in federal court in St. Louis, Missouri, names EI du Pont de Nemours and Company and its subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International for ”unlawful use of Monsanto’s proprietary Roundup Ready herbicide tolerant technologies in soybeans and corn.”

After ten long years of research punctuated with technical delays, the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur is ready with 20,000 packets of desi Bt cotton seeds for distribution to farmers starting next month. The Bikaneri Narma (BN Bt), as it is called, is a variety and not a hybrid which was the only option available to farmers till date. [...] The seeds will be available for Rs 200 per 2 kg bag as against Rs 750 per 450 gm bag of hybrids currently sold by national and multinational companies like Mahyco, Rasi, Ankur and Nuziveedu.

Faced with climate change and a global population pushing seven billion, we need serious solutions, says ecologist Rosie Hails. And like it or not, she thinks scientists, politicians and the public need to reconsider GM. [...] we need a change in legislation. Current environmental laws have many strengths but focus on risks and do not consider benefits.

Due to insufficient data, it is currently impossible to carry out a final evaluation of the size and distribution of profits in terms of business and economics which have been achieved by cultivating transgenic plants in developing and emerging countries. Studies which claim to be able to do this are not backed up scientifically and are based on unstable projections. Even the case studies from China and Brazil could not improve this situation: The studies published to date on the economic results of Bt cotton cultivation in China are, for instance, based on the data from just a few years and just a few hundred hectares (out of an overall acreage of 5.5 million hectares) and demonstrate enormous fluctuations; for Brazil, no publications at all exist on the cultivation results, only estimations.