Articles

While Monsanto Company has had a better 2008 than the S&P 500 Index (SPX), it hasn’t exactly earned the optimism that is prevalent on the Street. In fact, MON has dropped more than 37% (compared to the 38% slip in the broad market index), falling along with its 10-week moving average. The stock has plunged 51% from its June high, and is currently finding some support at the 70 level.

Monsanto Canada Inc. will go to court on January 15 to settle a case with four farmers who allegedly illegally grew, harvested, and sold products developed from patented Monsanto seeds. The McGill Tribune contacted the farmers involved, but none were willing to comment before they go to court. The January hearing follows Monsanto’s December settlement with three Quebec farmers growing Roundup Ready canola without a license. The farmers agreed to pay $200 per acre.

Environmental group Greenpeace on Tuesday urged the Tamil Nadu Government to ban Genetically Modified (GM) food items in the state, saying they would adversely affect the health of the people and the state of agriculture. Talking to newspersons here, Jai Krishna, Sustainable Agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace said the GM foods were scientifically acknowledged as health hazards and have been shown to cause, allergies, liver and kidney toxicity, immune disorders and retarded growth.

After the recent announcement by Anbumani Ramadoss, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, that he would not let GM foods enter India, Pushpa Bhargava, member of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) and leading molecular biologist, has in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urged a ban on all GM foods being imported into the country, until proper safurged a ban on all GM foods being imported into the country, until proper safety research was done on them.

Opposing any type of trial-runs of genetically modified seeds in the state, the CPI(M) led LDF government in Kerala has asked the Centre to declare the State as ’G M free’ State in the country. It was the government’s declared policy that genetically modified seeds would not be allowed to be cultivated either on experimental basis or otherwise in the state, Agriculture Minister Mullakara Ratnakaran told the Assembly while replying to a submission.

The Brazilian Association of Non-GMO Grain Producers, ABRANGE, declares that through its members it is able to originate or produce and crush or trade about 6.3 million metric tons of Brazilian Non-GMO beans or its products. ABRANGE also announces that besides its members other Brazilian traders or crushers are able to trade or crush, under regular programs, about 3.7 million tons of Brazilian Non GMO soybeans or its products, totaling about 10 million tons of Brazilian Non-GMO soybeans or its products (about 7.5 million tons of soy meal, about 1.9 million tons of soy oil and nearly 40,000 tons of lecithin).

”We battled for two years to get the results of our study published,” declares Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla. ”In the course of my entire career, I have never encountered so many difficulties! There were efforts to stop the publication of this scientific data!” Biologist José Sarukhan, a UNAM researcher and member of the United States National Academy of Science, had recommended the article for publication by that organization’s review. The latter rejected the article in March, with the justification that it risked provoking ”excessive media attention for political or environmentally-related reasons ...”

Italy’s has approved the resumption of biotech field trials after a hiatus of 10 years. Protocols for nine crops were approved but leave implementing regulations up to the regions—many of which have declared themselves to be GMO free. While the approval of these protocols may be a positive step, most Italian scientists remain skeptical about their actual significance. In their view, too many constraints exist to make field tests practical.

The first approval of GM crops for cultivation within the European Union since ten years may be proposed soon by the EU Commission. Under pressure of another "no risk" opinion of the Food Safety Authority EFSA and a court case from GM maize giant Pioneer Commissioner Stavros Dimas may be forced to proposing an approval which he had resented for years, EU and industry officials say. But so far, the paperwork is being kept well under firm instructions not to release it anywhere near the public domain.

The European Union's highest court fined France 10 million euros ($12.9 million) on Tuesday for failing to update the country's laws on genetically modified (GM) crops and foods.