News

The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN) is renewing its call for the federal Ministers of Health and of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Jean-Yves Duclos and Marie-Claude Bibeau, to reject proposals to remove government oversight of some genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) foods and seeds, as new polling data confirms most Canadians want independent government regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). CBAN, a coalition of 15 environmental, farmer and social justice groups, also released a report “New Proposals Would Eliminate Transparency on GMOs in Canada” that describes how the changes would also remove the ability of the federal government to get information about these unregulated GMOs for Canadians, if the Ministers accept the proposals from Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

While this disease affects one third of the world’s population, some scientists suggest that a new technology called gene drive could be a game-changer.

Gene Drives – manipulating the DNA of mosquitoes to pass down an extinction gene

The research consortium Target Malaria, mostly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Open Philanthropy Fund, is developing genetically engineered mosquitoes in the lab that would either make all offspring male or all female offspring infertile. They use the Crispr-Cas methodology to implant a system into their DNA that would replicate when mosquitoes mate, ensuring that this gene spreads throughout the wild mosquito population. But while some hope that this would be the magic bullet to suppress mosquitoe populations and stop the malaria transmission cycle, this currently unproven high risk technology poses fundamental questions for humanity: How far are we willing to go, how high can the risks and uncertainties be in order to test a hypothesis?

The Risks of Gene Drive mosquitoes

Sa. 23. Apr. 5:30pm - 6:45pm (CEST)

This webinar is our second meeting within the series of ten The Alphabet of Complexity webinars. The letter B (as in “biodiversity”) will guide us through the main question of the day: How do plants and ecosystems naturally adapt and how do agroecology practitioners use this phenomenon?

The key speakers of this webinar are Salvatore Ceccarelli, Annika Michelson.

New letter reveals impact of trade interests and CETA

14 April 2022 / In a letter written in April 2022, the EU Commission states that CRISPR/Cas applications do not create any new or specific risks due to unintended effects. This letter came in response to a joint letter sent by the German Union of Peasant Farmers (AbL) and Testbiotech. In their letter, Testbiotech and the AbL argued that the statement made by the Commission is not based on scientific facts and is largely driven by trade interests, such as those included in the CETA free trade agreement (The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) between the EU and Canada.

Tell your national ministers and your Members of the European Parliament to keep new GMOs strictly regulated!

Sign the petition now!

No new applications for import into the EU in 2021

7 April 2022 / No new applications were registered in 2021 for the import of transgenic plants into the EU – the first time this has happened. The European Food Safety Authority EFSA was initially set up in 2004, and has since then received more than 150 applications for the market approval of transgenic plants. It appears that new applications were still being registered each year up until the end of 2020, although in noticeably fewer numbers. Possible reasons for the decrease: the cultivation of transgenic plants is stagnating in many growing regions; for decades there have been hardly any plants with really new traits, and, in addition, numerous risk-related issues remain unresolved.

Industrial livestock are responsible for a ‘huge’ environmental footprint. But alternative proteins aren’t necessarily the silver bullet solution they have been billed as, food systems specialists at International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) warn. FoodNavigator asks what role alternative proteins can play in repairing the broken food system.

Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are proposing to exempt many new genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) foods and seeds from regulation. If approved, the proposals would remove government oversight of many new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) produced through the new genetic engineering techniques of genome editing (also called gene editing), with no foreign DNA. Corporations would determine the safety of their own products. Take action to stop the release of unregulated, unidentified GMOs.

The EU GMO safety rules are under threat. Big chemical and seed corporations are pushing the EU to allow new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) onto the market without safety tests, monitoring nor consumer labeling. These companies have been lobbying the European Commission for years to exclude new GMOs from the European GMO regulation, making unsubstantiated claims on the supposed benefits for sustainability. But as they also hold patents on the seeds engineered with these techniques, their true motivation remains to increase their profits. Such an industry takeover of seeds would seriously threaten farmers’ seed autonomy and agricultural biodiversity as a whole. Following industry pressure, the European Commission is now taking the first steps to deregulate new GMOs.

Save Our Seeds Programme is a series of training meetings for young activists, educators, artists, local and national leaders of formal organizations and informal movements, experienced campaigners, agroecological farmers, breeders, scientists, philosophers and seed savers.

The programme will be divided into two parts – the public-open part, streamed online for a wider public and a closed part – an online workshop programme for our collective of activists.

The young activists interested in joining the collective will undergo an application process. All EU nationals between 16 and 30 years can apply by filling out THIS FORM till 10.04.2022.