Wales eyes prohibitive regulations Farmers, landowners and the public are being asked for their views on plans to tighten the rules on the planting of genetically modified crops in Wales. Elin Jones, rural affairs minister, told the BBC that "it is not legally possible to declare Wales GM-free", but that the proposed measures would be more restrictive than those proposed in England and Northern Ireland. More†

Rewarding failure Despite the dismal performance of the "organic" sector of US agriculture, efforts to make it look healthy and productive continue. A new report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) casts light on this problem. The report, titled "Emerging Issues in the US Organic Industry", chronicles the perennial failure of what is obviously an unsustainable set of food production practices. The US Congress is considering financial incentives to increase this kind of farming. More† 1 opinion posted

EFSA's conflict of interest Dr. Joachim Schiemann has been forced out of his position on the GMO Panel of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), amid allegations of a "conflict of interest". He's been a long-standing target of European Greens and their activist cohorts, due to his broad engagement with those involved in researching and regulating GM crops. The last straw: his appointment as head of  the Institute for Biosafety of Genetically Modified Plants at the Julius Kühn Institute in Quedlinburg -- where activists recently destroyed 270 GM apple trees, and with them, a decade of research. The EFSA obviously has a conflict of interest--seeking scientific credibility, while rejecting  scientific expertise to appease the unappeasable opponents of biotech. More†

Czech scientists demand rational regulation The Czech Republic became a Member State of the European Union in 2004, and as a consequence, must "harmonize" its laws and policies with those of the EU. That means, of course, crushing agricultural biotechnology out of existence and hounding researchers mercilessly. A new publication by the Biology Center of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic proves that Czech scientists aren't feeling very harmonious with the neo-Medieval regime. More†

Marker gene safety rediscovered The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a scientific body typically ignored by European politicians and regulators, has discovered, once again, that marker genes are safe. Meanwhile, the safety of marker genes has long been common knowledge in the US. We'd all be better off if these scientists worked on inventing things, instead of wasting their efforts on the European Commission. More†

Potato safety rediscovered Once again, European officials have discovered that BASF's Amflora potato is safe. The rediscovery was made by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a scientific body typically ignored by European politicians and regulators. "Today's assessment gives the entire EU Commission the final scientific clarity to approve Amflora", said Stefan Marcinowski, executive board member in charge of BASF Plant Science. Dr. Marcinowski has been working for BASF since 1979 and has impeccable scientific credentials,  but accusing the EC of having "scientific clarity" suggests he doesn't get out of the lab very often. More†

Business

Monsanto develops soy product for Brazil Consistently, Monsanto has focused on developing products addressing the needs of farmers in North America, albeit products which later prove to be useful for famers elsewhere around the world. Monsanto has departed from this pattern with the development of insect-resistant soy -- something needed by farmers in Brazil. After that, it's back to business as usual, which is getting import permissions from Brazil's international trade partners. This is, truly, a notable event in the internationalization of agricultural science. More†

Roundup: what's next? (updated) First, Monsanto shed its pharmaceutical and chemical businesses -- which became known as Pharmacia and Solutia, respectively. Then it sold its Posilac dairy product business to Eli Lilly. Now, is it looking to sell its Roundup herbicide business? No, but what's next? Plenty. (partial rewrite)  More†

Cooperation on GM wheat For many years, the international wheat market has been dominated by three major competitors; the United States, Canada and Australia. The High Plains Journal says a recent announcement by the major wheat organizations of all three countries, though, has put those rivalries on a backburner, if only for a moment. More†

76% of US wheat growers support biotech More than three-quarters of wheat growers responding to a recent National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) survey approved a petition supporting the commercialization of biotechnology in wheat. The survey was commissioned by NAWG as a project of the NAWG Foundation to measure and document the level of support of biotech trait commercialization among wheat growers. More†

Legal

Mexico lifts outdated GM regulation Mexico's Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishery and Food (SAGARPA) has officially revoked regulations which imposed phytosanitary requirements on imports and shipments of GM seed and on the establishment of field trials of GM plants. More†

US court dumps on alfalfa A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has once again judged against GM alfalfa, leaving in place an injunction preventing Monsanto from selling GM alfalfa seed. Nothing is new. The court still thinks a farm field should, under the law, be treated the same as an environment in the wilderness. It still ignores the fact that the US has over 300 varieties of alfalfa seed on the market, which could, to coin a phrase, "pollute", or "contaminate" each other. Which, in the eyes of the court, means "contaminating the environment". Since nothing is new here, GMObelus is merely pointing to its first article on this courtroom folderol. More†

Serbia bans GM crops The National Parliament of the Republic of Serbia has adopted a new law which completely prohibits growing GM crops, or anything made with them. This also means, for instance, that Serbia will not be importing any soybean meal made from GM soybeans, nor feeding it to cattle. But there seems to be a twist.  More†

Ukraine to sprout GMO labs This does not mean that the Ukraine wants to harness science for the benefit of agriculture. Quite the opposite, in fact. By 2010, the country could establish as many as 25 GMO testing labs for the "comprehensive and timely control of food." This is said to be at the request of the food industry. Activists are not complaining. More†

Monsanto vs. DuPont vs. Monsanto The lawsuit involves a set of claims and controversies that would trigger a bout of siallorhea in any anti-GMO activist. The 'giant corporation' element is obvious. But there's also patents, the control of the seed market, and an alleged failure of biotechnology to deliver benefits to farmers. In this battle of the Titans, the activists--their perennial arch-enemies--are mute. No wonder. For the Titans, this is dangerous business, and their opponents need only gloat. More†

This is not a joke In the European Union, what do you call a food ingredient that's been harvested from a GMO developed and patented by a giant multinational corporation with historic ties to the chemical industry, denounced by activists, and submitted for approval in 2006? Approved, and no label required. This is not a joke.  More†

Sci/Tech

More incentive for US wheat growers Wheat growers in the US are experiencing ever-increasing incentives to switch to maize production. The availability of new maize varieties, especially those with biotech traits, are making maize profitable in areas formerly only hospitable to wheat production. With GM drought-tolerant maize set to increase maize yields by as much as 50 percent in in Kansas, it may be hard for US farmers to justify growing wheat anywhere. More†

GM crops - the next generation In the field of crops modified for improved nutrition, there's a lot more going on than Golden Rice. So much, in fact, that describing the current state of the art fills 328 pages, in a new book published by the Crop Science Society of America. Titled Modification of Seed Composition to Promote Health and Nutrition, it addresses a wide array of seed modification topics ranging from oils to proteins to allergens. More†

New version of Arabidopsis sequence Arabidopsis thaliana is a favorite experimental plant with researchers in over 120 countries around the world. The genes, proteins, and other traits of this fast-growing, tiny mustard plant reside in a vast database dubbed the Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) -- and a new version of the genome sequence of this plant has again been released. More†

Phytozome.net expanded An enhanced version of Phytozome.net, a web portal for comparative plant genomics geared to advance biofuel, food, feed, and fiber research, has been released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI). The 4.0 release of Phytozome now spans fourteen plant genomes, including eight that have been sequenced at the DOE JGI. More†

Getting plants to clone themselves Left to their own devices, plants reproduce sexually -- by combining genetic information from male pollen and female egg cells. What if it were possible to get plants to clone themselves, instead? This would allow a superior crop plant to be replicated, in quantity. A team of researchers in France and Austria is closing in on how to reproduce a plant that produces perfect potatoes, maize or rice, without the lottery of reassortment that each meiotic division and ensuing fertilization introduces. More†

Development

Zambia's test lab nears completion In Zambia 85 percent of the labor force works in agriculture, but this is no breadbasket, nor remotely idyllic. In Zambia, the odds of living past 40 are low. Twenty percent of children are underweight, 32 percent of adults are illiterate, and 42 percent have no access to safe drinking water. The nation's gross domestic product hovers around $3 per day; about $1 per day of that is personal income. Against this backdrop, a $450,000 laboratory for detecting Genefied Modified Mechanisms (GMOs) in Zambia is near completion at the Seed Control and Certification Institute (SCCI) in Lusaka. More†

Organic farming hurts Zimbabwe But how can that be? Food retailers in the US and Europe, and their friends, assure everyone that organic farming produces just as much food as doing it the modern way, and sells for more money, too! The picture is different in Zimbabwe. When you're really, really poor, organic farming is the only method within your means. When a neighboring country starts using modern techniques, and you can't, you're worse than poor. More†

It's official: people have a right to technology. At least in the Philippines, and if it's agricultural biotechnology, according to Dr. Saturnina Halos, chairperson of the Biotech Advisory Team of the Philippine Department of Agriculture. More†

Drought tolerance on the way Drought tolerant maize has long been on the horizon for researchers around the world. Funds for public research are tight, and the costs of regulatory compliance are astronomical. The result: Monsanto and BASF have discovered a naturally-occurring gene that can help maize plants combat drought conditions and confer yield stability during periods of inadequate water supplies. And the farmers who need this technology most -- mainly in drought-stricken regions of Africa -- won't get to use it. More†

India to wait 8 years for GM rice In India, field trials of GM drought-tolerant rice are under way, and Dr, Charudatta Digambarrao Mayee, chairman, Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB). More†

NGO Watch

Guard attacked, hurt in field trial attack A new attack on field trials in Germany has included an attack on the guard assigned to protect them. The masked attackers climbed a fence surrounding the trials of GM potatoes, wheat and barley, and began spraying them with an unknown liquid. When the guard attempted to apprehend the sole female member of the group of five attackers, she bit his hand, and the other four joined in beating him on the head and face. More†

Europeans celebrate, desecrate On the peaceful bank of the Oderbruch, Germans celebrate the ban on GM crops, and the destruction of a field trial in the vicinity that saw 52 arrested. Not far away, in Düllstadt, activists destroy the last remaining field trial of GM maize in Bavaria. A bit further south, in Switzerland, activists hurl a "lethal cocktail" into a field trial of GM wheat, while another Swiss field trial is enclosed by a double fence, patrolled by a guard and a dog. This all happened in the last few days. Europe isn't looking civilized. More†

NZ uproar over banishing GM trees Organic advocates in New Zealand are reacting with shock and horror at the prospect of GM trees. Not that the trees will overshadow their cabbage-patches, but that the trees will be sent out of the country and grown in the US. You'd think they'd welcome this banishment, but they don't. You figure it out. More†

Gloomy report for British organic A report commissioned by the Soil Association has led Peter Melchett, its policy director, to conclude: "If we want to continue eating huge quantities of cheap chicken, pork and dairy products and other mass produced foodstuffs, organic faming cannot deliver." According to the report, a major shift towards oganic farming in the UK would see food supplies plummet, and a vast increase in farm laborers performing the back-breaking tasks which modern agriculture had made unnecessary. More†

German biotech succumbs in activist onslaught The forces of ignorance continue to prevail in Germany, and to broaden their swath of destruction. Today, in what was once the cradle of modern science and philosophy, not a single farmer grows a modern biotech crop. No longer able to target farms, the activists have focused their barbaric attentions on research crops -- with six experiments destroyed so far this season, and much of the season remaining. More†

European lobby group invades Indian field trial Representatives of the European lobby group Greenpeace have invaded a field trial in India. Sponsored by the European Union, and funded by the government of the Netherlands, the activists struck a government-approved 1,440 sqm field trial of rice in Chinnakanjarla village of Medak district. No injuries were reported, nor any complaints lodged regarding India's territorial sovereignty. More†

EU's NGOs declare they are lobbyists It's official: Europe's government-paid NGOs are lobbyists. In a new report, an "Alliance" of various groups complains that most of those who lobby European governments have failed to voluntarily register themselves as lobbyists -- supposedly showing that "the voluntary approach is failing to secure adequate coverage." It's not a total failure, though. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE), both of which squander public funds, have registered themselves as political lobby organizations. As a result, they are now subject to a formal process for handling complaints that they have breached their promise to provide information that is "unbiased, complete, up-to-date and not misleading". Lodging a complaint is easy, and that's not just because you can do it online. More†

Parade of the unscrupulous? (UPDATE 12) Opponents of engineered crops will say or do anything to get their points across. Many of them feign philanthropy, and glorify dishonesty -- and for them, the simple lure of profit operates in the stead of a functioning conscience. Even so, there are others who seem stranded in a nightmare realm, where fact and fantasy play equal roles. But which are which? All we know for sure is that none of them are embarrassed, and all of them want our attention... More†

Potpourri

Vocal plant growth promoter Research conducted by Britain's Royal Horticultural Society has demonstrated the efficacy of the human voice as a plant growth promoter. After exposing ten tomato plants to recorded playbacks of the voices of various people for a month, it was determined that female voices were the most effective in stimulating growth. The voice of Sarah Darwin, the great-great grand-daughter of Charles Darwin, was found to be the most stimulating of all. However, experts are unsure whether her choice of text played a role. She read a passage from her great-great grandfather's book, On the Origin of Species. More†

Futuristic floral artists Are they 'open source' advocates, biopirates, or artists? "If more and more of the flowers we buy at florist are cloned and if food is less and less spottable as genetically manipulated, we are facing times when the intervention with the dna of different living organisms will be considered as pop culture", say the folks at Neural, about the Common Flowers project. Claiming to be artists, Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel of Common Flowers use tissue culture to bring cut flowers "back to life again, planting them into the environment, and then making them a Common." We're talking about the GM 'Moondust' blue carnation. More†

GMO art There are some who consider Eduardo Kac's GM rabbit, which glows green under ultraviolet light, to be a work of art. But that's not the only glowing GMO art out there. There are at least two other projects which use glowing GM organisms -- microbes, actually -- as a medium of artistic expression. More†

Novel with a novel GMO A newly-released novel combines the approaches of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and Jeffrey Smith. How did Smith join such august company? Well, it's fiction, for one thing. But there are other familiar elements: a giant multinational corporation engaged in the development and sales of GM seeds and complementary chemicals. There's pollen-mediated outcrossing, and a 'Doomsday Vault' of non-GM seeds buried in an ice-bound island far north of the Arctic Circle. And ancient manuscripts with clever riddles. And bombs and guns, and black helicopters. Ladies and gentlemen, the novel is The Doomsday Key, by James Rollins.  More†

'Terminator' corn wins organic prize All Things Organic has just announced the winners of its 2009 New Product Competition, and one of the winners is "SK Food International's Crimson Red Corn (Best Overall Organic Ingredient)-A hybrid corn with a gene that prevents GMO contamination, used as an ingredient in snack foods, tortillas, and flour." SK Food spokesman Aaron Skyberg says "The gametophyte gene within the corn does not allow other types, or species, of corn to pollinate it." This is clearly a Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT). More† Andrew Apel

Glofish on the loose in Ireland St. Patrick banished snakes from Ireland, and now, the Irish Environmental Protection Agency must do the same for GM fish that supposedly glow in the dark. Four of the fish were apprehended in a garden pond, and if the agency prosecutes, a fine of up to €3,000 and/or 12 months imprisonment could be imposed in the district court. If the case is heard in the Circuit Court, a fine of up to €15,000 is applicable and/or 10 years in prison. More†