A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has rejected a motion by Monsanto to dismiss a lawsuit by advocacy groups Beyond Pesticides and the Organic Consumers Association alleging that the labeling on its Roundup weedkiller is misleading.

In a ruling on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said his decision was based on both sides’ briefs and applicable law and will be explained further in an opinion in the next 30 days.

The USDA has announced it won't be regulating "new GM" products – but its statement is at odds with the scientific facts

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a statement to provide "clarification" on the department's "oversight of plants produced through innovative new breeding techniques which include techniques called genome editing".

However, while the statement certainly makes clear the USDA's attitude to new GM techniques, when it comes to the scientific facts, it offers only smoke and mirrors.

The USDA says, "Under its biotechnology regulations, USDA does not regulate or have any plans to regulate plants that could otherwise have been developed through traditional breeding techniques as long as they are not plant pests or developed using plant pests. This includes a set of new techniques that are increasingly being used by plant breeders to produce new plant varieties that are indistinguishable from those developed through traditional breeding methods."

As American consumers find themselves gravitating toward “natural” products, particularly non-GMO and BPA-free products, food industry veteran Del Monte is also taking a hint.

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Del Monte also announced that it would move away from GMO, or genetically modified crops. The company also announced Tuesday that not only would vegetables, fruit cups and most tomato products be non-GMO, so will added ingredients used as sweeteners and soybeans. About 154 products will be non-GMO, and they will be labelled as such. Granted, the benefits and downsides of GMO have long been debated.

Lee Johnson, a 46-year-old resident of Vallejo, California developed a severe skin rash in 2014, two years after he started spraying Roundup as part of his groundskeeping job at the Benicia Unified School District. “He read the label on the container,” says his lawyer, Timothy Litzenburg, “and he followed all the safety instructions, which were written by Monsanto.”

The rash turned into an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. Doctors estimate Johnson has six months left to live; he will leave behind a wife and two children. His is one of 2,400 lawsuits filed against Monsanto by cancer victims in courts across the country, and Johnson’s case is the first one scheduled for a jury trial.

These victims are suing to hold Monsanto accountable, claiming that glyphosate, the listed, active ingredient in its popular herbicide Roundup, caused their non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

GM apples have not been safety tested in animals

GM Arctic apples are being sold on Amazon without disclosing that they are GM. They are engineered not to brown when cut and thus are advertised as "preservative free".

There's nothing illegal about this, since GM foods do not have to carry a GM label on the package in the US and the apples are not being sold outside the US.

However, selling GM Arctic apples unlabelled is irresponsible because they have not been safety tested in feeding trials on animals. Nor have US regulators assessed the health or environmental risks of the GM technique used to develop them.

What is the Precautionary Principle?

Better safe than sorry. Err on the side of caution. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We have many ways to say that it is wise to avoid foreseeable problems whenever possible. This idea is so important that the governments of the world created the precautionary principle: a globally agreed upon system for navigating possible risks in situations where scientific understanding is lacking or incomplete.

The most comprehensive and well-known iteration of the precautionary principle comes from the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). While the precautionary principle itself is not a legally-binding document, it is an important guiding principle found in many international treaties–you can read this document in its entirety to learn more.

In a nutshell, it says that we all have a moral obligation to employ caution when evaluating human activities that could hurt people or the environment.

Settlement against Syngenta believed to be largest agricultural litigation settlement in U.S. history.

A $1.51 billion settlement has been reached in the nationwide class action lawsuit filed in Kansas federal court over Syngenta's genetically modified Viptera corn seed. It is believed to be the largest agricultural litigation settlement in U.S. history.

The settlement was first announced in September, but the details weren’t made public until the March 12 filing.

A motion for preliminary approval has been filed. The settlement must be approved by the Honorable John W. Lungstrum, a United States District Judge for the District of Kansas.

If preliminarily approved, the settlement terms and claims process information will be set forth in notices mailed to class members and published in various media outlets across the country, as well as in a settlement website.

This is a settlement for the Syngenta GMO Corn Seed Lawsuits lawsuit.

Santa Cruz, CA: A $1.51 billion settlement has been agreed between Syngenta AG and a nationwide class of plaintiffs who allege the chemical company should have delayed the release of its genetically modified corn seed until Chinese authorities, who represent a major corn market for US farmers, approved importing the GMO corn.

The settlement deal for multidistrict litigation (MDL) covers all cases brought by corn growers, grain facilities and ethanol plants across the US, who bought insect-resistant GMO corn seeds from Syngenta during the class period. Only four plaintiffs have not opted in.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the deal is believed to be “the largest agricultural litigation settlement in US history.” The firm also noted that even farmers who may have opted out of previous Syngenta lawsuits are eligible for the settlement, and said funds could be distributed as soon as the first half of 2019.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Swiss agribusiness giant has agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in a lawsuit over genetically modified corn seed variety.

Officials for Syngenta and attorneys for thousands of farmers, ethanol plants and other grain handlers announced the settlement Monday of a class action lawsuit.

The lawsuits were filed after Syngenta introduced its Viptera seed strain to the U.S. market before it was approved by China for imports. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that Syngenta’s decision cost U.S. corn producers and handlers access to the Chinese corn market for years.

If you have something to say about the possible release of genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys or elsewhere, now’s the time to do it.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday opened the month-long public comment period on the possible release of GM mosquitoes by British biotech company Oxitec, which submitted an application with the EPA in December. The EPA now has until July to make a decision on whether it will issue an experimental-use permit for a trial in the Keys.

Oxitec wants to release its male mosquitoes that are reared with a self-limiting gene. So when the males, which don’t bite, are released into the wild to mate with wild females, the gene is passed on and the offspring never survive to adulthood, according to product development manager Dr. Derric Nimmo.