The group that has raised the most money in the fight over labeling genetically modified foods in Oregon launched its first ads on Tuesday.

A genetically engineered tobacco plant, developed with two genes from blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), holds promise for improving the yields of many food crops.

If scientists cannot or will not explain the issue, then farmers have very little chance of protecting a technology that has immense value to consumers.

With the first of a new generation of genetically engineered crops ready to hit the market, the battle lines are being drawn. Food safety activists have promised to fight the crops—corn and soybeans designed to tolerate multiple herbicides—in court. They and many scientists argue that these crops will harm environmental and possibly human health. The companies that make them say they’re providing a much-needed tool to fight the growing scourge of herbicide-resistant weeds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's decision this week to approve two new genetically engineered crops is being denounced by watchdog groups as a false solution to herbicide-resistant weeds and a move that threatens human and environment safety alike.

Selling farmers on a new method of fighting weeds is a two-part proposition: The herbicide is sold along with genetically modified seeds designed to survive the spraying. Now, Dow Chemical (DOW) is getting ready to challenge Monsanto’s (MON) widely used Roundup Ready crop-and-herbicide combo, with each part of its new product following separate regulatory tracks.

Voters in Washington narrowly defeated a law that would require big agriculture and the chemical companies to tell us what foods contain genetically engineered ingredients last November. A similar ballot initiative for Proposition 37 failed in California the year before. In both contests, the "no" vote was solicited by a multi-million dollar campaign sponsored by the chemical companies and junk food manufacturers.

Genetically engineered foods are in almost all processed food products in the United States. A simple reading of the label will reveal one or more of the following ingredients in every one of them: corn or corn oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil (made from rapeseed oil, a GMO product), soy and/or soybean oil, and/or high fructose corn syrup.

A potential settlement appears to be in the works on some claims in lawsuits over the May 2013 discovery of genetically engineered Monsanto wheat in an Oregon field.

Researchers have discovered "the most famous wheat gene," a reproductive traffic cop of sorts that can be used to transfer valuable genes from other plants to wheat, which clears the way for wheat varieties with disease- and pest-resistance traits of other grasses.