Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc said it has satisfied a 'critical' US Food and Drug Administration requirement for its AquAdvantage gene, which it said halves the time it takes for salmon to grow to market size. The fish biotech company said it has completed all major studies on food safety and nutrient content for the genetically modified salmon. Studies on animal health and product efficacy are being completed and will be submitted to the FDA shortly.

The U.S. food industry is still not ready to embrace biotech wheat because of consumer wariness of genetic tinkering -- even though wheat acres are declining, a General Mills Inc. executive said on Monday. "We're going to continue to lose acres," Ron Olson, General Mills' vice president of grain operations, told Reuters in an interview. "But the food industry is going to pay whatever it takes (for wheat)," he said before giving a presentation to the National Grain and Feed country elevator conference in Kansas City.

In response to requests filed earlier this year by the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), the United States Patent and Trademark Office will undertake a comprehensive review of four patents related to genetically modified crops held by Monsanto Company that the agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers. In its Orders granting the four requested reexaminations, the USPTO found that PUBPAT had submitted new evidence that raised "substantial questions of patentability" for every single claim of each of the four patents. Monsanto has filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits asserting the four challenged patents against American farmers, many of whom are unable to hire adequate representation to defend themselves in court. The crime these farmers are accused of is nothing more than saving seed from one year's crop to replant the following year, something farmers have done since the beginning of time.

Early order patterns in the United States for Monsanto's corn seeds and traits are reinforcing the company's goals of growing market share and increasing trait penetration, particularly in a triple-stack combination. In the 2007 growing season, the company's DEKALB and Asgrow national corn brands could have more than 35 percent of all of their seed sold in a triple stack, and for the first time will sell more acres of triple-stacked corn hybrids than hybrids with just one trait. The company's American Seeds Inc. (ASI) subsidiary of regional seed brands could have more than 30 percent of its seed sold as a triple stack. In 2006, the mix of triple stacks was 21 percent for DEKALB and Asgrow, and the mix of triple stacks was 14 percent for ASI.

Thirteen lawsuits over the accidental spread of genetically altered rice could soon be combined into one legal action against Bayer CropScience AG, lawyers representing hundreds of rice farmers said Thursday. Attorneys told a panel of federal judges in St. Louis that the lawsuits should be tried collectively in front of one judge. But the lawyers mostly disagreed over which state should host the proceedings. The farmers from Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri allege the rice market was hurt after Bayer's strain of genetically engineered Liberty Link rice was accidentally released from test plots in the United States.

Pick a pear at the grocery — or an apple, tomato or banana, for that matter. You’ll notice that it wears a little sticker containing a mysterious number, such as 4035 or 94035. The numbers are codes that tell whether the fruit or vegetable is bioengineered, organically grown or conventionally grown (with pesticides and/or herbicides). [...] Genetically modified produce has a five-digit number beginning with 8. You won’t see many of these, though. Most bioengineered food is found in processed foods.

Scientists have identified a new gene in peanuts that codes for a protein with no apparent allergic effects, research that opens up the possibility of allergen-free GM nuts. The identification of the new gene, called ara h 3-im, by researchers from the University of Florida offers some hope for estimated 2.5 million people in Europe and the US now vulnerable to the food allergy. "If it is true that Ara h 3-im has lower allergenic properties than other Ara h 3 proteins, this study may provide the information necessary to produce a hypoallergenic peanut through silencing of the major allergens and selecting for the reduced allergenic polypeptides via mutational breeding and/or genetic engineering," wrote authors I-H Kang and M. Gallo.

Inside a greenhouse on the UC Davis campus, a group of rice plants is defying conventional farming wisdom and thriving in a formerly life-threatening environment - under water. A new variety of flood-tolerant rice soon could make its way from the lab to the field, offering California rice farmers and environmental advocates a potential weapon against both crop-ravaging weeds and water pollution. The research is the product of a 20-year-old collaboration between UCD, UC Riverside and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. The team isolated a gene within certain traditional rice plants that allows them to survive complete submergence. Researchers then cloned the gene and implanted it into commercially viable rice plants.

ARLINGTON, VA, November 28, 2006 — The USA Rice Federation today released a recommended plan of action to remove genetically engineered rice from the U.S. supply to re-establish a marketable supply of U.S. rice. Following U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Mike Johanns’ August 18, 2006, announcement of the trace presence of genetically engineered (GE) rice in the commercial supply, the USA Rice Federation has worked with industry and government officials to identify the Bayer CropScience Liberty Link traits and to mitigate their market effects. "The action plan released today proposes urgent, concrete steps to be taken to restore market confidence,” declared Al Montna, a California rice producer and chairman of the USA Rice Federation. “We are requesting that state authorities take specific actions to ensure that commercial seed supplies for the 2007 crop have tested negative for the presence of Liberty Link (LL) genetically engineered traits. The plan also makes recommendations to all segments of the rice industry to further ensure that Liberty Link traits do not appear in the rice supply from 2007 forward,” Montna said.

DuPont subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. said Tuesday that it is on track to commercialize by 2009 a biotech soybean product that will compete with the Roundup Ready soybean trait sold by Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co. DuPont said it has completed its regulatory submissions, seeking approval of the product, to the U.S. Agriculture Department, Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration.