Articles

The results of the first ever study on the ability of humans to recognize the taste of pesticides in wine have been published in the Food and Nutrition Journal.

Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and the chef Jérôme Douzelet’s study involved 195 blind tests carried out by professionals from the wine and culinary industry.

Initially the Crispr-Cas9 system seemed to be accurate, but it is now apparent that it sometimes also cuts non-target DNA sequences

Once again we find more honesty about the imprecision of the CRISPR gene editing system in the medical research field, as with the new paper featured below, than in the field of crop biotechnology.

1. Mathematics explains why Crispr-Cas9 sometimes cuts the wrong DNA

2. Hybridization kinetics explains CRISPR-Cas off-targeting rules

Bayer Monsanto merger

By Dr Vandana Shiva

On 7.1.2018 the Competition Commission of India(CCI), India’s anti-trust body for preventing monopoly,invited comments from the public on the adverse impacts of the Bayer-Monsanto merger. I submitted my objections on the Bayer Monsanto merger to CCI on January 20 2018. There are many reasons why the merger must not be allowed.

EPA Unlawfully Approved Monsanto’s XtendiMax Weed-Killer, Ignoring Warnings of Rampant Drift, Destroying Crops on Millions of Acres in Devastating 2017 Farm Season With More to Come

Evidence Shows Hundreds of Endangered Species at Risk and Unprotected

WASHINGTON—On Friday, public interest organizations representing farmers and conservationists made their legal case in a federal lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Monsanto Company, challenging EPA’s approval of Monsanto’s new “XtendiMax” pesticide. XtendiMax is Monsanto’s version of dicamba, an old and highly drift-prone weed-killer. EPA’s approval permitted XtendiMax to be sprayed for the first time on growing soybeans and cotton that Monsanto has genetically engineered (GE) to be resistant to dicamba.

Some Chinese buyers have canceled corn purchases from the United States and started to buy corn from rival supplier Ukraine, as Beijing announced rather high requirements for the processing of genetically modified crops.

This has been reported by Reuters with a reference to three trade sources and an analyst.

“Traders this year have been more inclined to buy corn from Ukraine as it is non-GMO and doesn’t require the (processing) permit,” said Cherry Zhang, analyst with Shanghai JC Intelligence.

According to the agency, any prolonged shift by one of the world’s top corn importers “would unnerve U.S. farmers as they prepare to harvest a bumper crop this year and could potentially mark a new front in trade tensions festering between China and the United States”.

The GMO company will pay $150,000 instead of the $4.8 million that had been sought for exposing Kauai workers to pesticides.

Federal environmental regulators have settled claims against a multinational GMO corn grower that exposed dozens of workers on Kauai to a dangerous pesticide in two separate incidents.

Syngenta Hawaii, a local unit of the Swiss giant Syngenta AG, will pay a civil penalty of $150,000 and spend $400,000 on worker protection training sessions for growers under the agreement.

It’s a fraction of the more than $4.8 million the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had announced it was seeking for the 2016 mishap alone, which sent 10 workers to the hospital.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Some Chinese buyers have canceled corn purchases from the United States and switched to rival supplier Ukraine, as Beijing tightens controls on processing genetically modified strains of the crop, three trade sources and an analyst told Reuters.

Any prolonged shift by one of the world’s top corn importers would unnerve U.S. farmers as they prepare to harvest a bumper crop this year and could potentially mark a new front in trade tensions festering between China and the United States.

Chinese buyers late last year stepped up purchases of U.S. corn, which is mostly genetically modified, following a rally in domestic prices.

But the sources said it had become tougher for Chinese grain mills to get permits to process genetically modified corn this year, forcing some traders that supply them to instead turn to non-GMO shipments from Ukraine.

China’s agricultural ministry did not respond to a request for comment, while the trade sources declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak with media.

Maharashtra Government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct probe into how many seed companies produced and sold Bt Cotton seeds with herbicide-tolerant transgenic gene though there was no permission to do so.

The issue of seed companies selling unauthorised herbicide-tolerant transgenic Bt Cotton seeds had come to fore following the media attention towards the deaths of farmers and farm-labourers due to pesticide spraying. Many farmers had alleged that the dealers had sold to them ‘BG-III’ seeds that were herbicide-tolerant. The herbicide-tolerant Bt Cotton plants remained unaffected even if farmers sprayed herbicides in their farm to remove the weeds and protect cotton plants. Later, the Government found that many seed companies had produced and sold Bt Cotton seeds with ‘transgenic herbicide/Glyphosate tolerant trait’. The said seeds were not permitted to be sold in the market. Against this backdrop, the Government has constituted SIT to conduct a probe into the matter.

An advocacy group is seeking the attention of the Trump Administration to block Bayer's acquisition of Monsanto. ( Bayer )

Farmers and Families First have launched a television advertisement asking the U.S. Department of Justice and President Donald Trump to stop Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto.

The ad, “Save the Heartland,” highlights what it describes as “negative impacts” of the proposed deal to farmers and middle-class families. The ad is set to air on select Fox News stations in the Washington, D.C., media market.

Farmers and Families First describes itself as a “free market-based policy advocate” created to help American farmers and American families. “Our primary goal is to put ideas into action that promote innovation, lower costs through competition and fairness for farmers and families,” the group’s website states.

Agriculture: The pesticide glyphosate, a source of much friction between the CSU and SPD , will be banned, along with genetically modified crops. On top of that, the two parties agreed to limit animal experiments and to introduce a new "animal welfare label" to help ensure better conditions in industrial farming. That measure was already being planned by current Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt of the CSU.