Articles

JAIPUR: Amidst the debate over allowing use of Genetically Modified mustard, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today said GM crops are not allowed in the state and would not be permitted.

"The previous Congress government had tried to introduce GM crop and an expert team was sent to three places for study (and) BJP (had) opposed it then," Raje said at the Kisan Agri Expo-2016 organised by Bharitya Kisan Sangh (BKS).

"BJP had opposed the move then and now my government would not allow it because farmers are more inclined towards organic farming," Raje said.

Organic farming is being done in 60,000 hectares in the state to contain diseases like cancer caused by chemical (fertiliser) farming, she said.

The federal agency already tests for residues of many agricultural chemicals on food. Now it will include the widely used weed killer linked to cancer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the nation’s chief food safety regulator, plans to start testing certain foods for residues of the world’s most widely used weed killer after the World Health Organization’s cancer experts last year declared the chemical a probable human carcinogen.

The FDA’s move comes amid growing public concern about the safety of the herbicide known as glyphosate, and comes after the U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO) rebuked the agency for failing to do such assessments and for not disclosing that short-coming to the public.

Alfalfa, the world’s most important forage crop, ranks as a top five crop in terms of economic value and total acreage in the United States. Glyphosate-resistant GE alfalfa was planted on 80,000 ha in 2006 in the US. A study (Item 1) by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirms that alfalfa has joined oilseed rape as a GE crop that has dispersed beyond cultivated fields.

The study involved Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GR alfalfa. The researchers scouted the roadsides of three important alfalfa-growing areas in California, Idaho and Washington for feral (wild) alfalfa stands. Of 4,580 sites surveyed, feral plants were observed at 404 sites. Twenty-seven percent of these sites had GE plants. The researchers believe that most of these feral populations likely grew from seeds spilled during alfalfa production or transport. They also found clear evidence that the glyphosate resistance gene was being spread by bees, suggesting that “transgenic plants could spread transgenes to neighboring feral plants, and potentially to neighboring non-GE fields”.

Companies who make the pesticide glyphosate refuse to disclose key scientific evidence about its possible risks in the name of trade secrets protection. CEO appeals to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to disclose all the possible original elements of three key scientific studies it used in assessing glyphosate as “unlikely” to cause cancer to humans. We also call MEPs to reject the Trade Secrets Directive in the April 2016 plenary vote on the final text.

The US intelligence chief added gene editing to a list of threats that includes North Korea's nukes and Syria's chemical weapons

The United States' top intelligence official just added gene editing technology to a list of threats that includes North Korea's nukes and Syria's chemical weapons, MIT's Technology Review reported.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday about 2016's US Intelligence Community's Worldwide Threat Assessment.

Genome editing is a technology used to cut and paste DNA inside living cells.

In recent years, a technique known as CRISPR has been widely adopted because it is far easier and more precise than previous methods.

New research indicates that agricultural policies aimed at alleviating poverty in Africa are making things worse, writes Lawrence Woodward. Backed by 'development' aid, big business is forcing modern farming practices on unwilling rural communities. Only the rich benefit, while the poor carry the burden of landlessness and debt.

A new study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) indicates that agricultural policies which governments, international donors and organisations such as the International Monetary Fund claim to be economically successful and alleviating poverty are not working.

In fact they are having large negative impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable people in rural Africa.

With the proposed connection between the Zika virus and Brazil's outbreak of microcephaly in new born babies looking increasingly tenuous, Latin American doctors are proposing another possible cause: Pyriproxyfen, a pesticide used in Brazil since 2014 to arrest the development of mosquito larvae in drinking water tanks. Might the 'cure' in fact be the poison?

The World Health Organization view that the microcephaly outbreak in Brazil's impoverished northeast is caused by the Zika virus has, so far, received few challenges.

Brazil's Health Minister, Marcelo Castro, has gone so far as to say that he has "100% certainty" that there is a link between Zika and microcephaly, a birth defect in which babies are born with small heads.

Zimbabwe will inspect all corn imported as emergency food aid to check that it’s not genetically modified, agriculture minister Joseph Made told lawmakers Wednesday.

The government remains opposed to GM crop imports and “may later consider such purchases provided it is trucked directly to millers under security escort,” Made said. A ban on genetically modified seed-corn won’t be lifted, he said.

PCBs are taken in via ingestion, inhalation and skin contact, the city points out. PCBs show up in breast milk. Exposure can start very early. PCBs damage the human body in a variety of ways and cause cancer.

The natural and human assault caused by PCBs and other pollutants are devastating. So is the financial tsunami to make even the most basic and belated cleanup attempts. Times reporter Lynda V. Mapes reports Seattle’s share of the entire Duwamish cleanup could run $342 million, not including another $27 million for a water-treatment plant to remove pollutants from only 1.25 percent of the 20,000 acres that drain into the Lower Duwamish.

The Securities and Exchange Commission slapped Monsanto with an $80 million civil penalty for violating accounting rules and misstating past earnings related to rebates on its flagship weedkiller Roundup. Two accounting executives and a retired sales executive also agreed to pay penalties to settle the charges.

And while the SEC found no personal misconduct by Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant, the biotech seed giant disclosed Tuesday that Grant already had reimbursed the company $3.2 million in pay due to the restatement of corporate earnings in fiscal years 2009 through 2011.

The penalty is another black eye for the Creve Coeur-based company, which has had a number of high-profile setbacks in the past year.