Roundup

Unauthorized GMO Wheat Found in Washington State

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said last week that an unapproved variety of wheat was found growing in a Washington state field, though there are no signs that it made its way into commercial grain shipments.
The Monsanto-produced wheat is a RoundUp-resistant variety that was never commercially released. USDA officials said it was discovered in a farmer’s planted field. Department officials are in the process of testing the farmer’s wheat harvest for the GMO variety, but so far none has been found.

9 Financial Risks of Doing Business with Monsanto

An agricultural, biotech giant, Monsanto has become ‘more vulnerable than ever,’ largely due to having an unnaturally-intense poor public image. In recent times, the company has seen successive stock drops and weaker sales of its biotech-created corn and the best-selling herbicide, Roundup. The company had to report falling profits again and again, slashing jobs.

Taiwan Recalls Quaker Oats After Finding Traces Of Glyphosate

Taiwan has recalled Quaker Oats after a random inspection by the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) detected glyphosate in amounts exceeding the nation’s legal limits in 10 out of 36 products.
It has been a rough month for Quaker Oats. The company has been under intense public scrutiny since trace amounts of glyphosate, the toxic ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, was detected in its products. A class action was filed in early May over the discovery by consumers who allege Quaker Oats’ “100% natural” label constitutes false advertising.

Farmers Sue Monsanto over Allegations of Cancer

Four Nebraska farmers are now suing the agricultural giant Monsanto because they believe the herbicide Roundup has caused them to develop cancer. The farmers feel that Monsanto did not give them accurate information about the safety of Roundup and that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is directly linked to daily exposure to the chemicals in the herbicide.

Organic Farmers Are Not Anti-Science but Genetic Engineers Often Are

by Elizabeth Henderson At one of the public brainstorming sessions for the New York Organic Action Plan, an organic farmer made an impassioned plea for support for “independent science” and told us that with 8.5 billion mouths to feed by 2050, we will need genetic engineering to prevent starvation. I ...

Researchers: Diversity in Soil Imperative for Supporting Ecosystems

Healthy soil contains billions of tiny microorganisms that help plants to thrive and our food supply to remain abundant. A paper, published in Nature Communications, used large-scale data comparisons of soil from 78 global drylands and from 179 locations across Scotland to study diversity of soil microbiota. The researchers found that diversity is absolutely imperative for supporting ecosystems.