Feeding livestock waste from Bt cotton crops is an ill-advised way to eradicate the bollworm pest, but the Pakistan government has told farmers to do it anyway. This, despite warnings from organizations that Bt cotton could harm the animals.
Animals fed Bt cotton waste are in danger of aflatoxin fungus and Bt toxic acute poisoning. Both can build up in the animals’ systems.
Rhode Island Rep. Dennis M. Canario is reintroducing a bill that would label foods containing genetically modified ingredients, ultimately allowing consumers to know what they are eating.
Like many have said before him, people have the right to know if the food they are eating contains man-made, DNA-altered creations.
Beijing has spent billions developing GMO crops in the hopes of securing food for its burgeoning population, but there has not yet been approval for the commercial cultivation of these crops, partly due to a deep-seated distrust of genetically modified crops by the Chinese public. Nonetheless, GM corn is already growing in China illegally, causing further distrust in the government’s ability to regulate GM crops.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the nation’s first genetically modified animal in 2015 – GMO salmon – and scientists can’t wait to add more to the batch. Head of development biology at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, Professor Bruce Whitelaw has produced swine fever-resistant pigs through a new gene-editing technique. Yeah, he wants to see them also approved by the FDA. [1]
Whitelaw says that much more work is required to refine what he calls a ‘precise’ process.
France, Germany, and Spain filed a suit against Monsanto last year because the company tried to patent a non-GM tomato that was resistant to a common fungal disease (EP1812575). Now, the European Patent Office (EPO) is revoking another patent Monsanto has held on non-GM melons.
Next week, “Organic Ambitions: An Action Plan for organic food and farming in Scotland 2016-2020” will be unveiled in Scotland. The plan for organic food production is designed to help build a more sustainable farming future and stimulate the rural economy.
The January 27 launch will coincide with the first day of the Organic Research Center’s annual conference, being held in Bristol.
As recently as October of 2015, Monsanto stated that it planned to double its sales in Mexico. The biotech giant already made around $400 million in the country in 2015. This greed to conquer the Mexican maize market has caused the company to fight resistance and GMO corn bans initiated by citizens and government, though the company continues to put 59 unique, indigenous varieties of corn at risk. [1]
During President Obama’s most recent State of The Union Address, he vowed to utilize the full spectrum of the U.S. government’s resources to create a “Moonshot-like” effort geared toward finding a cure for cancer. Why then, is Round Up, a ‘likely carcinogen,’ still being sold on markets across the United States and sprayed on our food?
The Food and Drug Administration has recently given a green light to a genetically modified potato engineered to resist a pathogen that is responsible for causing the Irish Potato Famine. No different than with their approval of GM salmon, the FDA seems oblivious to risk assessment and consumer concerns that deem a GM potato undesirable, claiming that the GE potato is indeed safe for consumption.
