Information about genetically modified crops, genetic engineering within the food industry, and community debates over the environmental and health concerns associated with genetic modification in agriculture.
Environmentalists dressed as giant ears of corn on Tuesday asked for "agricultural asylum" in the French embassy in Madrid in a protest over genetically modified crops. The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth organised the symbolic act to protest Spain's "large-scale" production of genetically modified corn, which is banned in France. Around 20 protesters from several European countries and dressed as corn cobs demonstrated outside the French embassy in central Madrid. They... Read Full Story
Environmentalists dressed as giant ears of corn Tuesday asked for "agricultural asylum" in the French embassy in Madrid in a protest over genetically modified crops. The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth organised the symbolic act to protest Spain's "large-scale" production of genetically modified corn, which is banned in France. Around 20 protesters from several European countries and dressed as corn cobs demonstrated outside the French embassy in central Madrid. They handed... Read Full Story
Genetically modified crops are being grown in Britain for the first time in 12 months after controversial trials were resumed without alerting the public, a newspaper reported Monday. Cultivation of a field of potatoes designed to be resistant to pests was abandoned more than a year ago when environmental protesters ripped up the crop, the Daily Telegraph said. But, without alerting the public, the project near Tadcaster in northern England has been restarted, prompting warnings from green... Read Full Story
A genetically modified strain of maize, banned in some EU countries, poses no risk to health or the environment, the European Food Safety Authority declared on Tuesday. The move will once again pit the European Commission, which supports use of the maize, against the member states, most of whom do not. The Monsanto MON810 maize "is as safe as its conventional counterpart with respect to potential effects on human and animal health", the independent risk assessor said after studying the... Read Full Story
Genetic modification may be the only viable way to produce sufficient quantities of rice in the future as drought, climate change and dwindling acreage impact yields, experts said in a new report. Rice is the staple food of around three billion people and the main challenge facing producers is how to raise yields of the water-dependent crop as 70 percent of the world's food-growing areas turn increasingly parched, said the International Rice Research Institute in its latest quarterly... Read Full Story
In 1992, the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first genetically engineered food – Calgene’s Flavr Savr Tomato – for sale and marketing in the United States. Encouraged by a favorable US regulatory system and the lack of serious domestic political challenge, US scientists have subsequently created, farmers have grown, and companies have marketed a wide range of genetically modified (GM) foods and crops. By the end of the 1990s, in “the most rapid adoption of... Read Full Story
France on Friday rejected a report by the European Union's food safety watchdog that said a controversial strain of genetically-modified corn was safe. In a joint statement, the French ecology and agriculture ministries said the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had failed to take into account requests to change the way it evaluated the risk. "The conclusions of the council of European environment ministers must be respected," the statement said, referring to a December 4... Read Full Story
‘A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.’ – Ted Turner to Audubon Magazine, 1996
In an April 18th 2009 article on the development of GM-Food for the African continent, ‘Strange Fruit: Could genetically modified foods offer a solution to the world’s food crisis? the author mentions that the Rockefeller Foundation has recently set out to fund the process of ‘biofortified rice’ for third world nations, invented by a Swiss scientist... Read Full Story
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's agriculture minister has not issued a decision to ban the import of genetically modified crops, the state news agency MENA said on Thursday, denying an earlier report. The agency quoted an unnamed official at the Agriculture Ministry as stating that earlier reports citing Amin Abaza ordering that a certificate accompany all imports to show they were free of genetically modified materials were "not correct." The original report of the decision was published by MENA... Read Full Story
Egypt's state news agency MENA on Thursday quoted an agriculture ministry official as denying an earlier report that Cairo had banned the import and export of genetically modified crops. The unnamed official was quoted as saying "reports published by some newspapers and foreign press agencies... are not true." On Wednesday, MENA reported that Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza had given instructions that all crop imports to the country, especially wheat, corn and soya bean shipments, must be... Read Full Story
