News
Biotech news 2012
University of California analyzes GMO ballot measure on labeling GM foods
California's Proposition 37: Effects of Mandatory Labeling of GM Food
Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, July/August 2012
If passed, the labels are likely to be confusing to consumers and increase costs.
Why can’t scientists and activists get along when it comes to GMOs?
'The Controversy Is Really Curious To Scientists' (VIDEO) - A straight talking scientist talks nerdy to reporter
7 August 2012
Leading scientist Dr. Kevin Folta points out that scientists agree with Anti-GMO activists on issues of the environment, worker safety, feeding the hungry, providing nutritious food, and sustainability, but differ in their ideas of how GE technology can contribute to these issues.
Farmers Excited About Drought-Tolerant Corn
Drought-Tolerant Corn Efforts Show Positive Early Results
27 July 2012
Midwest farmers are struggling through the worst drought in 50 years, but some are excited about corn that has been genetically engineered and bred for greater drought tolerance. Two agricultural companies are seeing promising results in field tests of corn intended to withstand low water conditions. However, it is also clear that it is not a panacea.
Labeling opponents outspend supporters
Who's Funding Prop 37, Labeling for Genetically Engineered Foods?
1 August 2012
The California ballot proposition to require labeling of genetically engineered foods receied more funding from openents than from supporters, and was ultimately defeated. The site identifies donors and their contributions.
Physicians offer expert advice on Food Biotechnology
Physicians Answer Questions About Food Biotechnology in IFIC Foundation Videos
29 June 2012
The International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation has released short videos to help clarify facts about food biotechnology. The videos feature interviews with leading physicians on topics of safety, allergies, benefits, children, and labeling.
Californians vote on the future of GE foods
How California’s GMO Labeling Law Could Limit Your Food Choices and Hurt the Poor
22 June 2012
In November Californians will vote on a law to mandate labeling of food derived from GE plants. According to the author of Freakonomics Steve Sexton, mandatory labeling is likely only to increase costs associated with GE food production, leading to higher food prices and limiting the economic viablility of a technology that has the potential to help end hunger and malnutrition, lift hundreds of millions from poverty, and reduce the environmental impact of feeding an ever more populous world.
Stop the costly food labeling proposition
Scientists' Petition Against Mandatory GE Food Labeling
30 May 2012
Scientists have started a petition to oppose the California ballot proposition and other similar measures that would ban the sale of thousands of perfectly safe, common food and beverage products unless they are labeled as “genetically engineered” or reformulated to remove any GE ingredients. Such measures would be enormously disruptive and costly to the food industry and to consumers, without providing any health or safety benefits. If you have a natural sciences education, you can sign the petition here.
Myths about agriculture
The Frustrating Lot of the American Sweet Corn Grower
8 May 2012
American sweet corn growers may be unable to utilize a new sweet corn variety that requires fewer pesticide applications due to pressure from activists.
Vandalism costs taxpayers $400,000
GM pine tree trials vandalised – experts respond
Science Media Centre,13 April 2012
Genetically-modified radiata pine trees have been destroyed at a facility in Rotorua, New Zealand, operated by the Crown research institute Scion, in what the research organisation has labelled a “blatant act of vandalism”.
It's time to reconnect with agriculture
Farmers Fight - Stand Up
11 April 2012
Farmers Fight is a student-led initiative to reconnect American society to the world of agriculture. Beginning with university students, Farmers Fight encourages consumers to ask where their food comes from, and give students, faculty, public officials, farmers, and ranchers an opportunity to become "agvocates" for the agriculture community.
Marshall Matz encourages us to explain green biotechnology better
USDA’s 150th Birthday: A Teachable Moment
Marshall Matz, 2 April 2012
Marshall Matz asks us to speak out on May 15th to address how scientific advances in agriculture production benefit global sustainability and the environment.
Georgia cotton farmers battle pigweed
Farmers face tough choice on ways to fight new strains of weeds
NPR the salt, 7 March 2012
Cotton farmers in Georgia are battling glyphosate resistant Palmer amaranth, known locally as "pigweed". Stanley Culpepper, weed scientist at the University of Georgia, may have the answer.
The nuclear debate
How Bad Was Fukushima?
TIME, 2 Mar 2012
Early assessments of the health impacts of the Fukushima nuclear crisis suggest that the treat to the Japanese from radiation is extremely low.
United States still world leader in GM plantings
Genetically modified crops had bumper year in 2011
USA Today, 7 Feb 2012
Worldwide plantings of biotech crops increased by 30 million acres to 395 million acres in 2011. The USA again led the world in area planted, followed by Brazil, Argentina, India and Canada.
Biotech news 2011
Farmers go head-to-head at draft EIS public meeting
Biotech beet battle heats up in Corvallis
Gazette Times, 19 Nov 2011
Farmers on both sides of the row over the proposed deregulation of Roundup Ready sugar beets got to have their say at a public meeting held in Corvallis on Thursday November 17. The meeting was held to accept public comment on the draft environmental impact statement for Roundup Ready sugar beets, recently conducted by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
More fuel, more herbicides or more red tape
Beet farmers cope with new requirements
Capital Press, 22 Sep 2011
Based on the uncertainty caused by a federal judge's ban last year on Roundup Ready sugar beets, farmers prepared contingency plans (e.g. buying additional tractors, cultivators, and herbicide tanks, and arranging to hire more labor from Mexico) for this fall's crop, just in case they had to plant conventional beets.
Farmers never had to implement Plan B because the US Department of Agriculture partially deregulated the GMO beets in February, enabling growers outside California and parts of Washington to continue to plant the crop under strict regulations intended to keep GE beet pollen from reaching organic fields.
Counting calories
Can the world still feed itself?
The Wall Street Journal, 3 Sep 2011
The chairman of the world's largest food-production company is worried about all the food that the US and Europe are converting into biofuel while the world's poor get hungrier.
"Politicians," Peter Brabeck-Letmathe says, "do not understand that between the food market and the energy market, there is a close link." That link is the calorie.
Op-ed: regulating GMOs
Engineering food for allThe New York Times, 18 Aug 2011
New molecular methods that add or modify genes can benignly protect crops from diseases and pests and otherwise improve them in ways that are beyond the capability of older methods. “This is because the gene modifications are crafted based on knowledge of what genes do, in contrast to the shotgun approach of traditional breeding or using chemicals or radiation to induce mutations,” writes former Food for Thought speaker Nina Fedoroff. But the process for approving these crops has become so costly and burdensome that it is choking off innovation.
Greenpeace strikes Down Under
Greenpeace attacks Canberra GM wheat crop
The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 Jul 2011
Protesters destroyed a field of genetically engineered wheat being investigated by the CSIRO — the first such incident of vandalism in Australia. "Destroying research that provides answers to important questions affecting our health and safety is counterproductive and insults scientists who undertake their work professionally, with integrity, and without fear or favour," said Anna Maria Arabia, CEO of Science & Technology Australia, which represents 68,000 scientists nationally.
- Video clip from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
- Dot Earth blog from New York Times journalist Andrew Revkin: On green dread and agricultural technology
- Blog from green journalist and Food for Thought speaker Mark Lynas: Stand up for science
Papaya trees decapitated
Vandals destroy 10 acres of Big Island papayas
Island Television, 20 Jul 2011
Vandals struck three farms in the Kapoho area on the Big Island, cutting down about 10 acres of genetically engineered papaya trees with machetes. “They were mostly ready to pick. We were going to pick them tomorrow," said farmer Lea Bernardo.
Genetically engineered ringspot-resistant papaya saved Hawaii's papaya crop from decimation in the 1990s. Other than genetic engineering, no viable approach to combating papaya ringspot virus existed then or now.
Coexistence
Can biotech and organic farmers get along?
Science Magazine, 21 Apr 2011
The US Department of Agriculture has been taking a good look at the impact of biotech crops on organic farms. Research is providing tools to help them thrive side by side, but harmony isn’t likely anytime soon; the sides remain split on key issues. Organic groups want more government oversight, and demand that the biotech industry share the cost of preventing gene flow and provide compensation if their crops cannot be sold as organic. The biotech industry, already drowning in regulatory requirements, opposes these goals.
Pregnancy & pesticides
Pregnant women exposed to pesticides have children with slightly lower IQ, studies show
LA Times, 21 Apr 2011
Three new studies suggest that children may have slightly lower IQ by age 7 if their mothers (in these studies, mostly low-income and mostly Latina and black women), have higher-than-average exposure in pregnancy to organophosphates. Organophosphates are insecticides farmers still sometimes spray on fruits and vegetables — although at far lower rates then a decade ago when these data were collected. The studies tested the mothers' urine for pesticide residues, but did not test to determine what the source(s) of exposure were.
Biotech feed in EU
EC proposes shift away from zero tolerance on biotech imports
International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, 7 Mar 2011
The European Commission (EC) has endorsed an end to the zero tolerance policy on genetically modified (GM) material in animal feed imports. If neither the European Parliament nor the Council opposes the move, the threshold for unapproved GM material in imports for animal foodstuffs will increase from 0 to 0.1 percent by summer 2011.
Seedlings saved
Monsanto wins reversal of order to destroy sugar beet plants
Bloomberg, 25 Feb 2011
Nearly all of America's sugar beet seeds are grown in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Most have been genetically engineered (GE) to withstand the weed killer, glyphosate.
To alleviate concerns that GE sugar beets will pollinate nearby fields of table beet and silverbeet (potentially reducing profit margins for organic farmers), a federal judge ordered the destruction of GE beet seedlings. Today the USDA won a reversal of that order, since it hasn’t been shown that the seedlings are liable to contaminate non-GE beet crops. Farmers are still banned from planting GE sugar beet seed in future, at least until the USDA completes exhaustive environmental impact studies and the issue can be resolved in court.
Breeding true
Plants cloned as seeds: hybrids that breed true would be a major advance for crop plants
ScienceDaily, 17 Feb 2011
Plants have been cloned for the first time as seeds. The research, published 18 Feb 2011 in the journal Science, focused on a method for changing plants so that they become self-fertile and capable of producing seeds genetically identical to themselves. This is a major step towards making hybrid crop plants that can keep favorable traits from generation to generation.
Genetic engineering in the classroom
Transgenic bacterium sparks row in French schools
Nature News, 31 Jan 2011
An argument has broken out in France over whether high school students should be allowed to create transgenic Escherichia coli bacteria in the classroom. Many teachers around the world, including teachers trained through OSU’s STEPs program, use commercially available transformation kits to give kids the opportunity to truly see the relationship between a gene and a trait. With these kits, proper disposal methods for transformed, nonpathogenic K12 bacteria are straightforward.
Sweet alfalfa
US approves genetically modified alfalfa
New York Times, 27 Jan 2011
The USDA has decided that farmers may grow alfalfa genetically engineered to resist the weed killer glyphosate. Until a federal judge rescinded the approval of roundup ready alfalfa in 2007, most farmers were choosing to grow genetically engineered alfalfa because it yielded better, reduced the number of times they needed to apply herbicides, and resulted in wee-free hay.
About 0.7% of US alfalfa meets organic guidelines, which include a prohibition on the presence of transgenes. For organic growers, the issue is whether small amounts of the GE pollen will make their way into organic alfalfa fields, causing them to lose certification, and decreasing the market value of their crops.
Arguing over alfalfa
The Economist, 6 Jan 2011
Soon the USDA will decide how to regulate alfalfa engineered to resist the weed killer glyphosate. The department may allow the GE alfalfa but, for the first time, set strict rules on the extent to which it may be planted.
This could be the biggest policy change for GE crops since their introduction. The issue is not whether GE alfalfa is safe — the USDA maintains that it is. Rather, the question is how the new regulations might support coexistence.
Biotech news 2010
Farmers find runaway grass
Agencies refused to publicize spread of biotech bentgrass
Capital Press, 11 Nov 2010
The Oregon Department of Agriculture and the USDA refused to alert the public that genetically engineered bentgrass (developed for lawns and golf courses) had spread from a test plot in Western Idaho to irrigation ditches in Eastern Oregon.
Oregon State University weed researcher Carol Mallory-Smith made the discovery last month after she received samples from farmers in Malheur County Oregon.
Because scientists recognized early on that roundup-resistant creeping bentgrass is liable to become weedy, it has not been approved for unrestricted commercial production. Therefore Mallory-Smith asked ODA and USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to make the discovery of the escaped grass public. Both refused.
Species barrier
GMOs and Mother Nature? Closer than you think
NYT Freakonomics Blog, 9 Nov 2010
According to Food for Thought speaker Jimmy McWilliams, “scientists have now confirmed what evolutionary geneticists have long suspected — nature does produce GMOs.”
Swedish researchers discovered a gene transferred into sheep’s fescue from a reproductively distinct species of meadow grass. The transfer was probably mediated by a parasite or pathogen about 700,000 years ago.
Walmart leading sustainability charge?
Walmart to buy more local produce
New York Times, 14 Oct 2010
The sustainable food movement has spread to the nation’s largest retailer.
Walmart has begun a program that focuses on encouraging sustainable agricultural practices among its suppliers to reduce its overall environmental impact.
Walmart will begin asking agricultural producers questions about water, fertilizer, and chemical use. The eventual goal is to include that information in a sustainability index.
“The index represents a real number that will mean improvement on the ground: improving ecosystem health, soil health and food quality,” said Outreach in Biotechnology Food for Thought lecturer Marty Matlock, which “will move agricultural producers en masse.”
Stop obsessing about arugula
Attention whole foods shoppers: organic, local, and slow is no recipe for saving the world's hungry millions
Foreign Policy, May/June 2010
Food has become an elite preoccupation in the West at the same time that the most effective ways to address hunger in poor countries have fallen out of fashion. Yet over the next decade, the number of hungry people in Africa will increase to 645 million.
"What's so tragic about this is that we know from experience how to fix the problem," writes Food for Thought lecturer Robert Paarlberg. "Wherever the rural poor have gained access to improved roads, modern seeds, less expensive fertilizer, electrical power, and better schools and clinics, their productivity and their income have increased. But recent efforts to deliver such essentials have been undercut by deeply misguided (if sometimes well-meaning) advocacy against agricultural modernization and foreign aid."
Mushroom biotech
Are mushrooms the new plastic?
Ecology Today, 14 Jan 2011
Eben Bayer explains how his company grinds up seed husks and glues the small pieces together with mushrooms to make a foam-like material for packaging and insulation. This biodegradable material could reduce the production of the eco-enemy, polystyrene.
Organic tail wagging biotech dog
Sack Vilsack!Forbes, 5 Jan 2011
In a policy reversal, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced that the USDA is considering geographic restrictions, as well as minimum separation distances from other crops, on the cultivation of genetically engineered alfalfa.
In effect, such a shift would allow claims by organic farmers — who produce less than 1% of the nation's farming output — to determine the feasibility of growing genetically engineered crops for other farmers.
Biotech lawsuits
A spoonful of sugar will soon cost more
The Wall Street Journal, 31 Dec 2010
In recent lawsuits, one federal judge revoked the USDA's approval of GE alfalfa (Feb 2007), and another the approval of GE sugar beets (Aug 2010), until full environmental impact statements (EISs) could be completed. In early December the agency published its EIS for alfalfa, and not surprisingly found no environmental harm. The sugar beet EIS will likely not be completed until 2012.
Ironically, seeds that are developed through are essentially exempt from regulation, even though the genetic changes introduced by this practice are often complex and poorly characterized. Only genetically engineered varieties, with changes that are simple and well characterized, are subject to special scrutiny.
Biofuels & grass genes
Gene discovery suggests way to engineer fast-growing plants
ScienceDaily, 11 Nov 2010
Perennial grasses are important biofuel crops that can be grown on degraded, abandoned agricultural lands and harvested repeatedly. But the rate at which newly sown grasses develop root systems is key to crop establishment.
It turns out that taking a single gene away may give perennial grasses more robust roots and speed up the timeline for creating. "These biofuel crops usually can't be harvested until the second or third year," said Philip Benfey, director of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policies Center for Systems Biology. "A method to improve root growth could have a major role in reducing the time to harvest for warm season grasses."
Moral duty
Vatican advisers recommend modified crops
United Press International, 30 Nov 2010
The Vatican’s scientific advisers say that the world’s scientists have both the right and a moral duty to genetically engineer crops to help the world's poor.
40 international scientists, including leading members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, have released a statement condemning opposition to genetically engineered crops by rich countries as unjustified.
Halo effect
GE crops bring cash harvest to non-GE varieties
BBC News, 8 Oct 2010
Bt corn is genetically engineered to contain a pesticide specific to the European corn borer, rendering the plants immune to attack, and increasing yields.
Researchers looked at corn grown in five US states, where plants are affected by the borer. They found fewer borers — and higher profits — in GE fields, and in neighboring non-GE fields.
Bt varieties now make up about two thirds of the US corn crop, but regulations require farmers to plant conventional varieties as well, which is intended to stop the borers becoming resistant.
The pesticide in Bt corn is derived from the soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis.
Frankenfish
Safety of genetically engineered salmon debated
CNN Health, 20 Sep 2010
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has to decide if its safe for people to eat genetically engineered salmon, and if so, how the fish should be labeled.
The fish in question is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon with a gene promoter sequence (on-switch) from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon. The result is a farmed fish that grows year round instead of just during warm weather — reaching full size more quickly. The idea is to produce meat more quickly, saving money and resources.
The developers of the salmon have been working up to the point of approval for a decade.
Rice is nice
Regulation must be revolutionized
Nature, 29 Jul 2010
Golden rice will probably reach the market in 2012. It was ready in the lab by 1999. According to Ingo Potrykus, the father of golden rice, "This lag is because of the regulatory differentiation of genetic engineering from other, traditional methods of crop improvement. The discrimination is scientifically unjustified. It is wasting resources and stopping many potentially transformative crops such as golden rice making the leap from lab to plate."
Golden rice in Bangladesh by 2012
The New Nation (Bangladesh), 9 Aug 2010
Bangladesh is likely to complete all necessary experiments on its golden rice variety, enabling farmers to start cultivation as early as 2012. With the International Rice Research Institute's go-ahead in 2003, the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) developed the variety of rice through gene transfer into BR-29, the highest yielding BRRI variety, producing golden rice highly suitable to Bangladeshi growing conditions.
Perceptions
transgenic canola plants cross-pollinating in the wild
Scientific American, 6 Aug 2010
University of Arkansas scientists recently identified transgenic traits in feral canola. "Other than confirmation of something [i.e. cross-pollination between feral canola plants outside of agriculture] that has already been reported, I don't think there's anything that should raise an alarm," stated OSU scientist Carol Mallory. "Being transgenic does not make feral canola unique or more competitive unless someone is trying to control it with [the herbicides] glyphosate or glufosinate, which would negatively impact natural flora, also."
Pond scum power
New York Times, 26 Jul 2010
Algae, single-celled phytoplankton, produce half our planet's oxygen and are the fastest-growing green organisms on Earth. A Californian firm, Sapphire Energy, is using the tools of modern biotechnology to engineer algae that are super efficient at converting air and sunlight into lipids that people can then use to make biofuels.
Hundreds of researchers in both industry and academia are working to find ways to optimize biofuel production from algae. Currently, the US Department of Energy plans to invest some $24 million to tackle key hurdles in the commercialization of algae-based biofuels.
Engineered algae have many uses beyond biofuels, including sewage treatment and bioremediation.
Thinking beyond organic
Organic agriculture: a solution to global warming?
NYT Freakonomics Blog, 2 Jun 2010
Organic farming’s use of cover crops and composted manure is a remarkably effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. But in some cases, these gains in soil carbon come at the expense of elevated emissions of more potent greenhouse gases – specifically methane and nitrous oxide.
According to past Food for Thought lecturer Jimmy McWilliams, “organic agriculture has clear advantages. Most notably, it’s the only codified approach to agriculture that places top priority on soil health. The fact that methane and nitrous oxide emissions complicate the claim that organic agriculture reduces climate change is no reason to dismiss organic agriculture as a whole. Instead, it provides an opportunity to do something that the intensely polarized agricultural world rarely does: think beyond the organic vs. conventional divide.”
Tinkering with plant genes
Genetically engineered distortions
New York Times, 14 May 2010
In this op-ed, Pam Ronald and Jimmy McWilliams (former OrB Food for Thought lecturers) discuss a recent report by the National Research Council that gave ammunition to both sides in the debate over the cultivation of genetically engineered crops. Lost in the media kerfuffle is the potential role this technology could play in the poorest regions of the world — areas that will bear the brunt of climate change and the difficult growing conditions it will bring.
Enzyme cocktail transforms corncobs into ethanol
Are we getting closer to clean ethanol?
Forbes, 10 May 2010
By next fall, a bioengineered protein called GH61 will be in use at a biofuels plant in Iowa, helping to transform corncobs into ethanol for autos, and likely facilitating the first production of cellulosic ethanol at a reasonable price.
Whereas bioethanol is made from the sugars and starches in crops like sugar cane and corn, cellulosic ethanol is made from plant waste or nonfood crops, thus sidestepping the competition between food and fuel.
Genetically engineered pigs, earth-friendly poop
Scientists say Canada's enviropig is eco-friendly and will cut farmer's feed supplement costs
CBS News Tech, 5 April 2010
Canada has approved a genetically engineered, environmentally friendly pig for limited production.
The "enviropig" has been genetically engineered in such a manner that its urine and feces contain nearly 65 percent less phosphorus than usual. That could be good news for lakes, rivers, and ocean deltas, where phosphorous from animal waste can cause algal blooms that deplete water oxygen levels, creating dead zones for fish and other aquatic life.
This technology may also become a boon for farmers: there is no need to supplement the enviropig's diet with mineral phosphate or phytase (an enzyme that helps break down the phosphorous in grain), reducing feed costs.
Aussies grow vitamin-enriched bananas
First GE bananas harvested
ABC News (Australia), 18 March 2010
Researchers say the first genetically engineered bananas to be harvested in Australia are showing positive early results. The bananas are enriched for provitamin A carotenoids; later crops will have enhanced levels of iron.
According to the World Health Organization, Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in more than half of all countries, especially in Africa and South-East Asia, hitting hardest young children and pregnant women in low-income countries.
Peer review pierces controversy
Austria withdraws study on long-term consequences of consuming GE maize
GMO Compass, 16 March 2010
Austria has withdrawn a study on long-term feeding trials with mice that was published without peer-review in November 2008. The study caused quite a stir since some of the mice that were fed with genetically engineered maize gave birth to fewer offspring, inciting public concern that GE food consumption reduced fertility.
Scientists worldwide, including members of the European Food Safety Committee, were quick to point out that the authors' sample sizes were far too small for statistical significance, and that the experimental control itself was flawed.
Fact check
Scientists slam key study behind Bt brinjal ban
Hindustani Times (India), 12 February 2010
France-based Caen University professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team recently branded Bt brinjal — India's first genetically engineered food crop — "unsafe."
European academic circles claim Séralini was unduly influenced by the renowned international NGO Greenpeace, which sponsored his study.
"Séralini only gave theoretical comments on publicly available biosafety data on Bt brinjal. He never carried out an independent study. He never had access to the Bt gene of either maize or brinjal," said Marc Van Montagu, inventor of the recombinant DNA technology in plants.
Bt brinjal (eggplant) is genetically engineered to contain a pesticide specific to the Eggplant Fruit and Shoot Borer, a pest that causes devastating crop damage in countries throughout tropical Asia and Africa. Farmers growing Bt brinjal achieve good yields without applying toxic pesticides or harming beneficial insects.
Conglomerate pays for crop contamination
Jury: Bayer must pay $1.5M to AK, MS rice farmers
Corvallis Gazette Times, 7 February 2010
The discovery of traces of unapproved genetically modified Liberty Link Rice in United States exports in 2006 has put the spotlight on biotech company field trials and governmental regulation. The rice variety contains one extra gene, "Liberty Link," that inactivates the herbicide glufosinate (aka Liberty). Liberty Link is the only herbicide tolerant gene other than Roundup Ready on the market.
Biotech news 2009
Food footprints
Organic farming would be better in terms of climate change impact. Right?
Sustainablog, 10 Nov 2009
Past Food for Thought lecturer Steven Savage reviews the scientific literature for major row crops to get a handle on whether or not organic farming, as it is currently defined, is the answer to reducing the carbon footprint of agriculture.
Savage believes the solution lies in broader adoption of progressive methods including no-till, cover crops, and precision farming. These practices are currently best embraced in South America and Australia, but are almost nonexistent in Europe.
Go green, go biotech
Hey Copenhagen, do GE crops threaten human health, diverse ecosystems and climate stability?
Western Producer(Canada), 17 December 2009
Some social activist groups and NGOs are expressing concern that climate negotiators in Copenhagen are embracing flawed technologies as solutions to the world's climate woes. But not according to a recent study of western Canadian farming practices.
“That data we’ve gathered […] certainly suggests that genetically modified crops are probably the most environmentally beneficial crop technology being used in agriculture today,” said Stuart Smyth, a research associate with the University of Saskatchewan’s agriculture college. “This is where it really starts to get important for the environment.”
Ban the beets
Federal judge overturns approval of GE sugar beets
San Francisco Chronicle, 22 September 2009
Nearly all of America's sugar beet seeds are grown in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Most have been genetically engineered (GE) to withstand the weed killer, glyphosate.
To alleviate concerns that GE sugar beet pollen will contaminate nearby fields, a federal judge has ordered the US Department of Agriculture to conduct exhaustive environmental impact studies.
Farmers plant glyphosate-resistant sugar beet because it requires fewer herbicide applications and facilitates no-till agricultural practices, both of which have economic and environmental benefits. The judge's ruling was based on "the potential elimination of a farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food." Seed producers were barred from giving evidence or calling expert witnesses.
Eating responsibly: more GMOs, fewer cattle?
Forbes, 31 August 2009
With the world population headed toward 9 billion by 2050, Texas author James McWilliams supports producing more, healthier food on less land using fewer resources. His new book, "Just Food: Where Locavores Get it Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly" downplays the importance of shopping locally and is sure to irritate organic food fundamentalists.
"The crops [McWilliams] proposes to replace grains actually have a far higher carbon footprint/acre, cannot be farmed no-till (the most sustainable way) and generate little protein," commented Food for Thought lecturer, in his 9/16/09 response to the Forbes article. "For a meat alternative it would be better to plant lentils or quinoa."
Biofortification
The quest to develop fortified genetically engineered plants has yielded mixed results
The Scientist, September 2009
The UN estimates that one in every six people on this planet is starving, and one in every two is nutrient deficient. People suffering from the "hidden hunger" of micronutrient malnutrition may consume sufficient calories, but not enough nutrients. Scientists have genetically engineered several biofortified food plants to tackle this problem. Because of scientific, social and political hurdles, the crops have yet to be planted on a wide scale, but that may be about to change.
GMO safety reviews
environmental and socioeconomic impacts of GE foods
background, regulation, and safety of GE foods
Annual Review of Plant Biology, June 2009
Peggy Lemaux is a Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California Berkley, responsible for statewide outreach and educational programming related to agriculture and foods. She has published these comprehensive, readable reviews of the food and environmental safety records of genetically engineered crops, and is involved in developing ucbiotech.org, a site providing scientifically based information about agricultural biotechnology to educators.
Round-table
Panelists at GMO forum ask consumers to seek out good information
WillametteLive.com, 10 February 2009
The response from a group of four panelists at a forum held recently at the Salem Public Library on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) seemed unanimous: Be informed. The panel featured David Harry, associate director of Outreach in Biotechnology; Lisa Weasel, author of "Food Fray: Inside the Controversy over Genetically Modified Food" and associate professor of biology at Portland State University; Terry Witt, executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter; and Rick North, program director for Oregon's Campaign for Safe Foods Program. Dan Hilburn, administrator of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Plant Division, moderated the forum.
Food security
Technology may be key in solving food crisis caused by climate change and competition for land use
Press Association, 22 January 2009
According to a recent report by the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institution of Chemical Engineers, both of the UK, the world is heading for a food crisis caused by climate change and competition for land use, and only technology can guarantee global food sustainability. The report calls for the development of genetically engineered pest and drought resistant crops and nutritionally enhanced crops. Regulations, it says, must be "based on an evaluation of the risk, using sound evidence, and not on a socio-political fear of new technology."
Farming food and pharmaceuticals
Genetically engineered rice food crops and tobacco biopharm crops have differing costs and benefits
USDA-CSREES, 21 January 2009
A recent study of the costs and benefits of agricultural biotechnology determined that pharmaceutical companies and patent holders would benefit from using tobacco crops for biopharming, but the economic outcome for farmers and the public would be limited, and that the developing world would see a benefit of about $2 billion per year from insect-, drought-, and herbicide-resistant genetically modified rice technologies, while the United States would experience a small net loss. The study was funded by the USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service and implemented by economists at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Biotech news 2008
Oregon.gov
In October 2008, a rulemaking hearing took place to establish a review system for federal permit applications to grow biopharmaceutical crops in Oregon
Op-ed
Rethink GMOs as sustainable agriculture
"Bacterial genes in your banana nut bread may sound like a big yuckorama, but the underlying biological principle that makes that possible is actually quite beautiful: Unity."
Farmer Fred Meister sees environmental benefits
Genetically modified canola plantings reach 90% in Canada
PRWeb, 15 Sep 2008
Nearly 90 percent of Canadian canola farmers are planting 90 percent of their canola fields with seed that has been engineered for herbicide resistance. In a new online video, Canadian farmer Fred Meister discusses his experience with growing GM canola.
Farmers use tillage to control weeds as well as to prepare the soil for planting, but excessive tillage can negatively impact soil fertility and increase soil erosion. Growing GM canola reduces the need for tillage. "So, environmentally, we feel that it is a big help," said Meister.
More and more US farmers growing GE crops
Adoption of genetically engineered crops in the US
USDA-ERS, 2 July 2008
According to a report by the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS), the adoption of genetically engineered (GE) crops continues to expand within the US. The report's findings include that the adoption of GE soybeans with herbicide-tolerant traits reached 92 percent of the total soy crop; the adoption of all GE cotton, including varieties with herbicide tolerance and Bt traits, reached 86 percent; and the adoption of GE corn reached 80 percent this year.
Food's footprint
Agriculture at a crossroads
Science Magazine, 18 April 2008
A recent international assessment indicates that agricultural science and technology (S&T) is not adequately reducing hunger and poverty, improving rural livelihoods, or facilitating equitable sustainable development.
Genetic engineering is one S&T approach that was not rejected in principle; "the assessment found GM crops appropriate in some contexts, unpromising in others, and unproven in many more. The potential of GM crops to serve the needs of the subsistence farmer is recognized, but this potential remains unfulfilled."
Horizontal transfer
Antibiotic-resistant soil bacteria in transgenic plant fields
PNAS, 11 March 2008
No significant differences were observed in bacterial antibiotic-resistance levels between transgenic and nontransgenic corn fields, although the bacterial populations were different.
Outlaws
Mexican farmers quietly plant banned GM corn
Reuters, 7 March 2008
Many Mexican farmers are planting genetically engineered corn, even though they're not supposed to. It's worth it to them because worms don't eat it, and to raise a good crop they need less water and pesticides. However, the pollen from their corn can be carried for miles by the wind, and opponents fear it will cross-pollinate with native corn species and alter their genetic content.
Can Bt crops hurt benificial insects?
Assessment of risk of insect-resistant transgenic crops to non-target arthropods
Nature Biotechnology, 7 February 2008
Oregon State University researcher Paul Jepson is participating in an international initiative to evaluate the potential risks to non-target insects (including butterflies) posed by crops that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to insect pests. The results of the initiative will be used as a resource for regulatory agencies worldwide.
Bt toxins
Microbial populations and enzyme activities in soil in situ under transgenic corn expressing cry proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis
Journal of Environmental Quality, 20 February 2008
The soil bacteria B. thuringiensis naturally makes proteins toxic to specific types of insects. The bacterial genes that code for these proteins can be expressed in plants using recombinant DNA technology.
Some transgenic crops expressing Bt toxins release them into the soil. To determine if this impacts the health of the root environment, the soils of Bt and non-Bt corn were compared over a four-year period. No statistically significant differences in the numbers of different groups of soil microorganisms, in the enzymes involved in breaking down dead plant material, or in pH were found.
Safflower oil enriched for omega-6
Arcadia brings first biotech product to market
Checkbiotech Green, 25 February 2008
Oil made from Arcadia's genetically engineered safflower has a 40 percent concentration of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), higher than evening primrose oil, with a 10 percent concentration, and borage oil, with about a 20 percent concentration. GLA is an omega-6 essential fatty acid with anti-inflammatory properties. Research suggests that GLA supplements may provide health benefits. Arcadia's safflower oil can be produced easily in large quantities, which is good news for consumers.
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