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Genetically modified Ghana

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:29:00 +0000

The Catholic News Service reported last week that the Vatican might have signaled a change in policy on genetically modified organisms by appointing Cardinal Peter Turkson as the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Cardinal Peter Turkson told Catholic News Service March 9 that he would urge an attitude of caution and further study of the possible negative effects of genetically engineered organisms.

Under Cardinal Turkson's predecessor, Cardinal Renato Martino, the justice and peace council sponsored several conferences on genetically modified food as a way to alleviate hunger in poor countries.

Agribusinesses and biotech industries that produce genetically modified organisms are justified in wanting to recoup the expenses laid out for research and development, and they have a right to want to make a profit from their work, said Cardinal Turkson, who took over the reins of the council in January.

But the issue becomes problematic when a company that controls the use of genetically modified seeds and crops is motivated more by profit than by "the declared desire to want to help feed humanity," he said.

Monsanto’s mermaid problem

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Monsanto is not the first company I think of when assigning blame for sabotaging climate talks, but according to 37 percent of the voters in the Friends of the Earth Angry Mermaid contest, the biotech seed company is the most egregious offender on the planet, edging out Shell and the American Petroleum Institute.

The award, says FoE, is meant to "highlight those business groups and companies that have made the greatest effort to sabotage the climate talks, and other climate measures, while promoting, often profitable, false solutions."

Agriculture giant Monsanto was nominated for promoting its genetically modified (GM) crops as a solution to climate change and pushing for its crops to be used as biofuels. The expansion of GM soy in Latin America is contributing to major deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.... Monsanto also wants GM soy to be funded under the Clean Development Mechanism.

The future of corn on a hot planet

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:01:00 +0000

A troubling fact about corn: In the United States from 1940-1960, after the introduction of hybrid corn and in the wake of the disastrous Dust Bowl years of 1934 and 1936, corn yields and corn heat tolerance both grew. But since 1960, while yields have continued to grow as new hybrid and genetically modified varieties have been introduced, along with other agricultural innovations, heat tolerance has actually fallen.

Why is this significant? Because after a certain temperature, usually around 86 degrees Fahrenheit, corn yields drop dramatically. And even the most conservative mainstream climate scientist predictions about the effect of global warming include temperature rises that would hammer the corn-growing heartland of the United States.

These insights come from a fascinating new paper, "The Evolution of Heat Tolerance of Corn: Implications for Climate Change" by North Carolina State University's Michael J. Roberts, a professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and Wolfram Schlenker, an economist at Columbia University. The researchers take advantage of a 100 years of incredibly detailed information on corn yields and temperature records in Indiana, the third-largest corn-growing state in the U.S.

Monsanto’s weedkiller problem

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:13:00 +0000

Whatever happened to peak weedkiller? On Wednesday, Monsanto announced a fourth quarter loss of $233 million, blaming the shortfall on weakening demand for one of its prize products, the herbicide RoundUp.

In April 2008, the last time HTWW reviewed global herbicide pricing trends, Monsanto was raising RoundUp prices, sticking it to farmers. The reason? Both the cost of production and demand for weedkiller had risen sharply. Industrial production of glyphosate, the key ingredient in RoundUp, is highly energy intensive, and the commodity boom that pushed corn and other grain prices sky-high in 2008 had farmers hungry for as much weed-killer as they could get. Even though Monsanto's patent for RoundUp expired in 2000, paving the way for scores of Chinese generic glyphosate companies to enter the market, demand was still so high that Monsanto could cover its rising energy costs and still reap significant profits.

The U.S. versus Monsanto?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:15:00 +0000

Did a warning shot just fly across Monsanto's bow?

Most of the focus on the newly invigorated antitrust division of the Department of Justice has centered on the possibility that the feds are taking a hard look at Google's domination of the online advertising market. My former colleague Farhad Manjoo does a great job of explaining why that's not a particularly smart idea. But for the foodies, organic and family farmers, and anti-GMO activists of the world, there's a far more provocative target at which to aim the antitrust cannon: the Roundup, GMO-corn and GMO-soybean king, Monsanto.

This is not idle speculation. On Aug. 7, Philip Weiser, a newly appointed deputy assistant attorney general in the antitrust division, gave an important speech in St. Louis, which just happens to be where Monsanto is based. The title of the speech: "Toward a Competition Policy Agenda for Agriculture Markets."

Labor report: “Shockingly awful”

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:54:00 +0000

The U.S. private sector lost a whopping 693,000 jobs in December, according to the ADP Employer Services survey.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its own "official" count on Friday, but that's little consolation -- the ADP survey has historically come in lower than the government total. And if the BLS declares that the U.S. lost 700,000 jobs in December, reports the Financial Times, that would be the worst number in 59 years.

However, after undershooting the government numbers in November, the ADP changed its methodology, so the past doesn't offer us too much guidance. Still, no wonder the markets are upset this morning, (The Dow was down 185 an hour after opening). On Wednesday, Time Warner announced it was writing off 25 billion worth of losses for the fourth quarter of 2008, citing a decline in advertising revenue for its cable operations, and Intel reported that fourth quarter revenue would decline 23 percent, due to slacking worldwide demand for semiconductors. Two other industrial giants, IBM and Alcoa, both announced imminent job cuts.

Vilsack: Big Agriculture has a man in the White House

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:40:00 +0000

Barack Obama's nomination of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack for secretary of agriculture poses an interesting challenge to food policy progressives and environmentalists. It's likely that some of the same people who applauded the nomination of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as secretary of energy because it signaled a welcome return of respect for science in the White House will be disappointed with Vilsack because of his own fondness for science -- the science of biotechnology.

Make no mistake, the biotechnology industry and big agribusiness corporations are mighty pleased with the prospect of Vilsack as Ag secretary. Grist's Tom Philpott notes that "in 2001, the Biotechnology Industry Organization named him 'governor of the year' for his 'support of the industry's economic growth and agricultural biotechnology research'" and that Vilsack has supported several measures reducing the power of local governments to regulate agribusiness operations. Philpott also points us to the Des Moines Register, which features a handful of illuminating quotes.

Birth control in a Frito?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:43:00 +0000

Like vampire-hunters certain that they have finally found the magic stake that will annihilate their Satanic foe once and for all, Greenpeace and the Center for Food Safety are touting a new study purporting to show increased reproductive infertility in generations of mice that have been fed a steady diet of Monsanto's genetically modified corn.

From a news alert released by the Center for Food Safety:

Mice fed the GE corn diet had fewer litters, fewer total offspring, and more females with no offspring, than mice fed the conventional corn. The effects were particularly pronounced in the third and fourth litters, after the mice had consumed the GE corn for a longer period of time. The authors attributed the reduced fertility to the GE corn feed, and said it might be related to unintended effects of the genetic modification process.

Greenpeace, in typical fashion, is breathless:

Mice! Forget about birth control -- try GE maize instead!

Monsanto’s bane: The evil pigweed

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:17:00 +0000

Trouble is brewing for King Cotton, and it goes by the name of Roundup-resistant Palmer amaranth, aka the dreaded pigweed.

Some weed specialists are calling pigweed the worst threat cotton has faced since the boll weevil. Reports first started surfacing a few years back about cotton fields in Georgia getting hammered by a fast-growing, drought-resistant, incredibly prolific weed that scoffed at Monsanto's best attempts to quash it, but this summer, the pigweed menace has exploded.

From South Carolina's Times & Democrat

Palmer amaranth crowds out cotton plants, starving them of sunlight, nutrients and water, and is a very productive weed. Each female produces as many as 500,000 seedlings, meaning just one plant can birth an entire field.
Unlike other pests, pigweed can continue to grow an inch a day even without water, making it particularly adept during the drought gripping the region. It also thrives in hot weather, continuing to grow when temperatures top 90 degrees and other plants shut down.
Continue Reading...

Chinese dreams of Monsanto glory

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:55:00 +0000

Xinhua News is reporting that China's State Council has approved a significant expansion of a "transgenic species development" program to "shore up the country's sustainable agricultural development."

Critics of genetic modification may find the idea of "sustainable" transgenics an oxymoron, but China's move is nonetheless a huge story, with enormous implications. Just as the high price of gas is driving Americans to reconsider offshore drilling, the issue of food security appears to be forcing the Chinese government to put genetically modified rice back on the menu. In the West, anti-GM activists are quick to dismiss all claims of improved yields or other positive attributes associated with GM crops as nothing more than Monsanto pulling the propaganda wool over the eyes of browbeaten farmers or coopted governments. But this is China.

To paraphrase Deng Xiaoping: "It doesn't matter whether the cat is genetically modified or not, as long as it catches mice."

From The Guardian:

Continue Reading...

Peak weed-killer?

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:40:00 +0000

Maybe it's a good thing grain prices are breaking records. Without the extra income, farmers might not be able to afford either the fertilizer necessary to feed their crops, or the herbicides required to keep weeds out. (I refer here to non-organic farmers -- we're talking strictly industrial monoculture...)

The relentless ascent of synthetic fertilizer prices have been mentioned here numerous times. But lately, the farming press has been sounding the alarm on a new danger -- price hikes for glyphosate -- a.k.a. Monsanto's RoundUp -- are also heading sky-high.

Monsanto invented glyphosate in the 1970s, but the world's number one weed killer went off patent in 2000, and Chinese producers quickly jumped into the business. Today, Monsanto still manufactures 60 percent of the world's supply of glyphosate, with China accounting for the rest.

Give us your poor, your tired, your genetic modification experiments

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:51:00 +0000

Here's a new global economy niche for Midwestern states devastated by offshoring jobs: They can offer themselves up as testbeds for new genetically modified organisms developed by foreign biotech companies who have been driven out of their home markets by anti-GMO protests.

On Feb. 29, the chairman of Limagrain, Europe's largest seed cooperative, told Reuters that the company was moving its research tests on genetically modified organisms to the United States. Chairman Pierre Pagesse, reported Reuters, "said Biogemma, Limagrain's grain and oilseed research unit, would carry around 1,000 tests on GM crops this year in Illinois, in the U.S. corn belt." (Thanks to GMOPundit for the link.)

Biggest. Corn harvest. Ever

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:46:00 +0000

The largest corn harvest in U.S. history is ripening in fields across America as summer rolls along. The latest figures from the USDA predict a total harvest of 13.1 billion bushels, a huge 24 percent jump over last year's harvest. The big numbers are in part a natural result of farmers planting more acres of corn than in any year since 1944, but are also due to increased yields per acre.

A Financial Times report on the new numbers suggests that bleeding-edge varieties of genetically modified corn partially explain the yield-per-acre gains. "U.S. farmers have been using record levels of new-generation seeds from suppliers such as Monsanto which are more resistant to drought and pests, boosting yields."

More, supposedly, is to come. Last October, at a presentation at the Renewable Energy Conference, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns promised that new, drought-tolerant varieties of corn were in development that would boost yields in dry areas another 40 percent "not in the next lifetime but in the next few years." At the same conference Monsanto chief technological officer Robert Fraley predicted average U.S. corn yields were set to double within a generation.

Monsanto takes a punch to the gut

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:57:00 +0000

Last October, How the World Works expressed skepticism over efforts by Daniel Ravicher, the founder and president of the Public Patent Foundation, to invalidate four Monsanto patents involving the methods by which genes from one organism are inserted into another. But even then, we liked how the man expressed himself:

The patent system is being abused by private actors to the detriment of the mostly unaware public. Our health, our freedom, and our economic prosperity are all under assault from bogus rights meted out to the few with the power and expertise to game a system originally established hundreds of years ago to promote progress within society as a whole. The government, through primarily a captured patent office utterly failing to achieve its mission and skewed policies implemented into patent law by Congress and the courts, is not just failing to defend the public interest from abuse of the patent system, but is complicit in and supportive of such efforts.
Continue Reading...

States’ rights vs. the Farm Bill

Thu, 24 May 2007 19:43:00 +0000

The House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry held a hearing Thursday morning to consider some proposed changes to the Farm Bill. Among the details under deliberation were fine-tuning price supports for cheddar cheese ($1.13 per pound for blocks, $1.10 per pound for barrels), various dairy incentive programs, and the establishment of a "swine surveillance program" to guard against the dread threat of pseudorabies spread by feral pigs.

Tucked in at the very end of the document is a provision that includes no explicit mention of livestock, dairy, or poultry: Section 123 reads: "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no State or locality shall make any law prohibiting the use in commerce of an article that the Secretary of Agriculture has -- (1) inspected and passed; or (2) determined to be of non-regulated status."

Greece: Beware of biotech companies bearing GMOs

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:20:00 +0000

The first we hear about "the woodland island" of Zakynthos is from Homer. The Ionian isle paid fealty to Odysseus, but while the king was away, the natives became restless. As Penelope complains to an unknown stranger:

As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from all our islands -- Dulichium, Same, and Zakynthos, as also from Ithaca itself, are wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can therefore show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to people who say that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time broken-hearted about Odysseus.
Fast forward three millennia or so, to the fall of 2003, when a Zakynthian local council voted to make the island a "GM-free zone." Zakynthos' action kicked off a brush fire of anti-genetic modification sentiment in Greece. In short order, every single one of Greece's 54 prefectures declared itself GM-free.
Continue Reading...

Why Monsanto loves ethanol

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:18:00 +0000

American farmers, spurred by ethanol frenzy, are planting the largest corn crop in more than 50 years.The demand is so high, reports Farm News, that seed companies are running out of the most popular varieties of corn seed.

At the top of the list are "triple stack hybrids" sold mostly by Monsanto-owned subsidiaries. A triple stack hybrid combines genetic modifications that result in three different "traits." In this case, the corn comes with built-in resistance to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, and built-in insecticides that target two of the corn plant's most fearsome foes, the dreaded corn borer and the equally devastating corn rootworm. (The corn borer and corn rootworm toxins are derived from two different subspecies of the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis -- triple stack hybrids thus include two different "Bt" genetic modification "events.")

Monsanto vs. the aliens

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:12:00 +0000

The Weekly World Inquisitor is reporting the disturbing news that crop-circle-creating aliens are boycotting certain fields because of fears of GM contamination. According to the Inquisitor, a scientist with the unlikely name of Buck Uranus has compiled "a major survey of crop circles created over the past five years and says he has not found a single example left in fields containing GM crops." (Thanks, we think, to GMO Pundit's David Tribe for the link.)

Freedom to choose: Organic alfalfa

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:52:00 +0000

In a decision that is being hailed by anti-GMO activists as precedent-setting, a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco delivered a stinging rebuke to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Feb. 14, ruling that the USDA had erred in not conducting a full environmental impact statement (EIS) on the possible consequences of introducing genetically modified "Roundup Ready" alfalfa into commercial production.

The 20-page decision makes for fascinating reading. Judge Charles Breyer (the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer), shreds the USDA's rationale for skipping the EIS with a level of precision that puts to shame any number of press releases from advocacy organizations.

The key issue was not whether GM alfalfa, modified by Monsanto to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, might be unhealthy for human consumption. Breyer noted that legal precedent required him to respect the decision by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that Roundup Ready alfalfa was "harmless" to humans. Instead, Breyer drilled down on the crucial issue of how the introduction of GM alfalfa was likely to affect the economic livelihood of organic farmers whose crops would risk being contaminated by GM alfalfa. The likelihood of such contamination is inevitable, as the government conceded during its testimony.

The Napster pirates of transgenic biotech

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 23:51:00 +0000

2001 was a bad year for bollworms in Gujarat. The pink larval creatures infested cotton fields across the Indian state, devastating harvests.

But some fields, remarkably, were mostly immune. Mayhco, an Indian seed company partially owned by Monsanto, became suspicious. Mayhco and Monsanto had been striving for years to get permission to sell genetically modified Bt cotton in India -- a strain that produces its own anti-bollworm insecticide -- but the application had been fought at every step by India's vigorous anti-GM activists and was undergoing lengthy trials. Sure enough, after testing the cotton, Mayhco determined that it contained the Monsanto-patented gene Cry1ac.

To this day, no one seems to be quite sure exactly how the Bt gene got into the seeds sold to the Gujarat farmers under the brand name Navbharat151. D.B. Desai, the owner of the Navbharat seed company and a well known breeder, claims it was an accident, the result of contamination from test plots in another Indian state where the trials of genetically modified cotton were being conducted. His critics say he is being criminally disingenuous, that he must have knowingly stolen cotton seeds from the trials and interbred them with other cotton strains. To Monsanto, D.B. Desai is a new breed of thief, a biotech pirate.