EU blocks protesting farmers in Brussels using barbed wire, tear gas and water cannons, while Orbán says farmers are ‘100% right’

Remix

As the EU moves to crush protesting farmers demonstrating in Brussels, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán offered full backing to the farmers and their efforts to stop the EU’s Mercosur free trade deal, which threatens to destroy food security in Europe. [That's the idea...]

“Farmers are 100 percent right,” said Orbán, who is currently in Brussels attending the EU Summit.

He added that the farmers have obvious issues with the Mercosur package, a free trade agreement with Latin American countries, because it “kills the farmers.”

“Hungary is one of the countries that does not support the Mercosur agreement. There were serious professional debates about this in Hungary, and the Hungarian position was that we do not support this,” said the prime minister.

Viktor Orbán reminded that the agreement would require a qualified majority, and according to his expectations, there is not enough support.

Read more

“Farmageddon” – Farmers Across the U.S. Sound the Alarm on the Disaster Unfolding from Trump’s Tariffs

Health Impact News

As the U.S. now heads into the Fall harvest season, the impacts of Trump’s tariffs are being more clearly seen, where farmers all across the U.S. are sounding the alarm about the collapse of our agricultural system, with one out of every three farms going out of business in certain parts of the country.

What we are seeing this Fall in the U.S. are the effects of a mass loss of farm labor due to deportations, increased prices on farm equipment and other farm materials that are mostly imported (like parts for John Deere tractors), and of course the loss of the China market, the country where most U.S. farm products have been exported to in past years.

Read more

Now They're Coming After What we Eat

Comment: Really important article - read to the end.

-------------------------------- 

Christopher Monckton
Watts Up With That

At Harvard, there was once a University. Now that once noble campus has become a luxury asylum for the terminally feeble-minded. Walter Willett, one of the inmates (in his sadly incurable delusion he calls himself "Professor of Nutrition"), has gibbered to a well-meaning visitor from Business Insider that "eating a diet that's especially high in red meat will be undermining the sustainability of the climate."

Farewell, then, to the Roast Beef of Old England. So keen are we in the Old Country on our Sunday roast (cooked rare and sliced thickish) that the French call us les rosbifs. But the "Professor" (for we must humor him by letting him think he is qualified to talk about nutrition) wants to put a stop to all that.

As strikingly ignorant of all but the IPCC Party Line as others in that hopeless hospice for hapless halfwits, he overlooks the fact that the great plains of what is now the United States of America were once teeming with millions upon millions of eructating, halating ruminants. Notwithstanding agriculture, there are far fewer ruminants now than there were then.

The "Professor" drools on: "It's bad for the person eating it, but also really bad for our children and our grandchildren, so that's something I think we should totally, strongly advise against. It's — in fact — irresponsible."

It may be that the "Professor" - look how fetchingly he adjusts his tinfoil hat to a rakish angle - does not accept the theory of evolution. If, however, that theory is correct, the Earth is somewhat older than the 6000 years derived by the amiably barmy Bishop Ussher counting the generations since Abraham.
 
Agriculture, as we now understand it, only became widespread in the past 10,000 years. Before that, for perhaps two million years, our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate meat and fish and not a lot else - perhaps a little fruit and a few nuts now and then, but only in season. If eating all that saturated fat was bad for them, how on Earth were they fertile enough to breed generation after generation across the rolling millennia, leading eventually to us?

Let me give the "Professor" a brief lecture in nutrition, about which he plainly knows little. The energy in our food comes entirely from three macronutrients: fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. 

Read more

Trump orders simpler path for genetically engineered food

Candice Choi
The Seattle Times

President Trump wants to make it easier for genetically engineered plants and animals to enter the food supply, and he signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to simplify the "regulatory maze" for producers.

The move comes as companies are turning to newer genetic engineering techniques that make it easier to tinker with the traits of plants and animals.

Greg Jaffe, biotechnology director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the impact of the executive order will depend on the details of how it's carried out by federal agencies. Simply deregulating could make people lose confidence in genetically engineered foods, he said.

"There needs to be an assurance of safety for those products," said Jaffe, who was among those briefed by government officials on a call before the order was announced.

The order also noted the government's policies should urge trading partners to adopt similar regulatory approaches. Even if the U.S. loosens regulations on genetically engineered foods, Jaffe noted companies could be hampered by regulations overseas.

How genetically engineered plants and animals are currently regulated in the U.S. varies depending on the exact methods used to produce them, and federal agencies have already been working to clarify policies as new technologies have emerged. But already, some aspects of the administration's approach have worried consumer advocacy groups.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed changing its regulations in a way that would mean much of the genetically modified corn and soy grown in the U.S. today would not necessarily have been subject to special oversight.

Crops produced with newer gene-editing technologies also wouldn't automatically be subject to special oversight under the proposed rule, unless they posed a risk as plant pests. Companies have said that gene-editing allows them to more precisely alter plants and animals, and that what they're doing could theoretically be achieved through conventional breeding. 

Read more

From Glyphosate to Front Groups: Fraud, Deception and Toxic Tactics

Colin Todhunter
Off Guardian

nvironmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason has just written to the Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal and the British Medical Association Council Chairman, Chaand Nagpaul.

Her purpose is to not only draw attention to the impact of biocides, not least that of glyphosate, on health and the environment but also to bring attention to the corruption that allows this to continue.

Along with her letter, she enclosed a 13-page document. Readers can access the fully referenced document here: European Chemicals Agency classifies glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage (or see the embedded version below).

It is worth reading in full to appreciate the conflicts of interest and the corruption that has led to the rise in certain illnesses and the destruction of the natural environment.

By way of a brief summary, the key points raised by Dr Mason and her claims include the following.

• The European Chemicals Agency classifies glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage. There has been a massive increase in the use of glyphosate in recent years. An increase in cataracts has been verified by epidemiological studies in England and by a 2016 WHO report.
• There are shockingly high levels of weed killer in UK breakfast cereals. After testing these cereals at the Health Research Institute in Iowa, Dr Fagan, director of the centre, said: “These results are consistently concerning. The levels consumed in a single daily helping of any one of these cereals, even the one with the lowest level of contamination, is sufficient to put the person’s glyphosate levels above the levels that cause fatty liver disease in rats (and likely in people).”
• The amount of glyphosate in tap water in South Wales has increased tenfold in a very short period.
• Glyphosate is largely responsible for the destruction of biodiversity and an increase in the prevalence of many serious health conditions.
• There are massive conflicts of interest throughout various agencies in the EU that ensure harmful agrochemicals like glyphosate come to market and remain there.
• In fact, a global industry has emerged to give ‘advice’ on biocides regulation. This results in regulatory bodies effectively working to further the commercial interests of the pesticide industry.
• The European Food Safety Authority sanctioned increased maximum pesticide residue levels (MRL) at the request of industry (Monsanto in this case, to 100 times the previously authorised MRL).
• The Washington-based International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is used by corporate backers to counter public health policies. Its members have occupied key positions on EU and UN regulatory panels. It is, however, an industry lobby group that masquerades as a scientific health charity. The ILSI describes its mission as “pursuing objectivity, clarity and reproducibility” to “benefit the public good”. But researchers from the University of Cambridge, Bocconi University in Milan, and the US Right to Know campaign assessed over 17,000 pages of documents under US freedom of information laws to present evidence of influence peddling.
• ILSI Vice-President, Prof Alan Boobis, is currently the Chairman of the UK Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoT) (2015-2021). He was directly responsible for authorising chemicals such as glyphosate, chlorothalonil, clothianidin and chlorpyrifos that are destroying human health and creating a crisis in biodiversity. His group and others have authorised glyphosate repeatedly. He and David Coggon, the previous Chairman of CoT (2008-2015), were appointed as experts on Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), a group allied with the agrochemical industry and is fighting for higher pesticide exposure.
• Jean-Claude Juncker the President of the European Commission who, against a petition from more than 1.5 million European citizens, re-authorised glyphosate in December 2017 for a further five years. He set up the Science Advisory Mechanism, aiming to put industry-friendly personnel on various committees.

Read more

Do We Face a Global Food Disaster?

F. William Engdahl
NEO

No, this is not at all an endorsement of the apocalyptic scenarios of AOC or that famous young Swedish climate expert, Greta. It is, however, a look at unusual weather disasters in several key growing regions from the USA to Australia, the Philippines and beyond that could dramatically affect food availability and prices in the coming year. That in turn could have major political implications depending on how the rest of the growing season develops.

USA Midwest Waterlogged

According to the latest May 20 report of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the US Department of Agriculture, corn and soybean crops are well behind the planting growth levels normal this time of the planting season. They report that only 49% of all planned corn acreage in the US has been planted compared with 78% at this time a year ago. Of that only 19% has yet emerged from the ground compared to 47% in May 2018. In terms of soybeans, barely 19% of crops have yet been planted compared with 53% a year before. Rice acreage planted is down to 73% compared to 92% a year ago in the six US rice-growing states. Of course, should weather dramatically improve the final harvest numbers could improve. It is simply too early to predict.

The USA is by a wide margin the world largest soybean producer with 34 percent of the world’s soybean production and 42% of world exports prior to the China trade battles. The US is also the world largest corn or maize producer, almost double China, the number two. A serious harvest failure in these two crops could significantly affect world food prices, leaving aside the unfortunate fact that almost all US soybeans and corn are GMO crops. They are mainly used in animal feed. 

A major factor in the disruption of the US Midwest growing season is the fact that the past 12 months have seen the greatest precipitation levels since the US Government began keeping statistics in 1895, according to the US NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Record snowfall followed by abnormally heavy rains are the reason.

Read more

Climate & Cycles of Civilization What to Expect Moving Into 2025 : Peter Temple

Adapt 2030
 

Peter Temple of World Cycles Institute discusses the culmination of civilization, economic, society and climate cycles around 2020. 

This matches the Grand Solar Minimum coolest point around 2023. 

It’s all about repeating cycles and here is what you can expect moving forward. 

 • 172 Year Society Collapse Cycle • 414 year Grand Solar Minimum Cycle • 516 year cycle 3 x 172 a grand society power shift cycle • 1548 year Civilization Cycle • Bob Prector: Cycles in the Stock Market Delay Wave International • Raymond Wheeler: Drought, climate and cycles of civilization • Peaks of climatic cycles and peaks of social cycles • Real Estate Cycle • Global Weather Calamities effecting food production globally • Cryptocurrency in Elliot Waves • Wheeler’s Drought Clock • Greenland’s ice gain and ice loss cycles on 3200 year cycles • How governments are trying to control the flow of information so citizens do not panic 

Peter Temple World Cycles Institute https://worldcyclesinstitute.com

https://worldcyclesinstitute.com/theory/ 

*** 

ADAPT 2030 Abundant Harvest E-Book Link 

***  

https://payhip.com/b/XMVw/af5b46ed1be... 

*** ADAPT 2030 True Leaf Market Link 

*** http://www.pjtra.com/t/SkNITkxPS0xDR0...

Bayer Apologises for Monsanto Collecting Personal Data Amid French Probe

Sputnik

The German giant acquired the US agrochemical firm in 2018 and inherited numerous problems, including lawsuits over the probable toxic effect of its weed killer Roundup. After shedding more than 30 billion euros from its market capitalisation, Bayer has had to deal with an investigation in France about data being collected on Monsanto’s critics.

German-based Bayer is commissioning an external law firm to investigate claims about its US agrochemical firm, Monsanto, assembling lists of influential journalists and lawmakers, criticising or making complaints about the company. 

The pharmaceutical giant purchased the weed killer producer for $63 billion in 2018 and recently announced the move after an internal probe into the allegations made by the outlet Le Monde, which has reportedly resulted in a preliminary investigation by French authorities.

Bayer has addressed the concerns raised over the practices of its subsidiary Monsanto in a statement. 

“This is not the way Bayer seeks dialogue with society and stakeholders. We apologise for this behavior”, the company stated, noting, however, that there was nothing illicit about the way Monsanto compiled such lists.

Read more

Lab grown meat backed by Bill Gates to hit shelves in first US state this summer

Nick Meyer
Alt Health Works

Contrary to Biotech talking points, true genetically engineered food has only been on store shelves since the 1990s.

The first commercially available GMO crop was the "FlavrSavr" tomato, which was scrapped due to consumer and corporate rejection.

Since then, many other GMO crops, foods and similar experiments have made their way to store shelves, unlabeled and not tested for long-term safety.

These crops and foods were rushed to market even in spite of warnings from the FDA's own scientists, as detailed in the popular book 'Altered Genes, Twisted Truth' by public interest attorney Steven M. Druker.

The latest lab grown food development is a far different type of experiment, however, with sights on rocking the foundation of one of the most profitable industries in the United States: the meat industry.

And now, one Bill Gates-backed project is ready for its close-up, and will be sold on store shelves for the first time this summer. 

Read more

Planting the Seeds of Regime Change: How GMO Seeds and Monsanto/Bayer’s “RoundUp” are Driving US Policy in Venezuela

Mint Press News

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — As the political crisis in Venezuela has unfolded, much has been said about the Trump administration’s clear interest in the privatization and exploitation of Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world, by American oil giants like Chevron and ExxonMobil.

 

Yet the influence of another notorious American company, Monsanto — now a subsidiary of Bayer — has gone largely unmentioned.

While numerous other Latin American nations have become a “free for all” for the biotech company and its affiliates, Venezuela has been one of the few countries to fight Monsanto and other international agrochemical giants and win. However, since that victory — which was won under Chavista rule — the U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition has been working to undo it.

Now, with Juan Guaidó’s parallel government attempting to take power with the backing of the U.S., it is telling that the top political donors of those in the U.S. most fervently pushing regime change in Venezuela have close ties to Monsanto and major financial stakes in Bayer.

In recent months, Monsanto’s most controversial and notorious product — the pesticide glyphosate, branded as Roundup, and linked to cancer in recent U.S. court rulings — has threatened Bayer’s financial future as never before, with a litany of new court cases barking at Bayer’s door. It appears that many of the forces in the U.S. now seeking to overthrow the Venezuelan government are hoping that a new Guaidó-led government will provide Bayer with a fresh, much-needed market for its agrochemicals and transgenic seeds, particularly those products that now face bans in countries all over the world, including once-defoliated and still-poisoned Vietnam.

Read more

Cornell scientists create ‘living’ machines that eat, grow, and evolve

The Next Web

The field of robotics is going through a renaissance thanks to advances in machine learning and sensor technology. Each generation of robot is engineered with greater mechanical complexity and smarter operating software than the last. But what if, instead of painstakingly designing and engineering a robot, you could just tear open a packet of primordial soup, toss it in the microwave on high for two minutes, and then grow your own ‘lifelike’ robot?

If you’re a Cornell research team, you’d grow a bunch and make them race.

Scientists from Cornell University have successfully constructed DNA-based machines with incredibly life-like capabilities. These human-engineered organic machines are capable of locomotion, consuming resources for energy, growing and decaying, and evolving. Eventually they die.

That sure sounds a lot like life, but Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell, who worked on the research, says otherwise. He told The Stanford Chronicle:

We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism. We are not making something that’s alive, but we are creating materials that are much more lifelike than have ever been seen before.

Just how lifelike? 

Read more

Baseline of a Desecrated Land I: Food Supply

If Americans Knew

Part 1 of a 12 part series examining the ecological impacts of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

 

A synopsis of the findings is here.

 

by Dick Callahan, reposted from DickCallahan.net

 

How Israel’s water and agricultural technologies don’t even work for Israel

 

“California I hear has a big water problem. We in Israel don’t have a water problem. We use technology to solve it…” -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to California Governor Jerry Brown in March 2014.

“If you were planning to grow a new strain of tomato—don’t do it, because there is no water. Stop planting. Stop sowing new seedlings. There’s no water.”  -- Giora Shacham, Chairman of the Israeli Water Authority, to Jewish farmers at a December, 27, 2017 Israeli agriculture conference.

Introduction

A new mythology has it that Israel can save American agriculture and cities from drought. To accept this is to ignore the wilderness instructor’s maxim: “In a survival situation the first thing you need is recognition.” Our situation is that we in America have 324 million people and our country exports more food every year than any country in the history of the planet. Israel has eight and a half million people, exports almost no food, is entirely dependent on imported food, and every indicator is screaming that the Jewish state ecosystem is a dying patient on the gurney.

We will mostly bypass what suffering Israeli water colonization has caused Palestinians.  Instead, this piece looks at what fisheries biologist Daniel Pauly calls ‘Shifting Baselines,’ where some good thing is degraded over time and each successive generation adopts what is in front of them as their baseline reality. At some point an environment emerges that would terrify our ancestors. We Americans should look hard and honestly at Mother Earth groaning under Zionism in today’s Israel and ask, ‘Does America, or any country desiring a good future, want to follow that road?’

Before we start, it helps to know that Israel is 1,600 square miles smaller than the state of Vermont, the West Bank is smaller than St. Lawrence county in New York state, and the entire Gaza Strip is about the size of Bakersfield, California.

To evaluate Israeli land and water use technologies, these twelve recognitions might serve as jumping off points for discussion.

1) Israel cannot feed itself.
2) Israel pretends desalination impacts don’t exist.
3) Israel takes Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Jordanian water.
4) Israel’s one and only large, natural water body may be gone within twenty years.
5) Over half of the Jordan river valley’s biodiversity is already gone.
6) Israel and the Occupied Territories are awash in human sewage.
7) West Bank/Israeli streams and groundwater are over exploited and drying up so completely that centuries old trees in the nature reserves are dying of thirst.
8) Israel’s water, forestry, agricultural and military technologies have compromised agricultural land to the point where half of it is depleted and at risk, pesticide use is highest in the OECD, the land is absorbing more heat, and, in the long run, drip irrigation may do more harm than good.
9) Israel is the Flint, Michigan of the Middle East with a history of spectacular toxic spills, dumped military/industrial carcinogens, hundreds of contaminated wells, hundreds of millions of tons of contaminated ground water, millions of tons of oil stored right on the beach, massive unregulated hazardous waste sites built above aquifers, and the world’s oldest nuclear reactor, sitting 18 miles from the Syria-African fault line—with 1,537 documented defects in its aluminum core.
10) Wine, war, industrial tourism, and an unwinnable competition with the faster growing Arab population are the water marks on Israel’s self-portrait.
11) Israel is stuck with being the love-child of 1950’s American water engineers and 1800’s ‘make the desert bloom’ fundamentalism.
12) Israel is a cautionary tale.

Read more

American Farmers On Verge Of Disaster

Grant's Pub

 

It’s been a tough road for the U.S. farming industry, which is seemingly beset on all sides. Agricultural commodity prices remain low, with spot corn and soybean currently fetching $3.62 and $8.99 per bushel, respectively, each roughly 22% below their respective 10-year average prices. 

 

Meanwhile, the ongoing Sino-American trade war continues to crimp overseas demand, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that soybean deliveries to China fell more than 80% year-over-year since September. That helped push soybean stocks to a record 3.7 billion bushels as of year-end 2018.  

By the same token, the USDA forecast Friday that corn plantings will rise 4.1% in 2019 to 92.8 million this year, an unwelcome development considering that “American silos are already bulging with the grain,” according to Bloomberg. Adding insult to injury, devastating floods have afflicted large swaths of the Midwest during the heart of spring planting season.  

The USDA estimates that net farm incomes plunged 16% year-over-year in 2018 to $63.1 billion, down from more than $120 billion as recently as 2013.  Rising operating costs play a prominent role in that shrinkage. According to the All Farms Index tabulated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the prices received component fell to 84.9 in January from 95.1 in June, while prices paid registered 109.3 and has remained north of 100 since 2011.

Read more

Farmer bankruptcies swell to decade high in Farm Belt

Axios

 

U.S. farmers in the Midwest are filing for bankruptcy at levels the U.S. hasn’t seen for approximately a decade, the Wall Street Journal reports.

What's happening: Low commodity prices have been gouging U.S. farmers’ bottom lines for years now, exacerbated by increasing agricultural competition from Russia and Brazil. President Trump’s trade disputes, meanwhile, are adding salt to the wounds, as tariffs drive down prices and decrease profit for farmers.

By the numbers:

• In the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, twice as many farmers declared bankruptcy in 2018 as during the 2008 recession.
• In the 8th Circuit, which spans from North Dakota to Arkansas, bankruptcies shot up 96%.
• In the 10th Circuit, which includes Kansas, Colorado and parts of Oklahoma, bankruptcies were up 59%. Together, these three jurisdictions accounted for nearly 50% of all farm product sales in 2017, per the Journal.
• Last year, farm debt rose to over $409 billion, with the average size of loans in the 4th quarter reaching $74,190, the highest 4th quarter level in history.

What's Really Behind The Plant-based Diet Agenda?

Edward Talbot
Sustainable Agriculture Systems

I have previously covered the anti-animal agriculture narrative here and the plant-based and/or alternative protein agenda here.

But as the plant-based diet agenda is currently enjoying an uninterrupted public relations campaign facilitated by the obliging media; and given last week's launch of the EAT-Lancet Commission's report on healthy diets for sustainable food systems, I feel compelled to delve a little deeper into the matter.

Although I loathe mixing business and politics, livestock agriculture is becoming increasingly politicised. Regrettably, this forces one's hand.

Why something so innocuous as personal dietary choice needs to be voiced so loudly is a strange phenomenon. However, there are some interesting facets of information that can be gleaned by analysing the EAT-Lancet Commission's posturing and the alternative protein movement. The anti-animal agriculture narrative and plant-based diet agenda combines political ideology and commercial interests. This "movement" is insidious, unsavoury, and cannot be ignored by those who value liberty and consumer choice.

Although most people cannot deprive themselves of high-quality nutrition for long-periods of time, the fact that some people are going to such great lengths to avoid the consumption of meat and dairy products is rather telling. The nutritional argument against consuming animal source foods is non-existent. It is quite simply illogical that red meat or dairy products cause modern diseases (I have previously covered this subject here). Dietary recommendations have been moulded by religious and other personal beliefs (such as the temperance movement), animal rights activists, and food companies since their inception. None of this is anything new. What is new, is the concept of promoting a "planetary health diet."

Nutrition science is ambiguous enough without adding extra layers of complexity. What's good for the planet and what's good for human health are understandable concerns to have. But conjoining the two is imprudent, especially when innumerable falsehoods are bandied about regarding both.

By far and away, the biggest contemporary driver of the anti-animal agriculture narrative is the supposed environmental impact of livestock - and that is a good place to start a critique of the plant-based diet agenda. 

Read more

DARPA to weaponize insects to spread viruses across the population

Natural News 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on an agricultural bio-weapon, and a team of scientists are speaking out about it.

For many years, agricultural firms have experimented with plant life, genetically modifying crops to confer desired, profitable traits. This experimentation has largely been conducted in labs, whereas genetic modification is directly applied into the chromosomes of a particular crop. Subsidized and introduced with lofty promise, these genetically altered crops have overtaken agricultural practices over the years. Who wouldn’t want to plant a seed type that has been genetically altered to survive mass herbicide spraying, allowing for easy weed control on a mass scale? While genetic modification shows promise for efficiency, the limitations of this experimentation have showed up across the agriculture industry, worldwide. For one, modified chromosomes are not always vertically inherited from one generation to the next. Two, the weeds that once died quickly begin to take on resistant traits. More chemicals, new formulations, and more genetic changes are needed in order to maintain profit margins. Moreover, as agriculture becomes dependent on a select breed of genetically altered seeds, agricultural systems become vulnerable.

Plants will naturally adapt to the diseases and pests in their regional ecosystem and produce seeds that are more genetically adapted to these threats. Heirloom seeds possess various traits from year to year. A diverse selection of heirloom seeds protects agriculture systems. This is why the governments of the world save seeds at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, an underground facility near the North Pole which protects against accidental loss of diversity in traditional gene banks.

Read more 

Scathing Report Accuses the Pentagon of Developing an Agricultural Bioweapon

Gizmodo

 

A new technology in which insects are used to genetically modify crops could be converted into a dangerous, and possibly illegal, bioweapon, alleges a Science Policy Forum report released today. Naturally, the organization leading the research says it’s doing nothing of the sort.

The report is a response to a ongoing research program funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dubbed “Insect Allies,” the idea is to create more resilient crops to help farmers deal with climate change, drought, frost, floods, salinity, and disease. But instead of modifying seeds in a lab, farmers would send fleets of insects into their crops, where the genetically modified bugs would do their work, “infecting” the plants with a special virus that passes along the new resilience genes.

If you think this sounds scary, you’re not alone. The lead author of the new Science Policy Forum report, Richard Guy Reeves from the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, says the Insect Allies program is a disturbing example of dual-use research in which DARPA, in addition to helping out farmers, is also working on a potential weapon. When contacted by Gizmodo, DARPA denied the accusations made in the new report, saying it’s filled with inaccuracies and mischaracterizations.

The technology at the heart of this research could herald an entirely new way of genetically modifying crops. Instead of having to wait for a plant to pass its newly-acquired traits onto the next generation, genetic changes would be imposed upon living organisms, a process known as horizontal genetic alteration. Hence the technology’s name—Horizontal Environmental Genetic Alteration Agents, or HEGAAs.

Read More

Banana Land: Blood, Bullets and Poison

Comment: Important documentary. I'll never eat another Chiquita banana again. 

---------------------

Gene-edited farm animals are on their way

BBC News

Scientists have created pigs that are immune to one of the world's costliest livestock diseases.

The team edited the animals' DNA to make them resist the deadly respiratory disease known as PRRS - a move that could prevent billions of pounds in losses each year.

However, consumers have traditionally been reluctant to eat genetically altered animals and crops.

This poses a significant barrier to farmers owning gene-edited pigs.

And because genome, or gene, editing (GE) is relatively new, the absence of regulation currently prevents their sale anyway.

GE is different to the more widely used technology of genetic modification. The former involves the precise alteration of an organism's DNA, while the latter is characterised by the introduction of foreign genetic sequences into another living thing.

Read more

New Meta-Analysis Reveals Extensive Phenotypic Differences Between GMO and Non-GMO Cultivated Plants

Green Med Info

Claims of "substantial equivalence" of GM plants again shown to be false

The myth of “substantial equivalence” between GM crops and their closest non-GM relatives (called “isolines”) has taken yet another scientific hit, this time from a new peer-reviewed paper discussed in an article on the website Hygeia Analytics.

The researchers from Mexico City published their meta-analysis of genetic data on rice, canola, maize, sunflower, and pumpkin. They looked at wild, GMO, and non-GMO cultivated varieties of these five crops, analyzing phenotypic change.

The phenotype of a crop is defined by a set of characteristics expressed by the crop’s genetic code (DNA). In theory, genetically engineered plants will show phenotypic changes only linked to the traits that scientists added to the GMO in the hope that they will be expressed. For example, a corn plant engineered to express the Bt toxin should not be different from normal corn in other ways.

However, the Hygeia article says, "Genetics are complicated and unintended consequences often occur." Of the five crops analyzed in the new study, maize, pumpkin and rice showed the most variation between GMO and non-GMO cultivars. These three crops demonstrated wide variation for traits related to days to flowering, number of seeds/fruit, plant height, and pollen viability. In fact, the researchers report that for non-GMO and GMO cultivars of maize, pumpkin and rice, “almost all analyzed traits differ statistically".

Read more