Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
(Hat tip to Southest Farm Press) Cyndi Barmore authored a report for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service titled The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production. It was published on May 26, 2009, but I just heard about it now. Here’s the introduction: The organic movement rejects biotechnology as inherently contradictory to its fundamental goal of promoting…
On Friday the 3rd of July, GE labeling campaigner Craig Winters died. He was fighting an ongoing cancer battle, with multiple back surgeries and other treatments to boot. Winters was involved in political efforts to label genetically engineered crops for many years, which never succeeded. His most recent effort was during the 2008 Presidential campaign….
Just out today, Seed Magazine has assembled a “Scientific Flip Flop” about Genetically Engineered crops. The article begins with an introduction into the curious case of European nations who embrace scientific conclusions in other areas of science, but not in this area. Most Europeans don’t consider themselves to be anti-science or particularly technophobic. In fact,…
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Hello everybody. This morning I caught a red eye flight to Atlanta, Georgia. Although this trip has been almost three months in the making, I’ve been so busy getting ready that I have not had the time to give everyone the heads-up with a blog post. (Busy making time in my research, that is. Packing…
Although this is not related to plants, this certainly has implications for plant genetics. I have just received notice that th ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Myriad Genetics, the company that owns the patents on the BCRA1 and BCRA2 breast and ovarian cancer genes in humans. According to this press release, the ACLU charges…
Luigi at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog links to a pretty good, balanced article about GE crops in both Peru and Honduras. Travis Lupik interviewed a bunch of people, including farmers, to write Doctored crops stir Latin American debate, published at Straight. Take a read. There were a couple slight problems, such as how the article…
I just read yesterday that Monsanto has just started blogging, using WordPress too! (Shake of the ol’ tassel bag to Jeff at sustainablog) Well, not just now, but about two months ago, the new Monsanto blog put up its first post, Monsanto according to Monsanto. Taking a jab with the title at a recent documentary…
I’ve got a couple things to report. The first is that Pamela Ronald, who has just uploaded her first post at Biofortified, has been in the news lately. It isn’t often that plant breeding makes the news, and when she made top-of-the-wire headlines on CNN, I not only heard from colleagues back in Davis and…
Sir Gordon Conway spoke on Monday night at Iowa State. He is a champion for integrated farming, when most people are blinded to at least half of the options. This was a sober account of the problems we face and the solutions that are needed. The silver lining, though, is that solutions are out there. If…
