Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
The USDA Report by Cyndi Barmore, The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production, has recently been pulled from the USDA website. This is the USDA’s explanation: “On May 26, 2009, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) posted a Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) report titled, “The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production.” This report should have been accompanied…
A few weeks ago, I got a message from the folks at Ashoka Changemakers – earlier this summer they started a contest, one of many that they host, to spur some original thinking to help see our society out of the debate over genetically engineered crops. It is called GMO Risk or Rescue? Helping Consumers…
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Or Cottonseed you can Eat thanks to Genetic Engineering. A few years ago, I read about a research group that had used genetic engineering to remove a poisonous compound from cotton seed. Now, it seems, they are one step closer to making a positive impact on the availability of food for people in developing countries…
I just came across this video of Jim Cramer from Mad Money talking about potential anti-trust activity against Monsanto. If you can get past the inane bells and whistles that Cramer punches up mid-sentence, this video is worth taking a look at. http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1214474293/code/cnbcplayershare A couple things to note about the video – Cramer repeats the…
Nature News has just published a long article by Emily Waltz about the sometimes harsh scientific debates and battles that are waged over genetic engineering in agiculture: GM Crops: Battlefield. Papers suggesting that biotech crops might harm the environment attract a hail of abuse from other scientists. Emily Waltz asks if the critics fight fair….
Only a day after my last post about a bizarre argument against GE wheat that argued that Australian non-GE wheat producers would need to be protected from prices being lowered by a hypothetical frost-free wheat, the opposite is reported in the UK. The Daily Express reports that GM crops could send food prices rocketing. Wha?
This is a first. While browsing the news recently, I came across this article in Farm Weekly, an Australian site: GM silver bullet could shoot farmers in foot. In the short article, a representative from Network of Concerned Farmers, Julie Newman, says that conventional wheat farmers need to be protected – from being outperformed by…
(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…
When you bring up GE crops to people, one of the common objections is “Can’t these GMOs cause allergies?” Sure it is possible, as with any plant genetic modification (including breeding), which is why GE crops are tested for allergenicity according to regulations. But now, it seems, the opposite may be true. “Can’t we use…
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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