Today, the County Council of Kaua'i, Hawai'i is considering a bill, #2491, that would create local regulations of genetically engineered crops and pesticides, and was introduced by Kauai County Councilman Gary Hooser. According to this news article, representatives of the…
Drought across the United States has reduced substantially the expected yield of corn and soybean fields for the fall 2012 U.S. harvests. With reduced yield, prices have risen rapidly for these crops that are widely-used food and feed ingredients, huge…
Last Thursday, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) posted a new grant - one that readers of Biofortified might be interested to read about. Called the Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grants…
We often hear that there are only two genetically engineered traits on the market - Roundup Ready and Bt. And, for the most part, that's correct. There are a few other commercialized traits, such as virus resistant papaya and squash,…
Read More The regulatory bottleneck for biotech specialty crops
Written by Kevin Folta Last week a workshop at the International Horticultural Congress in Lisbon, Portugal featured a series of speakers known for their work in transgenic technology. I'll summarize these in the next few posts. Today's post addresses an…
Roundup Ready sugar beets have been back in the news due to the decision by Judge White to revoke approval. As I understand it, the USDA conduced an Environmental Assessment for Roundup Ready sugar beets but did not conduct an Environmental…
Brownfield Ag News America had an interesting blurb on Thurs Feb 12: Maryland may ban certain food colorings. A couple of bills pending in the Maryland state legislature seek to require labeling and eventually ban some synthetic food colorings. The…
Vegetarian Times often lures me into buying an issue with their delicious cover recipes, like this amazing looking "Mediterranean pressed picnic sandwich". The recipes are great, but I wish they would stick with what they know best. This month's "carrot…
Good news from Africa - “Scientists and crop researchers at Kenya´s Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) developed the new wheat seeds over the past decade. Through a process called ‘mutation plant breeding’, they applied radiation-based techniques to modify crop characteristics and…
Read More But, how safe is it? On transgenics, cisgenics, and mutants.
The article “Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth” published by The Independent is surprising, and at first glance looks like it could be about significant research indicating that genetic engineering has unforeseen yield decreases. However, I’m not very good at…
