Section » GMOs
Transgenic seeds are toast(ed): New report says GE crops have not increased yield
Couched deep within the earth-mother rhetoric of a recent Monsanto ad (which you can also see on the back cover of the current New Yorker issue, a $100K-plus
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Digest – Features: Hawai’i uh-oh, simplicity sells, anti-union strategizing
Hawaii plays canary: The genetically modified seed industry has become Hawaii's rising star, reports a cover story of the Honolulu Weekly; it accounts for about a quarter of the state’s total farm revenues, eclipsing every other commodity. In the past two decades, the Islands have hosted some 2,252
While we were sleeping: Score one for the GMO lobby
Updated at 3:10 pacific to include the full language of the relevant section of the bill. Thanks, IM. Things have been busy around here lately, but that's no excuse. We've just been reminded that, like time, Monsanto stops for no man. Yesterday, eliciting not a ripple from the blogosphere, the Senate
Digest – News: Anti-biotics, working for the (corporate) man, and the price of obesity
More squealing from the porkers: The National Pork Producers Council objects to federal legislation introduced Tuesday by Rep. Louise Slaughter (no pun intended, really), the only microbiologist in the U.S. Congress, that would restrict the use of medically-important antibiotics in livestock production.
Digest – News: The California conundrum, Monsanto at large, and tuna testing (not to be tried at home)
A new growth export market - the revolving door: U.S. government agencies are imploring foreign countries to bring their food safety regulations up to the (arguably pretty low) U.S. par, but the buck doesn't stop there: countries like India are being pushed to develop regulations on GM crops, industrial
No comment, no say: lend your voice to shaping four big food & ag policies
Photo from Iowa, courtesy of factoryfarm.org. It's easy to get cynical about our ability to influence policy or policymakers - especially when we don't have lots of money or a well-dressed K St. lobby firm to throw around. But I'd venture to say that with all the change-making, democracy-taking action
Digest – Features and blogs: No flies on me, tomato realities, Osterholm revolves
The 'fix' is in: Sources say that the Obama Administration will nominate Michael Osterholm to head the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service on Monday, in clear violation of its own anti-revolving-door policy. Osterholm is a longtime supporter of food irradiation, but that's not all - if you have any
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Parallel universes: A rice farmer’s point of view on U.S.-European GMO attitudes
By Greg Massa I’m a California rice farmer, but recently in Germany I was a rock star. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Oddly, my celebrity status came from a speech I gave to European farmers about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Digest – News: Meat on the move, the chains of biotech, resources for organic
Drop it like it's hot: Brazilian beef giant JBS, which snagged Smithfield's beef business last March, abandoned plans to purchase U.S. National Beef Packing Co. on Friday. The JBS/National Beef merger was under anti-trust investigation by the Justice Department, which celebrated JBS' decision and claimed
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Digest – News: Pharm goats OK’d, farm profits dwindle, and peanuts throw dirt on the FDA
Brave new world: FDA approves the first pharm-animal drug, a blood thinner made from the milk of bioengineered goats. Critics nail FDA for its shoddy approval process and worry about what could happen if the animals escape from the lab and mate with unsuspecting non-GM cohorts. (
Digest – News: Focusing the foodies, DNA Q&A, and MRSA attacks
Good food movement needs focus: The Post's Jane Black reports on a series of pricey charity dinners in Washington, DC organized by Berkeley foodies in honor of the inauguration. Their goal was to propel food-system change into the agenda of the new administration, but some say the movement is too fragmented
Digest – Features and blogs: COOL is not, GM fuel, and DC local-style
So un-COOL: The USDA releases the final rule on Country of Origin Labeling, the law that requires that many of our main foodstuffs be labeled with (duh) the country where they were made, but it leaves a massive loophole by exempting "processed" foods from the law and defining "processed" broadly to include
Biotech & Big Pharma rolling out exciting new holiday products
By Barry Foy When it comes to Christmas cheer, St. Nick has nothing on the big biotech and pharmaceutical firms this year, with the release of an unprecedented number of holiday-related products expected over the next few weeks. Given the sector's legendary lack of sentimentality, this nod toward
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Digest – Features & Blogs: Obama and GMOs, O’Brien interviewed, Chuck E. Cheesiness
GMObama?: Tom Philpott takes a look at the state of U.S. regulation of genetically modified food — basically, we don't, and evidence indicate we should — and asks whether Obama will "update a broken regulatory framework that hasn't been changed since its birth in the, gulp, Quayle era?" Chances not
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Digest: Toxic whales, piles of poop, and a brightening future for GM crops
Leaving resistance to the weeds?: In response to surging food prices and population growth, Brazil, the EU, and other regions that haven't allowed the cultivation of herbicide-tolerant and other GM crops are loosening their restrictions, crossing their fingers, and hoping for a second Green Revolution.
