
Document Number: 6127
saving a billion lives. He has won virtually every important humanitarian award, including the Nobel Peace Prize. World leaders revere Borlaug as a celebrity. Yet, he is humble, and in touch with the needs and aspirations of ordinary people one can think of. For the past 62 years, Borlaug has worked at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico where he developed the 'dwarf' varieties of wheat, triggering the Green Revolution. Short varieties produce more grain per acre because they tap sunlight more effectively and do not collapse with the weight of the grain. Borlaug creatively combined wheat varieties from across the world to introduce the dwarfness genes into wheat grown in Mexico, India and Pakistan. Other countries adopted his breakthrough with amazing results. In the developing world, wheat yields that had remained at an abysmal 250 kg/ha for decades increased ten fold in the last 40 years. India, which harvested a meagre 12 million tons of wheat in 1965, now produces over 80 million tons. Similar discoveries of a dwarf gene in rice also led to a boost in this miracle crop - this time pioneered by Indian scientist Gurdev Khush, working in the Philippines. The poorest 







Document Number: 1002
Revolution' anchored by the development of high-yielding varieties of grains improved the lives of most people on this planet through enhanced and affordable food supply, boosted incomes for millions of farmers, and reduced the incidence of famine and starvation despite massive population increases in the past few decades. Nevertheless, food insecurity and malnutrition still persists in parts of the developing world. The causes for poverty and hunger are varied and complex, but experts concur that sustainable agricultural development will be critical in meeting future world food needs, reducing poverty and protecting the environment. To further increase agricultural productivity equitably-in an environmentally sustainable manner in the face of diminishing land and water resources-is a highly challenging task ahead. Knowledge-based approaches including transgenic crops and genomics can provide powerful solutions enhance food security: by improving local agricultural productivity, minimizing the use of chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, insulating crops against losses from diseases and pests, curtailing post-harvest losses including food spoilage, improving food quality and nutrition, increasing crop tolerance to stress factors such as drought and problem soils, and through the production of 'value-added' products. Biotechnology can expedite the development of new varieties and also enhance marginal crops like millets, 







Document Number: 4408
the world enjoy the same safe, bountiful food supply that we do in the United States. Despite major strides in combating hunger over the last 30 years, 800 million people go to bed daily on an empty stomach, and there are 40,000 hunger-related deaths every day. This 'silent holocaust' is 'unconscionable', pleads Ismail Serageldin of the World Bank. Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace, called hunger the greatest of all violence. Worldwide, one in three children is underweight, and one in five is stunted due to undernourishment. Nearly 40,000 people - half of them children - die every day due to hunger related causes. By 2020, the number of undernourished could well surpass 1 billion. In many developing countries, where subsistence farmers eke out meager livings, and the ability to provide enough food for survival is often less than assured, the vital importance of staple crops such as rice, sweetpotato and cassava cannot be overstated. In many places, the loss of a crucial crop to pests, diseases or weather can mean the difference between life or death, straining the resources and threatening the well-being of entire communities. In rapid succession, the leading scientists around the world are attesting to the 







Document Number: 3834
anti-biotech activists, who have nothing but fear-mongering and pseudo science to support their demands. Frito-Lay recently told its corn producers to stop planting corn that is genetically improved to ward off harmful insects. Even though there was very little consumer demand for such an action, the company apparently feared a food scare generated by activists and took the step anyway. But the move was not enough to placate activists, who still threaten action until the company does everything necessary to declare its products free of genetically modified foods. There is no science to support the ban of insect-resistant corn, which forced Frito-Lay's producers to revert to chemical insecticides. Two much larger grain purchasers have already reversed anti-biotech decisions: Archer Daniels Midland, one of the nation's largest purchasers and exporters of grain, and Cargill, the nation's largest grain merchant. Cargill declared "it's business as usual'' when it followed ADM's lead and began accepting transgenic grains again. These hold-the-line decisions are extremely important in blunting the pseudo-science of the activist community and moving toward biotechnology's potential to help feed a hungry world. The anti-biotech community claims there are "10 reasons why biotechnology will not ensure food security, protect the environment and reduce 







Document Number: 8423
deserve better of Mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." - The King of Brobdingnag, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, 1727. "I believe that we have now reached a moral and ethical watershed beyond which we venture into realms that belong to God, and to God alone. Apart from certain medical applications, what actual right do we have to experiment, Frankenstein-like, with the very stuff of life? ... " - Prince Charles Windsor, heir to the British throne (Windsor, 1998). Throughout the history of humankind, there have been those who have embraced change and those who have clung to the old ways because they felt at least the risks were known. Few Edisons or Einsteins were properly recognized during their lifetime. And, since feeding ourselves was the primary occupation of mankind for most of our recorded and prerecorded history, changes in food production have been accepted slowly. The first person to try to scratch out a garden most assuredly heard derisive laughter as the mighty hunters headed off in pursuit of meat. So, we should not be surprised that eons of history are being replayed as we enter the era 







Document Number: 510
once remarked that India will be on its path to progress when the word `profit' stops being a dirty word. It is in our best interests today to face the reality that the world is increasingly getting globalised whether any nation likes it or not. We must therefore work towards helping India benefit from changing realities, rather than continue to hug old illusions. It is quite clear now that the Information Technology (IT) industry is fostering globalisation, resulting in vast benefits to our economy. The process of convergence of voice, data and video that we are witnessing today as the IT revolution progresses by leaps and bounds makes that apparent each passing day. Although India prides itself in its software exports, its market share of the global software market is still minuscule. Here again, if misguided policies that led to the exit of IBM in 1977 had not happened, India would have been an even bigger player in IT today. Similarly, the increasing privatisation of the consumer electronics, automobile, telecommunication, food processing, hospitality and transportation sectors have already energised these sectors. The `trickle down' effect is clearly impacting the under-served sections of the Indian society. Indian agriculture has also begun 







Document Number: 684
to consult the published work. Readers will also find complete tables and endnotes in the bound volume.) Highlights... A century's worth of genetic improvements in plants and animals have made food more abundant and less expensive today than at any other time in history. Continuing improvements in productivity will be necessary to feed the world in the 2st Century without having to bring millions of acres of undeveloped wilderness into agricultural use. ... Despite opposition from ideological environmentalists, biotechnology - the next step in the continuum of genetic improvement - has been endorsed by countless scientific and health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. ... Around the world, more than 70 bioengineered plant varieties are grown commercially on approximately 109 million acres, in countries ranging from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Mexico, and South Africa. ... Bioengineered varieties of corn, cotton, potato, soybean, and others, are raising yields, reducing pesticide use, conserving topsoil, and making other contributions to environmental protection. ... Biotechnology is helping scientists breed plants that mature faster, tolerate drought or extremes of heat and cold, and have improved nutrition. 







Document Number: 7331
in recent months have signed a statement of support. Expert panels with the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have made strong statements supporting the safety of the crops. Numerous scientific societies are passing proclamations in support.Recently, six national science academies (U.S., Britain, Brazil, China, India and Mexico) and the Third World Academy of Sciences, issued a joint statement, not only endorsing biotechnology but urging companies, governments and charities to extend it to the developing world. The need is greatThe need for new technologies is great, as the seven academics describe: Today, there are some 800 million people who do not have access to sufficient food to meet their needs. Malnutrition plays a significant role in half of the nearly 12 million deaths each year of children under five in developing countries. In addition to lack of food, deficiencies in micro-nutrients (especially vitamin A, iodine and iron) are widespread. Global climate change and alterations in land use will exacerbate the problems of regional production and demands for food. In developing countries about 650 million of the poorest people live in rural areas where the local production 







Document Number: 7894
responses, which he compiled and edited with the help of Andrew Apel and Gregory Conko. Below are the 31 questions, along with answers from members of AgBioWorld. 1. QUESTIONS ABOUT FOOD SECURITY2. QUESTIONS ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION3. QUESTIONS ABOUT HUMAN HEALTH 4. QUESTIONS ABOUT SOCIO-ECONOMIC ISSUESQUESTIONS ABOUT FOOD SECURITYQ 1: Is genetic engineering (GE) the only way of increasing food production?No, it is not. It is only one of the tools we can use to increase food production. However, it is a powerful tool that will significantly increase our ability to produce the quantities of food that our growing world population will need.Whether the genetic alteration is done haphazardly by selective breeding or in a more systematic way by directly altering the genome, increasing the useable food content of an organism requires some form of genetic engineering. For grains and oilseed crops, increasing food production most often means the ability to produce better yields under the same conditions or, more generally, the ability to better resist weeds, insects and diseases. Many important improvements have been achieved by ordinary breeding, but it is a slow process. Given the rate at which the demand for food is likely to increase in future years, 







Document Number: 5739
They are sowing the seeds of fear in the minds of the Indian public through well-orchestrated campaigns, and attempting to intimidate and influence policy makers by twisting facts about biotechnology and vilifying its proponents. Test trials of genetically improved cotton have been burnt down without regard to what their farmer owners think, amidst relentless rumour campaigns suggesting that multinational seed companies are conspiring to dominate India's agriculture. These self-styled "eco-terrorists" with their anti-science and anti-technology agenda seem bent on reversing India's path to agricultural progress and ensuring that Indian farmers are deprived of the latest technological developments. They are clearly hypocritical in their stance because while personally enjoying the technological innovations from the West they are out to deny the Indian farmer the most radical technology that could help him make a quantum leap over his handicaps and transform life for him and his family in less than a generation. Many of these activists in India have strong links with environmental group such as Greenpeace. Their opposition to biotechnology in India is self serving and is clearly against the national interests of India. For instance, the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) of Canada is at the forefront in opposing biotechnology 







Document Number: 856
this: Who am I going to believe, those who oppose biotechnology or those who support it? Last month in Boston, 1,500 to 2,000 people, many dressed as Frankenstein monsters, butterflies and ears of corn, demonstrated outside the Biotechnology Industry Organization meeting. Inside, about 8,000 scientists, researchers, physicians and industry representatives exchanged ideas and discussed research on ways to improve crop yields, reduce pesticide usage, improve nutrition and develop cures for disease. The evidence On April 5, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report which stated that there is no evidence suggesting foods produced through biotechnology are any less safe than conventional crops. In fact, the scientific panel concluded, growing such crops could have environmental advantages over other crops. Another report was issued on April 13 by the Basic Research Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science. It makes a very strong case for the safety of biotechnology and warns against needless over regulation, which could delay development of a technology with great potential for good. Around the world, more than 2,000 scientists, including two Nobel Prize winners, have signed a petition in support of genetically modified crops.Overwhelmingly, scientific organizations, professional societies, and inter national bodies such as the World 







Document Number: 2552
developing biotechnology today. Instead, the U.K. is known worldwide as the nation most responsible for impeding introduction of this technology. Those of us who work in agricultural biotechnology know that it has the potential to solve many of the food production problems of the world, whose population will increase by at least 50% in the next 30 years or so. Biotechnology can improve nutrition among developing nations. It can help fight disease by delivering vaccines in common foods such as bananas. It can improve crop yields, thus preventing natural areas from being converted to agriculture to meet global food demand, and it can drastically reduce the use of chemical pesticides. Biotechnology has the potential to save and improve millions of lives worldwide. Yet many in the United Kingdom, which produced scientific icons such as Edward Jenner, Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick, Alexander Fleming and Charles Darwin, demonize this new technology as ''Frankenstein food.'' Who would have predicted it? Certainly not Jenner, the 18th century physician who discovered the vaccine that eventually eradicated smallpox. By injecting a cattle virus into people, he prevented them from getting the disease. His work set the course for the science of immunology, which could be further 







Document Number: 2622
activist organizations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote fear through anti-science newspaper ads, 1.3 billion people, who live on less than $1 a day, care only about finding their next day's meal. Biotechnology is one of the best hopes for solving their food needs today, when we have 6 billion people, and certainly in the next 30 to 50 years, when there will be 9 billion on the globe. Those people, who battle weather, pests and plant disease to try to raise enough for their families, can benefit tremendously from biotechnology, and not just from products created by big corporations. Public-sector institutions are conducting work on high-yield rice, virus-resistant sweet potato and more healthful strains of cassava, crops that are staples in developing countries. But none of these benefits will be realized if Western-generated fears about biotechnology halt research funding and close borders to exported products. Public perception is being manipulated by fringe groups opposed to progress and taken advantage of by politicians favoring trade protectionism. There is no safety reason for this. Foods produced through biotechnology are just as safe, if not safer, than conventionally produced foods because they are rigorously tested. David Aaron of the U.S. 







Document Number: 9486
risk of starvation, efforts by the U.N.'s World Food Programme were stifled by the global &quot;GM&quot; food controversy. Food aid, containing kernels of bioengineered corn from the United States, was initially rejected by all six governments, even though the very same corn has been consumed daily by hundreds of millions in North and South America and has been distributed by the World Food Programme throughout Africa since 1996.Four of those governments later accepted the grain on condition that it be milled to prevent planting, but Zimbabwe and Zambia continue to refuse to this day, and recently Angola also joined this group. Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said his people would rather starve than eat bioengineered food, which he described as &quot;poison.&quot; The actually starving Zambian people felt differently, though. One news report after another described scenes of hungry Zambians rioting and overpowering armed guards trying to release tens of thousands of tons of the corn locked away in warehouses by the government.This is one of the tragic consequences of global fearmongering about recombinant DNA technology and bioengineered crops. Although many varieties that are of use to resource-poor farmers in less developed countries are at very early stages of the development process, 







Document Number: 2750
its needs, and the fates of human society and agricultural crops have been inextricably linked and mutually interdependent ever since. Agriculture allowed humans to abandon hunter-gatherer behavior, in turn spawning broader economic and cultural development. And the suitability of certain plant species for food or fiber&#151;which provided the proximate cause for their eventual domestication&#151;let those organisms survive and thrive far beyond their original ranges. Our ancestors chose a few once-wild plants and gradually modified them simply by selecting those with the largest, tastiest or most robust offspring for propagation. In that way, organisms have been altered so greatly over the millennia that traits present in existing populations of cultivated rice, wheat, corn, soy, potatoes, tomatoes and many others have very little in common with their ancestors. Wild tomatoes and potatoes contain very potent toxins, for example. But today's cultivated varieties have been modified to produce healthy and nutritious food.Breeding safe and useful crops from wild plants was a remarkable feat, given how poorly those first plant breeders understood the dynamics of selection and heritability. It was not until the 19th century that plant genetic modification became anything other than a hit or miss affair. Gregor Mendel's discovery of the principles 







Document Number: 1054
varieties. The move will undoubtedly be ridiculed as a cynical attempt by Americans to force GM products down the throats of skeptical Europeans. Yet, while the U.S. is surely motivated by a parochial desire to aid American farmers, filing such a complaint will have benefits far beyond U.S. borders. The biggest beneficiaries are sure to be resource-poor farmers in less developed countries.By now, many readers will be familiar with the story of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa who, last autumn, rejected some 23,000 metric tons of food aid in the midst of a two-year-long drought that threatened the lives of over two million Zambians.President Mwanawasa's public explanation was that the GM maize from the United States was &quot;poison.&quot; But, other Zambian government officials conceded that the bigger concern was for future corn exports to the EU market. If even a little of the food aid were diverted to seed stock, it could threaten the exportability of the entire Zambian maize crop for many years to come.Zambia is not unique. European GM restrictions have had other, similar, consequences throughout the developing world. Thai government officials have been warned by European importers not to authorize any GM rice varieties. Uganda has stopped research 







Document Number: 5824
European corn borer, and its conventional, nonmodified counterpart were evaluated in 4 separate trials to verify substantial equivalence in feeding value and animal performance. Thirty-six individually kept laying hens and 3 replicates of 94 broiler chickens each, assigned to 12 cages, were fed 2 different hen and broiler diets containing either 60% conventional or 60% Bt176 corn. The nutrient compositions of the 2 corn hybrids and the 2 corn diets revealed no major differences. Furthermore, metabolism and performance data revealed no significant differences between the birds that received the conventional, nonmodified corn, and those that received the modified corn diets. The detection of the genetic modification, by PCR, in feed obtained from insect-resistant Bt corn, in tissues and products from animals fed Bt corn is described. In all evaluated chicken tissues of muscle, liver, and spleen, the corn-chloroplast ivr gene fragment was amplified. It can be deduced from these findings and from other studies that the transfer of DNA fragments into the body is a normal process that takes place constantly. Nevertheless, no recombinant plant DNA fragments such as recombinant bla or cry1A(b) fragments could be found. Bt-gene specific constructs from the Bt corn were not detected in any of 







Document Number: 9292
biotechnology techniques. That report makes a series of claims regarding bioengineered crops that is not supported by the depth and breadth of extensive scientific and economic data collected in laboratory tests, field trials and commercial cultivation over the past two decades. The following report from the AgBioWorld Foundation is a point-by-point refutation of those assertions. Myth 1. Activists say: &quot;GM crops failed to deliver promised benefits.&quot; FACTS: Crops improved through biotechnology enjoy farmer satisfaction levels in the high 90% ranges, and these new varieties have penetrated the market at rates never before seen in agriculture. The reasons are very simple: Despite the desperate denials of activists, these crops deliver value to farmers, including lower overall costs and more efficient methods for controlling insect pests, weeds and diseases with reduced environmental impacts. This is why the overwhelming majority of farmers have freely chosen to plant biotech improved crops year after year once they try them. As a direct result of the introduction of biotech improved crops, pesticide use has been dramatically reduced, and herbicide use has shifted from older, narrow spectrum and higher toxicity compounds to the newer generation of broader spectrum lower impact formulas (see Gianessi et al. studies at 







Document Number: 2847
academia and the biotech industry), I am struck by how a small group of Indian activists (with strong Western connections) opposed to biotechnology have been making headlines virtually unopposed. They are on the warpath against genetically improved crops. And through well-orchestrated campaigns are sowing the seeds of fear in the minds of the Indian public. Their goal is clearly to intimidate policy makers by twisting facts about biotechnology and vilifying its proponents. Fields trials of genetically improved crops have been burnt without regard to the views of their farmer-owners and some of the most absurd and wild rumours about the risks of biotechnology have been meticulously spread with appropriate sound bites.Strangely, neither the media nor intellectuals from outside the scientific community have chosen to challenge thebasis of such claims. Risk is essentially a function of the nature of a product, and not the process employed in developing the product, according to Andre de Kathan of the University of Hanover, Germany. Products from biotechnology are no less safe than traditionally bred crops. In fact, they may even be safer as they represent small, precise alterations with the introduction of genes whose biology is well understood. Often these genes are derived from 







Document Number: 7265
two million hectares when they were first introduced in 1996, making biotechnology the most rapidly adopted technology in the history of agriculture. But this phenomenal success has been a double-edged sword. Despite the certified safety of biotechnology-derived foods, opposition by environmental activists has undermined consumer confidence in the new gene technology. Food companies such as McDonald's and Frito-Lay are now asking their suppliers not to use bioengineered potatoes and corn. Many European countries are avoiding imports of bioengineered corn and soybeans entirely. Meanwhile, the industry has responded with a public relations campaign of its own. The press releases and TV commercials extol potential benefits of biofoods, such as better nutrition and ameliorating the problem of world hunger. Although biotechnology clearly provides ammunition for improving food production, the fact is that right now there is little industry research on food staples of importance to the developing world. It's time for the industry to put its money-actually its patents-where its mouth is. Nobody should expect Monsanto to end world hunger. That's like counting on Microsoft to wipe out illiteracy. The biotech industry has spent billions of dollars developing a powerful technology for redesigning crops to evade pests and diseases, and to improve 







Document Number: 7690
bottom of the document] August 10, 2004After reviewing the April, 2004, report by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) entitled Regulatory Regimen for Genetically Modified Foods, The Way Ahead, we were disappointed that the ICMR overlooked the extensive scientific knowledge base supporting the food, feed and environmental safety of biotechnology-derived crops and foods, and economic and environmental and benefits to farmers and consumers.The ICMR acknowledged that biotech crops are important for improving Indian agricultural productivity, through improvements in stress tolerance, soil nutrient utilization, nutritional enhancement, pest resistance and herbicide tolerance, and that biotech crops have the potential to improve food quality, nutrition and health. However, they ignored the extensive safety assessments and expert analyses that have accompanied the approval of the current biotech crops.Instead, ICMR stated &quot;there is limited scientific evidence regarding their toxicity or health risks, the methodology used for assessing the risks is not robust enough or sensitive enough, and the molecular and genetic effects of the technology are unpredictable in nature.&quot; Respectfully, these views are not shared by the dozens of scientific and regulatory authorities all over the world that have reviewed and accepted the extensive and growing base of published scientific information that established or 







Document Number: 3392
and that biotechnology clearly offers solutions to certain agricultural problems. Ironically, it also exposes the consequences of regulatory foot-dragging that sadly spawned this proliferation of 'unapproved' seeds. The overall safety of using Bt genes to control pests with genetically-enhanced plants is not in question here as millions of acres of Bt crops are being grown worldwide without any problem to health or the environment. For the last six years, the Indian seed company Mahyco has been testing insect-resistant Bt cotton while following the strict regulatory protocols. It spent a great deal of money in research, development and testing, waited patiently for six years, and endured much media and activist attention. As part of the approvals process, the company has conducted over 100 field trials with Bt cotton in different agro- climatic zones, and has done extensive nutritional and bio-safety studies under the directives issued by different regulatory authorities, and in close cooperation with many national scientific institutions. Imagine its bewilderment at being usurped by a little known company that, going by media reports, has been clandestinely selling unapproved Bt cotton seeds to farmers in three States for the last three years. It has marketed the seeds under the guise of 







Document Number: 8752
rebuttal.==Myth 1: GMOs are not needed to "feed the world". People are hungry because they are poor, not because there's not enough food. And if they can't afford to buy conventional food, they'll hardly be able to afford GM food.No. People are hungry because they cannot grow enough food to feed themselves locally. This is for a variety of reasons. For example insects devastate their crops and they cannot afford insecticides to protect the crops. If they were to grow a GM Bt crop then they would get insecticide for free and be able to produce more food. In this way can GM food help feed the poor. Another reason is losses during storage of the grains due to insect attack or rotting of the food in storage. This is because the poor cannot afford the expensive silos and treatments required to reduce losses of this nature. If the crops were GM they could be made to resist insect damage and spoilage. In this way GM food can help feed the poor. Another reason is losses of food due to disease - poor farmers (and many wealthy ones) cannot afford to spray fungicides on their crops. If crops were made 







Document Number: 4846
plants is the platform on which all crop improvement activity is built. Crop scientists have long recognised the value of biodiversity. They also understand that its benefit can only be realised by utilising existing genetic variations to develop useful crop varieties - and not by the invention of reactive rheto-ric such as "biopiracy", "biosurveillance" and "bioplunder" that one often reads in the writings of armchair pundits or activists. Crop and forest biodiversity is under far more threat today from other human activities necessitated by population pressures such as increasing urbanisation and clearing of forests, than from improved crop varieties, be they conventional or from the use of biotechnology techniques. PaternalisticThe preservation of biodiversity will be critical to the sustained success of agriculture. Increasing economic growth spurred by genetically improved crops will provide much-needed resources in the efforts to conserve biodiversity. Genetically improved crops are no more a threat to biodiversity than conventionally bred crops and, in fact, are even better as they exert less pressure to expand the area under agriculture because of their high productivity. Further, improved tools such as cryopreservation developed by biotechnologists will help in the ex-situ preservation of biodiversity, while creative techniques such as gene shuffling 







Document Number: 2317
continue to regenerate its life sources only as long as we and all the peoples of the world do our part to conserve its natural resources.&quot; Recent United Nations reports give a snapshot of the challenges confronting us in 2003: The U.N. Food &amp; Agriculture Organization (FAO) expects the world's population to grow to more than eight billion in 2030. The FAO report, World Agriculture: Towards 2015/30, projects that global food production must increase by 60 percent to accommodate the estimated population growth, close nutrition gaps, and allow for dietary changes over the next three decades. A U.N. World Water Development report released this year shows that reserves of clean, fresh water are quickly diminishing, and that as many as seven billion people in 60 countries could face a water shortage by 2050.How can we confront these challenges? One way is by placing the best possible resource management tools in the hands of farmers around the world. Farmers, after all, are stewards of millions of acres of precious land. The decisions they make with regard to agricultural production influence surface and ground water, air quality, and soil health. Unfortunately, farmers are often caught in a web of political and ecological 







Document Number: 8300
is an intense debate about their value and safety.Such concerns about the risks of GM technology must be balanced against its enormous benefits - far from causing any new food safety problems, biotechnology has already demonstrated its potential in enhancing the nutritional quality of our food and in reducing harmful toxic compounds that exist in our food.Understanding agricultural history is a good starting point in alleviating people's unease about GM foods - humans have been modifying crops for thousands of years, and without human care many of today's crops would cease to exist. We should recognise the positive impact that GM technology can have on the environment - and that if problems arise, we can deal with them. Most problems raised by science can be solved by science itself. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.' - The King of Brobdingnag in Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, 1727 'I believe that we have now reached a moral and ethical watershed beyond which we venture 







Document Number: 7817
impact on society. The tone of the debates in Europe and India indicate the need to correctly inform the media, the public and farmers about the diversity issues arising from new technologies. Scientists, thinkers, ethicists, sociologists, economists, journalists, environmentalists and citizens need to come together to debate emerging issues in a civilised and responsible manner, and to foster creative ideas to enable the progress of the humankind. This would also ensure that collective of voices of reason will prevail in the face of paranoid outbursts and prevent destructive anti-science sentiments from spreading amongst the public. Such an informed debate is particularly important in India which, unlike Europe, can ill afford to miss the biotech revolution in agriculture. We cannot forget that India was in dire straits on the food front in the '60s. It was only the application of science to agriculture that quickly provided the country with food security, despite the concerns raised then about high-yielding varieties and hybrids. India just cannot afford to listen today to 'science-bashing' activists with pseudo-scientific rhetoric. India was once a great scientific powerhouse and made enormous scientific contribution to the world. Albert Einstein once said: "We owe a lot to Indians who taught 







Document Number: 7481
crop productivity; cut down the use of chemical inputs on the farm; empower our crop plants to be more tolerant to stress such as drought and salinity; develop new value-added products; improve the nutritive value of food; enhance the profitability of farming; and thus overall, improve the quality of life for both farmers and consumers in this state. Biotechnology is clearly the most revolutionary tool to impact agricultural research since the discovery of genetics by Mendel.Many of the important crops in Karnataka have diseases and pests that are taking away much of the harvest. Examples include: dieback disease of the pepper, leaf curl virus on tomato, blast of rice and ragi; bunchy top of banana and borers on avare.Little ammunitionConventional plant breeding has little ammunition to deal with these problems in an expedient and effective manner. These problems can be significantly minimised in an ecologically-friendly manner with the development of genetically reprogrammed seeds designed to resist these disease attacks, while minimising or even eliminating costly and hazardous pesticide sprays.With no more arable land available for agricultural expansion in Karnataka, enhancing stress tolerance in crop plants will permit productive farming on currently unproductive lands. Abiotic factors such as drought, heat, cold, 







Document Number: 8980
food production and thus keeping the Malthusian fears at bay. Nevertheless, we still face daunting challenge of hunger, poverty and malnutrition that will only get worse as the population increases in absolute numbers. Recent advances in crop science, however, provide us with a new window of opportunity to deal with the issue of food security. Genetic engineering is clearly the most revolutionary tool to impact agricultural research since the discovery of genetics by Mendel. Sensible integration of biotechnology in research can accelerate the pace of agricultural improvement and is of considerable relevance to an agrarian country like India. Transforming India's agriculture is critical not only to deal with the issue of hunger and poverty but also to strengthen the sector that is so fundamental to India's existence. The 'green revolution' is showing signs of fatigue and farm productivity increases are now flattening. There are serious constraints to productivity in Indian agriculture because of small holdings, the subsistence nature of farming, vagaries of the weather, limited water, poor land condition and stress factors such as drought, heat and saline soil conditions. Much of the crop yield is lost due to disease, pests, and weeds while a considerable proportion of harvested fruits 







Document Number: 9242
problem. There are risks inherent in any technological intervention. Human beings down the centuries have learnt to weigh the perceived and real risks against the benefits of emerging technologies, and have responsibly integrated these to foster progress. For instance, the use of electricity, automobiles, air travel and even immunisation all involve some risks, but this has not prevented humankind from benefiting from them. But public acceptance is driven by perception of the risk rather than the physical reality. What we need is a sensible and responsible approach to integrating biotechnology in Indian agricultural research while ensuring that any risk posed by this technology is kept to a minimum through rigorous scientific approach. We do not need militant and violent paths in keeping the biotechnology away from Indians as this will only ensure continued backwardness of our Indian agriculture. Genetically improved products are subjected to intensive testing, while conventional varieties have never been subjected to any such regulation for food safety or environmental impact. Traditional methods of developing crops involve wild crosses with weedy relatives of crop plants. Hundreds of unknown genes, of whose traits we have little knowledge, are introduced into these food crops through these conventional plant breeding methods. 







Document Number: 6656
a cusp; we have reached a point where new agricultural technologies have matured to the point where they can be used by developing nations for their own betterment, rather than remaining in the hands of the most developed nations, with strong and well-funded research programs. Putting well-developed technology in the hands of those who seek development is called technology transfer, and that is the focus of this conference. Several years ago, an identical conference could not have accomplished much; now, it could be a turning point. And that is because we have only recently seen that technology transfer -- especially when it comes to biotechnology -- works.In fact, biotechnology has proven more beneficial in developing nations than in agriculture-intensive North America. To be sure, genetically enhanced corn, soybeans, cotton and canola have spared farmers the expense of millions of pounds of crop protection chemicals, and have relieved the environment of the burden of those chemicals. This increases profits and food quality in a highly responsible manner.In developing nations, the picture is quite different.Insect attacks on cotton in India are far more damaging than in the U.S., often destroying more than half the crop each year. Where cotton engineered to resist 







Document Number: 4356
Science and Technology. These international leaders are meeting to discuss the critical role science and technology can play in improving agricultural productivity in developing countries. Ultimately, the goal is to alleviate world hunger and poverty in an environmentally sustainable way. However, hundreds of misguided people also will likely travel to Sacramento to protest a variety of issues, including the use of biotechnology in agriculture. The theme of their gathering will be to promulgate fear based on unsubstantiated and misleading information. On behalf of the poor and starving in the developing world, we urge the conference attendees to focus on the science and on each other. All too often, the voices of protest drown out sound science and experience. Anti-biotechnology groups have a history of lobbing emotionally charged allegations, but the reality is that none of these groups has actually provided any credible scientific evidence that would call into question the safety of foods derived from biotech crops on the market or the demonstrated benefits to the environment. Instead, anti-biotechnology groups use their rhetoric and allegations to advance their agenda, not to provide factual, informed perspectives. Unfortunately, sometimes they prevail to the detriment of the environment and the poorest and hungriest 







Document Number: 4788
becoming ill. Genetically modified food is less dangerous than stairs, bicycles or medicine. It's even safer than water. This is the assertion of the American experts C. S. Prakash, Professor at Tuskegee University, and Andrew Apel, editor for Agbiotech reporter. Prakash will be visiting Stockholm this week for various meetings, including with experts at the Ministry of Agriculture. The two experts are of the opinion that biotechnology allows for the environmentally friendly plants that provide rich and nutritious harvests in the developing world' As the home of the Nobel Prize, Sweden is justly proud of its heritage and its commitment to scientific progress. For this reason, Sweden's place in the debate over agricultural biotechnology can be influential and inspiring for those who want to understand the value of this science. It can perhaps best be understood in the spirit of what Alfred Bernhard Nobel expressed clearly in his will, saying that the prize he established should go to those who "have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind." Do genetically enhanced crops confer benefits to mankind? Some consider this question debatable. We know that crops benefit mankind, since they feed us. This has been known for 10,000 years, so for the 







Document Number: 1159
life span--arguably the most important indicator of quality of life--has increased steadily in the past century in almost every country. Even in many less developed countries, life spans have doubled over the past few decades. Despite massive population growth, from 3 billion to more than 6 billion people since 1950, the global malnutrition rate decreased in that period from 38 percent to 18 percent. India and China, two of the world's most populous and rapidly industrializing countries, have quadrupled their grain production.The record of agricultural progress during the past century speaks for itself. Countries that embraced superior agricultural technologies have brought unprecedented prosperity to their people, made food vastly more affordable and abundant, helped stabilize farm yields, and reduced the destruction of wild lands. The productivity gains from G.M. crops, as well as improved use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, allowed the world's farmers to double global food output during the last 50 years, on roughly the same amount of land, at a time when global population rose more than 80 percent. Without these improvements in plant and animal genetics and other scientific developments, known as the Green Revolution, we would today be farming on every square inch of arable 







Document Number: 9871
use of synthetic chemical pesticides in both industrialized and less developed countries. These advances are critical in a world where natural resources are finite and where hundreds of millions of people suffer from hunger and malnutrition.Critics dismiss such claims as nothing more than corporate public relations puffery. However, while it is true that most commercially available bioengineered plants were designed for farmers in the industrialized world, the increasing adoption of transgenic varieties by under-developed countries over the past few years demonstrates their broader applicability.Globally, transgenic varieties are now grown on more than 58.7 million hectares (145 million acres) in such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United States. Nearly one-quarter of that hectarage is farmed by over 5 million resource-poor farmers in less developed countries.Why? Because they see many of the same benefits that farmers in industrialized nations do.The first generation of transgenic crops - approximately 50 different varieties of maize, cotton, potato, squash, soybean, rapeseed, and others - were designed to aid in protecting crops from insect pests, weeds, and plant diseases.As much as 40 percent of crop productivity in Africa and Asia and about 20 percent in the industrialized 







Document Number: 1141
biotechnology-derived crops have concluded that commercial biotechnology-derived crops and foodstuffs are as safe as conventional crops and foodstuffs, and deliver important economic and environmental benefits to farmers and society at large. Facing constant allegations that biotech crops are unsafe, anti-biotechnology groups are counting on those in the scientific community with experience and knowledge of 'genetically modified' or 'bioengineered' crops to be silent. Sound science not silence must prevail.Dozens of scientific and regulatory authorities all over the world have reviewed and accepted the extensive and growing base of published scientific information that upholds the safety and benefits of biotech crops and foods. Despite this, agenda driven scientists and anti-biotechnology organizations continue to spread unsubstantiated and misleading information in an effort to further their cause.Anti-biotechnology groups have a history of lobbing emotionally charged allegations, but the reality is that none of these groups has actually provided any credible scientific evidence that would question the safety of foods derived from biotech crops or the demonstrated benefits to the environment. Instead, anti-biotechnology groups use their rhetoric and allegations to advance their agenda, not to provide factual, informed perspectives.The reality is that crops developed through plant biotechnology are among the most well-tested, well-characterized, and well-regulated 







Document Number: 1437
when President Abraham Lincoln initially understood its importance by establishing the first science-based labeling initiative to protect our nation's consumers from misleading marketing campaigns, food safety scares and snake oil salesmen who preyed on the unwitting. The sound-science legacy is alive and well. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's recent announcement reaffirming the safety of foods derived from biotechnology, while adding requirements for mandatory notification of new products and allowing for voluntary labeling of these products, is one to be applauded. Rather than bowing to the pressure tactics of the anti-biotech crowd, the FDA has reaffirmed the current science-based approval process. This decision continues a long tradition of ensuring that Americans have the safest food supply in the world and provides consumers with the means to make informed choices in food purchases. The scientific community overwhelmingly agrees that the FDA's actions are the kind of responsible oversight consumers should expect. The biotechnology products approved through the current process have a record of safe consumption, and this enhanced, more effective process will only strengthen the benefits America's consumers enjoy and deserve. Through biotechnology, farmers and consumers benefit from crops with traits that nature has developed in other organisms -- disease resistance, 







Document Number: 853
These events are of special interest to Central Massachusetts because of the growing number of people and companies involved in biotechnology in the region. The event also is attracting the anti-technology activists who have made careers out of opposing the work of these scientists. Active organizations from around the world are sending their paid executives to Boston. 'Street Theater'Some of the same people who sprayed urine and bleach on Seattle police officers will likely be among them. The antis are planning a public rally, parade and "street theater" to counter the exchange of scientific ideas that will go on inside the convention. If you happen to see any of these people - they will be the ones dressed as butterflies, Frankenstein monsters of ears of corn - here are some questions you might please consider asking them: Why do you people build opposition on simple laboratory studies, but pay no attention to extensive field studies that disprove the laboratory study? For example, a laboratory study showed that pollen from genetically modified corn could harm Monarch butterfly larvae if the larvae ate enough pollen. But actual field studies conducted last summer by about 20 researchers from several universities showed that Monarch 







Document Number: 9370
method for developing plants that can help farmers provide for a more abundant, higher-quality and nutritious food supply. How does "modern biotechnology" differ from traditional breeding? Farmers have used selective breeding for centuries to improve taste and to produce new and more healthful foods. While traditional methods randomly transferred a wide range of genetic characteristics between plants over many generations of breeding, modern biotechnology makes it possible to develop plants with specific characteristics with greater understanding, speed and precision. How widely is biotechnology used today? Biotechnology has been widely accepted by farmers in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, biotech varieties planted in 2002 are expected to account for 71 percent of cotton planted, 74 percent of all soybeans and 32 percent of corn. And, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, more than 109 million acres of biotech crops were planted worldwide in 2000 - and many developing world countries, including India, China and Brazil have been rapid adopters. What are the nutritional benefits of biotechnology? Food biotechnology offers a number of benefits for consumers, developing countries and the environment. Foods have been produced through biotechnology that stay fresh longer, resist 







Document Number: 9128
existing farmland. According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, "Biotechnology &hellip; is no longer viewed as merely a desirable element but an essential one in a multiple thrust global strategy for food security."Did you know&hellip;Today, there are more than 826 million undernourished people in the developing world. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 13 percent of the world's population lacks access to adequate amounts of food.World Health Organization estimates that malnutrition causes more than half of all childhood deaths in the developing world. Each year, 10 percent of all children die from starvation. Two out of five children in the developing world experience stunted growth and one in three is underweight.According to the Worldwatch Institute, 60 percent of all newborns in India would be in intensive care if they had been born in California.Nutritionally enhanced foods Biotech researchers have already developed and are field-testing rice enhanced with beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, which is important because rice is a primary diet staple in the developing world. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently stated: "The potential to create rice with an enhanced micronutrient content illustrates one way in which genetic engineering 







Document Number: 2823
the world have endorsed&hellip;scientific information that upholds the safety and benefits of biotech crops and foods,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The reality is that crops developed through plant biotechnology are among the most well-tested, well-characterized and well-regulated food and fiber products ever developed.&rdquo; This Food is Safe The Globe and Mail Robert Wagner12/6/2003 Robert Wagner of Malaspina University College argues that since food in Canada is labeled for nutritional content or known allergens, and food produced using biotechnology is extensively tested and is the same as other foods in both of these areas, there is no reason for biotech labels. &ldquo;There is not a single proven case of harm from more than two trillion meals containing GM ingredients. That is safe food.&rdquo; GM Sugar Beet 'Far More Environmentally Friendly' New ScientistAndy Coghlan12/6/2003 Biotech sugar beet has more environmental benefits than conventional varieties, according to a new analysis that is the first to measure the wider impact of biotech crops, including their impacts on global warming, the ozone layer and aquatic life. "Overall, herbicide-resistant GM beet was 15 to 50 per cent better for the environment, depending on what impact was being measured," says Richard Phipps of the School of Agriculture at the 







Document Number: 1847
booklet tells the story of the massive expansion of cotton output over the last 10 years. Indian cotton production statistics this last decade “Amidst the oilseed crisis, cotton is the only oilseeds crop that has shown a remarkable progress after the introduction of Bt cotton hybrids in 2002. In the last nine years, cottonseed has become an important source of oilseeds in the country. The production of cotton oil registered a three-fold increase from 0.46 million tons in 2002-03 to 1.20 million tons in 2010-11 (Table 3). ” Summary. In this decade, 2002 to 2011, Bt cotton has been successfully used as a multiple purpose crop in three ways: in the form of edible oil as food for human consumption; de-oiled cake as an animal feed; and kapas for fiber. The production of cotton seed, and its byproducts as oil and meal, has increased manifold from 0.46 million tons in 2002-03 to 1.20 million tons in 2010-11. As a result, Bt cotton meal (de-oiled cake) contributes one third of the country’s total demand for animal feed, whereas cotton oil contributes 13.7% of total edible oil production for human consumption in the country – a significant contribution which offsets more than 







Document Number: 7861
particular importance in this context is the use of Genetically Modified Organisms outside contained facilities. Consequently, GMO safety research has been supported in successive Framework Programmes from 1985 to the present day. The pattern of development of this support is illustrated in the table below, which shows that over this 15-year period 81 projects have been supported. These projects have involved over 400 teams from many different disciplines and represent a combined Community financial contribution of about 70 million. Summaries of all these projects are contained in this review. This website overall provides a comprehensive review of the results of EC-supported research into the safety of Genetically Modified Organisms. It presents research carried out under successive EC Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development from 1985 (Biotechnology Action Programme) to 2000 (Fifth Framework Programme). The site is navigated by the sidebar to the left which contains links to research areas which include: Plants, Plant microbes, Biocontrol, Food , Bioremediation, Tools, Fish, Vaccines and these in turn link on to numerous different sub pages which are finally annotated with lists of papers supported with funding to the tune of millions of European taxpayers euros. For example the Food Link provides access 







Document Number: 4870
GE crops are tested for allergenicity according to regulations. But now, it seems, the opposite may be true. ;Can;t we use GMOs to eliminate allergies?; The New Scientist reports that one Japanese researcher and his team are having some success with that possibility. 20% of Japanese citizens succumb to a harsh reaction to Japanese Cedar pollen. Proteins within the pollen cause the body to react as it would to an invading pathogen, which is what defines an allergy. Treatment currently requires pollen injections, which can be dangerous. The new rice, which has been tested in mice and Macaques with no side effects, helps the body learn to tolerate the presence of those allergenic proteins. How does it work? It is genetically modified to contain the seven proteins within cedar pollen that provoke the most serious allergic reactions in people. Once in the intestine, the proteins damp down allergic responses through so-called ;oral tolerance;. This is a process, controlled by lymph nodes, by which the immune system ;learns; not to overreact to harmless foreign material such as food . To stop the proteins being digested before they can have their effect, the rice was engineered to produce them in the endoplasmic 







Document Number: 6759
we need improvements in what economists call total factor productivity of agriculture to meet the demands on the farm output that will rise considerably by the year 2050. To do this without increasing usage of inputs like water we need to increase the economic productivity of agriculture which is measured by a number called total factor productivity (TFP). The graph from the report shown here shows the gap between current improvements in agricultural productivity and the productivity needed to raise farm output by 200% in the year 2050 without increasing net farm demand on resources. There is a gap on this graph between necessary productivity improvement and actual current improvement rate, &nbsp;which means we have to dramatically increase the productivity of global agriculture by numerous innovative approaches if we are going to avoid massive expansion of water and other farm input useage by &nbsp;over the coming decades. A key passage from this new report, the 2010 GAP Report, follows: An Evergreen Revolution Simply put, the challenge is on the scale of supporting an Evergreen Revolution that is longer in duration and greener than the last. It will take innovations like those that spurred the remarkable increases in productivity in the 







Document Number: 2474
20 apples from the CSA . Unfortunately, I can only eat so many per day and they started to go bad before I got to eat them. Some of them got really nasty (as you can see to the right) within just a few days despite being in the fridge. Eating locally is great, but since apples only ripen once per year, and they spoil relatively fast, that means we only have fresh apples for a short time each year. That;s too bad, since apples are a wonderful crunchy snack loved by kids and adults that provide health benefits from their fiber and antioxidants . Shipping the apples from another place (like New Zealand) extends the time that apples are available, but shipping in refrigerated containers is expensive and results in greenhouse gas emissions, and we all know that those apples from far away just don;t taste as good as local ones. Scab Resistant Selection RS103-130. Image from &quot;Organic Production of a New Australian-bred Scab Resistant Apple in Queensland, Australia&quot; by Middleton, et. al There might be a way to have local apples available for a much longer time, as well as to have apples shipped in that use less 







Document Number: 3913
when he was rolled out by the anti-GM activists to try and prevent Australian farmers being given the freedom of choice on crop technology in late 2007. Fortunately this effort by the anti-technology lobby groups was unsuccessful. At most meetings organized by these activists that I have attended since that time ; and there have been quite a few ; stacks of his more recent book Genetic Roulette book were available for purchase, and I snapped up one early on. A brief perusal of the articles revealed the book was highly biased. Nowhere in the book was there a mention of any of the major good outcomes from GM technologysuch as decreased risk of cancer from mycotoxins in moldy corm (see this link for Chassy and Tribe;s efforts on this important topic at Academics Review ). On the topics that I was most familiar such as antibiotic resistance in bacteria, Genetic Roulette was deeply misleading and factually wrong. I decided late 2007 to investigate its claims thoroughly, little knowing how huge the task would be because as it turned out every one of the 65 claims in it ; better called myths; was distorted, misleading, plain wrong, or based on 







Document Number: 7446
BCRA1 and BCRA2 breast and ovarian cancer genes in humans. According to this press release , the ACLU charges ;that the patenting of two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer will inhibit medical research. The organization also claims that the patents are invalid and unconstitutional.; It continues: ;This is going to turn into one of the watershed events in the evolution of the bioindustry,; says John Sterling, Editor in Chief of GEN. ;The pros and cons of patenting genes have been an ongoing, and often acrimonious series of debates, since the in re Chakrabarty decision in 1980. But this particular case seems to have taken on a life of its own with over fifteen plaintiffs. For while the lawsuit specifically centers on the patentability of two cancer-related genes, the ACLU says it plans to challenge the entire concept of patenting genes. What we have here is one group, the ACLU and its allies, contending that gene patents stifle life science research and potentially harm the health of thousands of patients. On the other side are biotech companies who maintain that without gene patents research incentives are seriously diminished and innovation is smothered.; Kenneth I. Berns, M.D., Ph.D., Editor 







Document Number: 5017
participate is get an account on Twitter, put #agchat in your 140-character posts, and follow the conversation by searching for #agchat. I haven;t participated in one of these before, although I have heard of it and seen other people participating while surveying the tweetscape. So when Agchat approached me to be a special guest to talk about Food Insecurity and Hunger I thought, sure, but this means I;ll have to sign up for twitter! For those of you who know me, I;m not tempted to use a social networking service that tells me that I cannot use grammatically correct sentences and say exactly what I mean. We do have a blog twitter feed, but Frank manages that one pretty well on his own. Well, if genetically engineered ear of corn can do it, why can;t I give it a whirl? A week before the October 12th agchat was scheduled to begin, I signed up for twitter as @kjhvm , tested out some tweets, and caught the end of the previous agchat to get a feel for it. Later, I wrote a blog post on the topic of Food Insecurity and Hunger for the Agchat site. I started by thinking how 







Document Number: 3470
The year 2008 marks the 80th anniversary of mutation induction in plants. The application of mutation techniques, i.e. Gamma-rays and other physical and chemical mutagens, has generated a vast amount of genetic variability and has played a significant role in plant breeding and genetic studies. The widespread use of induced mutants in plant breeding programmes throughout the world has led to the official release of more than 2,700 plant mutant varieties. A large number of these varieties (including cereals, pulses, oil, root and tuber crops, and ornamentals) have been released in developing countries, resulting in enormous positive economic impacts. During the last decade, with the unfolding of new biological fields such as genomics and functional genomics, bioinformatics, and the development of new technologies based on these sciences, there has been an increased interest in induced mutations within the scientific community. Induced mutations are now widely used for developing improved crop varieties and for the discovery of genes, controlling important traits and understanding the functions and mechanisms of actions of these genes. Progress is also being made in deciphering the biological nature of DNA damage, repair and mutagenesis. To this end, the International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants was organized 







Document Number: 3567
today announced a technology collaboration agreement expected to lead to significant new advances in wheat technology for Australian growers. In connection with the collaboration, Monsanto has acquired a 19.9 % minority interest in InterGrain, a leading cereal breeder in Australia. The WA State Government remains the majority shareholder, with the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) remaining a shareholder as well. Monsanto and InterGrain will exchange certain wheat germplasm for breeding, with InterGrain gaining access to breeding technology tools and services for genotyping and marker development. This is expected to deliver increased genetic gain which will ultimately provide Australian wheat farmers with the ability to achieve higher yields. This is a very exciting development for Australian wheat farmers, with the partnering of Australias leading wheat breeder and germplasm developer and the worlds no. 1 technology provider, InterGrain Chairman Dale Baker said. InterGrain has been actively seeking a partner to grow our wheat breeding program for some time, and is very pleased to reach this agreement with Monsanto, the worlds leader in this regard. It will open the doors to a vast new library of germplasm and powerful technology capacity which Australian wheat growers have not previously had access to, which 







Document Number: 7741
now retired, got me to think about plant biology like no other subject before. Although my first lab experience was as an intern in a mouse genetics lab studying endocrine disruptors, I was hooked on plants. Within a couple short years, I was adding whatever plant biology courses I could to my schedule, and took a paying job in a plant lab studying legumes and symbiosis. Meanwhile, I got into food. Well, I;ve known how to bake and cook a few things since I was very young, but on my own living in an apartment I was figuring out how to make different kinds of food, across different cultures. I also had a gardening itch, and started supplementing my diet with vegetables that I tended at an organic community garden on campus. Before long, I was thinking about the biological basis for the wonderful flavors I was tasting, and the nutritional value of produce. I thought, could I make any of these plants better? On the other side of campus, I dug into a different kind of soil. The muck of a political columnist that made outrageously false claims about climate science galvanized my desire to try to write a 







Document Number: 4196
week for all of us, our supporters, and also our competitors. During the last few days of the final voting week, we gathered an enormous number of votes, and I want to thank all the bloggers out there who supported us by linking to our entry and asking their readers to vote for us. Last week, James and the Giant Corn gave us a plug with Putting Prejudice over Science . The Council for Biotechnology Information gave us a plug on Twitter, as well as Mica from Monsanto on her twitter account. Thanks for helping! We enjoyed an early lead of a dozen votes at the beginning, but when Monday morning rolled around, we were behind the Non-GMO Project by about 100 votes. They gathered an impressive number of votes from Friday through the weekend, networking through facebook and other places. But then at a little after 8 in the morning PZ Myers of the popular blog, Pharyngula, boomed Yum, Genetically Engineered Plants! An hour later, we overtook the competition and took the lead! PZ is an immensely popular blogger, and the pulse of his endorsement was felt across the world, from California to the UK! It was almost inexplicable! 







Document Number: 463
heard that Monsanto already has a blog, it wouldn;t quite be as funny. So a little creative photoshopping later and a couple post ideas in my brain I set the stage for a little April Fools prank on our readers, and my fellow bloggers, too. Biofortified By Greenpeace! Greenpeace ;Takeover; header I looked for famous dead people with common enough sounding names, and decided on William Harvey , born on April 1st, 1578. This physician also died in 1657, and left a few quotes lying around the literature, one of which I used in a post. Then, after coming up with a believable sounding title, Director of Global GMO policy, it was time to write a little something to get people riled up. ;William Harvey;s; first post, Are GMOs a plot to rule the World? It is a common refrain from the anti-GE crowd. Because genetically engineered crops can be patented, the argument is that biotech companies will control the world;s food, when in reality they want to make money selling improved seeds. Will started out with an argument that all GE crops will necessarily involve patents and contracts and control of food. This is not true ; publicly funded 







Document Number: 1992
blog mascot, Frank N. Foode, and pull a little prank on everyone . I conceived of the idea months ago, and this week I had to get it all together in time. I announced on the blog that not only was there a Frank N. Foode doll for sale in stores, but that each box came with genetically engineered seeds for kids to grow. This took a little bit of planning, and had some interesting results. I had two main goals, and the first was to have some fun. Sunday evening, I sat down and combed the internet for images to use to make a box. I envisioned a 5;4 box a foot tall, with a flap on the back. Bit by bit it came together, and looked something like this: (Click to zoom in on the picture) Grad student life is busy, and I didn;t get to printing this out until Thursday afternoon. I actually printed it on poster material, which I thought might be too thin to work, but it worked out nicely. Getting it home unwrinkled was a challenge given my two-wheeled mode of transportation, and a little razor-blade work and careful creasing later, I had a 







Document Number: 1484
non-transgenic farmed salmon. The Center for Food Safety has a ;new; document to bring to the discussion: an opinion (pdf) written by the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposal about ocean net pens to raise finfish off the coast of Maine that was written in 2003. CFS talks about this letter in a blog post titled Newly Disclosed Government Documents Conclude GE Salmon Pose A Critical Threat To Marine Environments . Let;s just say there;s a few errors in the reasoning found in the blog post and indeed all over the GFS site about genetically engineered fish . Here, I;ll go over the blog post (I;ll let our excellent commenters take a look at the rest of the site) and discuss some of the errors. The post opens with: Adding a new twist to the controversy over genetically engineered (GE) salmon, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) revealed today that, in recent hearings on transgenic fish, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knowingly withheld a Federal Biological Opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) prohibiting the use of transgenic salmon in open-water net pens 







Document Number: 5214
Greenpeace International. In exchange for support of this blog;s continued operations, I will be posting regularly at Biofortified, and my office staff will monitor and moderate the continued discussion. We have made a few minor changes to the look of the blog. Now for my first blog post. Everyone knows that every Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are patented by corporations. There is not a single GMO that can be grown without the explicit permission through a signed contract. This puts the power in the hands of multinationals, taking it away from the indigenous people of Hawaii, Southeast Asia, Africa, and even farmers in the U.S. are having their right stripped away. The right to save seed is fundamental to growing food, and anything that removes this right is morally wrong. This is why Greenpeace has a strong stance against genetic modification, because as a corporate technology it inherently requires that farmers be unable to save seed. We also seek to eliminate hybrid crops, because these are another method for maintaining the dominance of seed companies over farmers. Hybrids do not breed true ; and so farmers have to keep re-buying seed. Recently, we have added seedless watermelons to our growing 







Document Number: 8911
as soon as Karl joins me at McCormick Place tomorrow, I can get some more good pictures. I will be going to a lot of panel discussions, and Biofortified;s own Dr. Pam Ronald and Karl Haro von Mogel will each be participating in one of them. Cool! I will also be available for photo ops, too, so to make it easy for you to find me, here;s where I will be on Wednesday the 5th: The Global Experience with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety Session Track: Food and Agriculture, Breakout Sessions Session Location: Room N426C Session Date: Wednesday May 5, 2010 Session Time: 10:00 AM ; 11:30 AM Session Speaker: Alexander Grobman, PhD ; Chair | Company:Peru Biotec [and other speakers] Summary: The Cartagena Protocol of Biosafety, approved in February 2000, was implemented in September 2003. The Protocol applies to the transboundary movement, transit, handling and use of all living modified; Then it will be time for lunch, and I;ve got a date with Pam! Well ok, I;m in the audience . BIO will host a special media luncheon on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 featuring Dr. Channapatna S. Prakash , professor of plant molecular genetics at Tuskegee University, who will 







Document Number: 3138
question- why are there few horticultural (basically non-agronomic fruits and vegetables) transgenic crops available, at least relative to corn, soy and other huge agronomic crops? These are the capsules of flavor and nutrition truly necessary in a diverse diet, yet they suffer tremendous challenges to production and distribution. Transgenic technologies could deliver great benefits. The issue was approached by Dr. Ralph Scorza from the USDA Appalachian Fruit Research Station. Ive known of Dr. Scorzas outstanding work for almost two decades. Years ago he sought a solution to the plum pox virus (PPV), the causative agent of a devastating disease called Sharka . The disease affects stone fruits (peaches, apricots, others) and can destroy whole orchards and decimate natural populations. While breeding solutions are being pursued with timelines measured in decades, PPV can now be mitigated with Scorzas solution by grafting a stonefruit scion to the transgenic rootstock. Works like a charm, and the fruit are not transgenic. The solution was introduction of a gene encoding the coat protein of PPV. When overexpressed in plums (because they are routinely transformed in the Scorza Lab), the plant became immune to the disease, almost like a vaccination. While this was interesting science it 







Document Number: 6186
the world needs a better way to meet the demand for increased food production. To meet the growing need to feed the worlds population in an environmentally friendly way will require combining the technologies of genetic engineering and organic farming. To successfully marry these two technologies we will need to overcome long held animosity between scientists, supporters of organic farming and conventional farmers. We will also need to address the antagonism some feel toward the idea of genetic engineering. The recent debate on the Big Island over genetically engineered crops pitted organic coffee farmers against researchers and the biotech industry, with some organic farmers voicing concern that genetically engineered crops threaten their livelihood and agricultural philosophy. However, it appears their concerns about food safety are driven more by technological anxiety than by science. Today, the majority of all processed foods in the United States have at least one ingredient from genetically engineered crops and all scientific panels that have studied this matter have concluded that the GE crops currently grown in the United States are safe to eat. The National Academy of Sciences and the United Kingdom Genetically Modified Science Review Panel have both concluded that the process of adding 







Document Number: 4422
He had an opportunity to frame some points to make to the delegates who are interested in conserving biodiversity, an issue the Pundit is passionate about too. He does worry that global approaches to conserving natural biodiversity may miss out on encouraging some of the most effective but not necessarily obvious pathways to long-term preservation of nature. In his opinion we should focus on ensuring farming operations preserve nature by working from the ground up, rather than working top down by making global rules about biodiversity. At the Nagoya session he had the opportunity to express some of these views, (see video of session here http://www.biodiversityworldtour.com/category/events/ ) but now he is home from the conference that he is taking the opportunity to amplify them here at GMO Pundit. GMO Pundit thinks we could gain from the old and well-known aphorism of Rene Dubos ; think globally but act locally. This catch-phrase is really relevant to how we can think about the global biodiversity issue in a more effective way. The big global issues of biodiversity are extremely important but we need to act locally at the farm level to devise policies can be successful in practice and also benefit local 







Document Number: 3753
poor people rely on staples to meet their daily calorie requirements. The existence of such energydense food is the result of genetic selection by humans since the beginning of agriculture, which was dominated by selection criteria related to yield increase. Biochemical diversity as an important food requirement, such as the need for micronutrientsi.e., vitamins and microelementscould not be considered. The resulting &nbsp;biochemical monotony in staples can be counterbalanced by food diversification, where possible. However, poverty reasons have led to predominant consumption of staples in large parts of the world60% of calories consumed are from three crops: rice, corn and wheat. Consequently, a variety of micronutrient malnutrition diseases affecting large parts of the worlds population have emerged. Biofortification of crop plants describes the idea of providing the micronutrients through the staple crop plants own biosynthetic (vitamins) or physiological (minerals) capacity. This can be accomplished by conventional classical breeding, when the desired micronutrient-rich germplasm is available, allowing the transfer of such nutritional traits into agriculturally relevant cultivars. In the absence of sufficient genetic variability or when plant breeding is ineffective, the introduction of the desired trait by genetic engineering is required. An important scientific prerequisite for the application of genetic engineering is 







Document Number: 9822
know it as mammals would be in peril. We need it for our nerves and muscles to function properly, too. Many people in the United States are deficient in calcium, upwards of 44%, and in the developing world, these numbers are sadly much, much higher. And as we age, we lose more and more calcium from our bones, leading to osteoporosis. Women are particularly at risk for this disease once they go through menopause. What can we do? Taking calcium in supplement form can be one way to absorb it, but according to the results of a huge multi-year trial of calcium supplements conducted by the Women;s Health Initiative, these provided only modest benefits . Only women over 60 who took the full regimen of calcium supplements (with Vitamin D) had a statistically significant difference from the control group. And this benefit came with a cost ; of more kidney stones. Nutrition research continues to find wrinkles in the vitamin and mineral pill-popping philosophy, often due to the fact that there are many factors that influence the absorption of needed nutrients. In the case of calcium, vitamin D is important to help its absorption, while antinutrients such as phytic acid 







Document Number: 7046
on the site;s system disappeared when I tried to publish it. So I had to start all over, this time writing it out in Word first . It would have been nice to know the character limit of the ;describe your idea; section beforehand, which led to the catastrophic disappearance. Anyhow, please consider registering at the changemakers site and voting for my entry. The number of votes to beat is 33 votes, I know way more people read this site than that! As opposed to the hiccups that the publishing process experiences on changemakers, registration takes less than a minute and is pain-free. So get to it! My entry is below the fold. The text-only entry boxes eliminated my formatting, so here it is as I would like to have shown it: Biofortified is an independent group blog for plant genetics and genetic engineering (GE). By posting news, discussing research, debunking myths, and inviting the input of guest experts and especially readers, our knowledgeable writers are helping to bring a new standard of communication to agricultural biotechnology. Check us out! What makes your approach innovative? Group science blogs have been tried and tested, but this is the first one for 







Document Number: 5818
Anastasia and I decided to submit a joint comment to the USDA with Biofortified.org;s name attached to it. There has been much discussion as of late on this blog, spearheaded by Anastasia , about the issue of coexistence . While hyperbole about ;kissing your organics goodbye; and meaningless distinctions such as ;the first GE perennial field crop; (first perennial is papaya) are abound, some interesting things are actually going on. In December, the USDA held a meeting with several stakeholders, and the transcript of this meeting can be found here . There are several ideas being floated around, and some familiar names. I;ll have more to say on this meeting later. But one statement struck a chord, and that was that there wasn;t enough time for discussion between the meeting and the end of the Alfalfa comment period. Of course, let;s ignore the fact that GE crops have been grown for 14 years, and that Alfalfa was first deregulated years ago. There has been plenty of time for discussion, but I guess no one has been trying to make this discussion happen in a productive manner until now. Kudos to the USDA for getting things going, though it be in 







Document Number: 3928
about this potentially dangerous yet potentially lifesaving application of technology. ; Scientists Worry Over GM Drug Crops ;, posted on Environmental Graffiti, briefly covers the news that crops engineered to express pharmaceutical proteins will be field tested this growing season, concentrating on the Union of Concerned Scientists; reaction. Apparently UCS is taking their typical anti-tech stance, asking the USDA to require all such crops to be grown in greenhouses or underground. I was not able to find any record of UCS;s recent comments. I;d like to defend myself, as a scientist. I refuse to believe that any scientist or biotech company would purposefully release a dangerous plant into the food supply. Even if you think scientists and biotech companies are unethical, they certainly aren;t stupid. The first company to sell a biotech plant that;s actually dangerous would likely be burnt to the ground by activists before they had time to go bankrupt. While debates over biotech crops continue, no one has ever gotten sick from a GM plant, or any GMO. What I;ve read about proposed biopharma and industrial crops haven;t indicated that this will change. For example, consider the Amflora potato, developed by BASF. This humble potato will be 







Document Number: 7105
to get biotech to the people who need it most. All farmers, especially the poor, can use biotech crops to decrease inputs and increase yields. According to the ISAAA executive summary , ;for the twelfth consecutive year, the global area of biotech crops continued to soar.; There was an increase of 12% from 2006 to 2007, resulting in a total of 282.4 million acres of biotech crops. Most interestingly, the increase in biotech hasn;t been solely in developed countries by big agribusiness. Biotech crops achieved a very important milestone in 2007 with humanitarian implications the number of small and resource-poor farmers benefiting from biotech crops in developing countries exceeded 10 million for the first time. Of the global total of 12 million beneficiary biotech farmers in 2007;, over 90% or 11 million were small and resource-poor farmers from developing countries; the balance of 1 million were large farmers from both industrial countries such as Canada and developing countries such as Argentina. ISAAA goes on to explain the benefits individual countries have received from biotech crops, eliminating many misconceptions (below the cut, all monetary values reported in US dollars). The report also discusses the future of biotech crops, which I will 







Document Number: 2037
of Concerned Farmers , Julie Newman, says that conventional wheat farmers need to be protected ; from being outperformed by genetically engineered wheat. I have to post the whole thing because I can;t figure out what to leave out: THE introduction of a Genetically Modified (GM) wheat variety with frost tolerance could potentially flood the world wheat market and drastically lower its price and profitability, according to Network of Concerned Farmers WA spokesperson Julie Newman. Our competitors will actually fare much better if we bring in GM wheat, because we can grow frost-tolerant crops now but they cant because of the cold snaps, she said. If you invent a GM wheat variety that has frost tolerance, it will open up all of the rich farming area in Russia and the Ukraine, and there will be a major glut of wheat on the world market. It would almost double global production and that means our wheat would be worth a fraction of the price. She said a clear set of rules needed to be established to ensure non-GM farmers were protected and retained their right of choice to not grow it. The reason you grow a crop is because you want 







Document Number: 7291
to give everyone the heads-up with a blog post. (Busy making time in my research, that is. Packing took one evening.) Today through Friday, I will be at the Biotechnology Industry Organization;s 2009 International Convention, representing Biofortified and blogging about it. Let me give you a few more details. A few months ago, the Council for Biotechnology Information contacted me and invited me to be their guest blogger for the convention. They created a news blog to report on the agriculture-related talks and panels, and offered to cover my expenses to help them report on the conference. I;ve never been to the BIO conventions, which host presentations on more than just ag biotech issues. It would also give me the chance to promote the blog, get exposed to the biotech zeitgeist, and meet some interesting people. It will also allow people who might not otherwise know much about what goes on at these conventions to learn all about it. That means you! The CBI, however is an industry-funded nonprofit, and although they do not engage in any political lobbying, accepting their offer does present a potential conflict of interest. Would people still see me as an independent academic? Would I 







Document Number: 2741
had well over 40 million hectares in cultivation by the year 2005. The phenomenal achievement of transforming the infertile Cerrado region into highly productive land over a span of fifty years, the worlds single largest increase in farmland since the settlement of the U.S. Midwest, has been hailed as a far-reaching milestone in agricultural science. The Cerrado is an arid brush savanna stretching over 120 million hectares across central Brazil from the western plains to the northeastern coast. With soils characterized by high acidity and aluminum levels that are toxic to most crops, Brazilian farmers had long referred to the area as campos cerrados closed land, with little promise for sustaining production. . . The Cerrado region now provides 54 percent of all soybeans harvested in Brazil, 28 percent of the countrys corn, and 59 percent of its coffee. Cerrado agriculture has also diversified to include rice, cotton, cassava, and sugar. For all crops, average yields in the Cerrado are higher than in other areas, with harvests reaching 4.8 tons per hectare of soybeans and 11 tons per hectare of corn. In addition, the Cerrado supports 55 percent of Brazils beef industry. And that;s on 1/3 of the land available. 







Document Number: 551
grows up the offspring, selects the best and repeats. It;s effective, slow, labor intensive and limited by the perception of the breeder. Most traits are also very heavily impacted by the environment, so each new genotype must be grown in multiple locations +/or multiple years to make sure the recorded phenotype is due to the genetics (not the environment) of the individual. Most of our crops were domesticated and refined this way (quite a success!). Modern breeding has additionally been refined by the development of various statistical techniques and crossing schemes that make the whole process more efficient. Marker-Assisted Selection MAS relies on the development of ;markers; that co-segregate with traits of interest. Picture a chromosome: an incredibly long stretch of DNA with genes located occasionally along its length. You can develop molecular markers (e.g. SNPs or microsatellites ) that act as signposts along the whole length of the chromosome (where each of the signposts look different in each parent). Since sexual recombination moves DNA in big chunks, lots of the nearby markers will be moved with each gene. Statistical techniques can then be used to see which markers are associated with each trait. Since markers that are physically close 







Document Number: 798
enter deep puncture wounds, such as the proverbial rusty nail, or in this soldier;s case, a dirty sword in battle. Once inside the wound, C. tetani bacteria produce the tetanus toxin, which then migrates to the body;s central nervous system where it causes tetanus disease, characterized by intense muscle spasms. 70% to 80% of the people who contract tetanus die. Unfortunately, many of these people today are newborn infants and their mothers. Infection by C. tetani bacteria occurs in these cases when unclean instruments are used to cut umbilical cords or remove a fetus from the mother;s womb during live birth or abortion. If the mother had been immunized against tetanus toxin, she and the infant (who would be born with some of its mother;s immunities) would have survived. You may wonder why the mother was not immunized when vaccines against tetanus have been readily available for more than a generation. In fact, it is because vaccinations are far less prevalent in poor countries than in wealthier nations such as the United States and much of Europe. Furthermore, despite growing humanitarian interest in providing vaccines, the infrastructure of many developing nations is not sufficient to safely synthesize, transport, or store 







Document Number: 962
sponsored by the National Geographic and the Aspen Institute. I am experimenting with liveblogging from the meeting. Lets see how it goes. The first panel I attended featured Andrew Revkin , Peter Huybers , Mohan Munasinghe , moderated by David Brancaccio . ;The pace of sea level rise is uncertain; says Revkin. It is a distraction to argue about the pace when we know that it is a real problem. It is like arguing about a bus rolling backwards down a hill in SF as to whether it is going 3 or 4 miles per hour. ;Ultimately it is human beings and their fate that concerns us;, says Munasinghe. ;The planet will persist, but will we? Already we see billions of people affected, with 300,00 deaths a year. The poor have least to do with the problem yet they will suffer the most.; He argues that we need to look at ways to reduce emissions. There is not enough carbon space left to let the poor to grow out of poverty. Poverty will kill people long before climate change. Those of us who have enjoyed the benefits of carbon emissions must decide what we can give up to give those 







Document Number: 2581
and farmer suicides in India. IFPRI ;seeks sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty;, so it makes sense for them to investigate any possible links between Bt and farmer suicides. Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India: Reviewing the Evidence examines every aspect of the problem, concluding that farmers in India do have very real issues pressing upon them, but Bt is not to blame for their choice to commit suicide. The report is through, but written in language that lay people can easily follow. I encourage you to read it for yourself. To me, the most interesting part was titled ;The Bt Cotton Controversy: The Institutional Context;. This section listed the actual causes of farmer distress, and once we identify the real problems, we can start talking about real solutions. The biggest problem seems to be education. Farmers have access to new technology but little if any information on how to use it to maximize benefit. Even with the yearly increases in adoption, production, and yields, Bt cotton has had its share of controversy. Farmers lack of information on growing conditions, pesticide use, the importance of planting proper seeds, and the earnings to be expected from using this technology 







Document Number: 4018
radiation-based techniques to modify crop characteristics and traits. In 2001, KARI plant breeders released Njoro-BW1 , their first mutant wheat variety. It is drought tolerant, moderately resistant to rust (a fungus), has good yield, and good flour quality. Kenyas plant breeders soon will release a second mutant wheat variety, code-named DH4 , which shares most of the same good qualities of Njoro-BW1 . [ Golden Wheat Greens Kenyas Drylands ] Traditional breeding encompasses all plant breeding methods that do not fall under current GMO regulations.As the European legal framework defines GMOs and specifies various breeding techniques that are excluded from the GMO regulations,we use this framework as a starting point, particularly the European Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release of GMOs into the environment (European Parliament, 2001). Excluded from this GMO Directive are longstanding cross breeding, in vitro fertilization, polyploidy induction, mutagenesis and fusion of protoplasts from sexually compatible plants (European Parliament, 2001). It is indeed good news that Kenyan farmers have these lines of wheat with such improvements over unimproved varieties. However, radiation based so-called mutation plant breeding could have unintended changes in the genome. This technique, widely used in both organic and conventional crops, literally bombards the seeds 







Document Number: 5901
agriculture. Twenty years ago organic farmers in our area began growing specialty sunflowers to sell for cut flowers. Although most of the pollen from organic sunflowers does not travel further than 3 meters, some of it can travel up to distances of 1000 meters, which can cause problems for growers of certified sunflower seed. If stray organic pollen should land on a sunflower grown for seed and hybridize with it, the resulting seed will no longer be purebred, reducing the value of the crop. This is the reason that sunflower seed growers in the valley were concerned about gene flow from organic sunflowers. The certified seed growers and organic flower growers came to an agreement. The seed growers gave the organic growers sterile seed that gave rise to flowers with no pollen- thus eliminating the risk of gene flow. This compromise offers a good example of how discussions among neighbors can lead to mutual benefits. California farmers grow 350 recognized crop and livestock commodities under a variety of farming conditions, often on adjoining fields. Good communication and common sense is key to peaceful coexistence. Can we apply these principles to all crop production methods;GE, organic, and conventional? According to some 







Document Number: 1684
partial deregulation, there are better ways to ensure that all farmers get to grow what they want. First, there already exists case law to solve problems between individual farmers. The two current big lawsuits ( sugar beets , alfalfa ) aren;t about individual farmers, though, they are carefully orchestrated efforts by special interest groups. Anyway, as I understand it, if two neighboring farmers can;t work out things on their own, the case law is clear. Hopefully if I have it wrong someone with relevant expertise will stop by and comment. When things move from one person;s land to another person;s land, that is trespassing. Every person has a responsibility to keep their things to themselves, using reasonable methods to control their things. Every person also has a responsibility to protect their things from harm, using reasonable methods to protect anything that might be harmed by outside forces (like things from your neighbor moving into the area). You thought your neighbor was difficult! &quot;Hero car&quot; by Rasmin via Flickr. Let;s consider an example far, far from agriculture. Let;s say that John is a stunt man that specializes in intense fiery scenes. He has developed a company that does all kinds of 







Document Number: 7659
thinking to help see our society out of the debate over genetically engineered crops. It is called GMO Risk or Rescue? Helping Consumers Decide . Here;s what their contest is about: The debate over the future of our food supply is heating up. Everyone is weighing in on the moral, environmental, and nutritional effects that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) will have on our society, but how do we really know what;s on our plate? This summary is well-written and gets everyone in the right mindset to offer up an idea no matter their point of view. The Welcome Letter goes into more detail: WHAT;S ON YOUR PLATE? Advances in food science and technology have changed dramatically in the last decades. Often food consumers voices are not heard in the debate. Yet, no one is more important in the business of food than consumers. How do we know what;s really on our plate? And how do we demonstrate that we have the power to make and demand better choices? We invite our Changemakers community to speak up, challenge each other, and develop ideas and solutions that will have an impact on the world. This competition is about finding the best solutions 







Document Number: 970
and misguided. &nbsp;The minimal successes at improving the health and wealth of the poor he cited have been vastly overshadowed by negative policies and actions by UN agencies. Underlying the U.N.s deficiencies is the inability of its leaders to apprehend how their own flawed policies prevent the achievement of their ambitious Millennium Development Goals for 2015, which include cutting hunger and poverty in half, giving all children a basic education, reducing infant and maternal mortality by two-thirds and three-quarters respectively, and reversing the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. &nbsp;Chemicals regulation and water policy offer just two examples, among many. Since the cheap and effective insecticide DDT was effectively banned worldwide at the UN-sponsored 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue have been on the rise. &nbsp;In fact, the huge toll of diseases spread by mosquitoes caused some public health officials to rethink DDTs use. &nbsp;In 2006, after some 50 million preventable deaths, the U.N.s World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed the use of DDT to kill and repel malaria-causing mosquitoes. &nbsp;At the time, Arata Kochi, the World Health Organization official in charge of malaria said, We must take a position based 







Document Number: 557
found in grapes (see A GM wheat that prevents Alzheimer;s disease , extract below) or with polyphenols that are found in berries, it behooves us to understand what they do to us. Over at The Whole Health Source there is a well researched story that spells out the latest developments on why many berries, grapes, wines and juices containing polyphenols are good for you. In a word: it;s hormesis . Find an excerpt below: Polyphenols, Hormesis and Disease: Part II In the last post, I explained that the body treats polyphenols as potentially harmful foreign chemicals, or ;xenobiotics;. How can we reconcile this with the growing evidence that at least a subset of polyphenols have health benefits? Clues from Ionizing Radiation One of the more curious things that has been reported in the scientific literature is that although high-dose ionizing radiation (such as X-rays) is clearly harmful, leading to cancer, premature aging and other problems, under some conditions low-dose ionizing radiation can actually decrease cancer risk and increase resistance to other stressors ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ). It does so by triggering a protective cellular response, increasing cellular defenses out of proportion to the 







Document Number: 499
course) was a really wonderful experience. The conversation was fast paced and fabulous, covering the map from science journalism to specific details on certain genetically engineered traits to the deliciousness of local produce. All my nervousness was for naught, as Michael is extremely nice. He listened to Karl and I blab about science very politely, even with interest. Hopefully we weren;t too enthusiastic. I really hope that we opened long lasting lines of communication. Time will tell. It is obvious that there are a lot of people hoping for Micheal;s attention, including the fan boy that came up to him as we were leaving, so I can only hope that we left at least a small positive impression. Ok, now for the important part; the food! I wasn;t sure what to expect from Chez Panisse because I found reviews that went to both extremes. I was trying to not have expectations that wouldn;t be met ; but it was fabulous. I know, it seems weird that a genetic engineer would be a pro-local foodie, but there it is. I;d of course heard of Alice Waters before and all the hype around her restaurant, and I was very excited to experience 







Document Number: 6984
organize the best of them on one website. Their deadline was in early March, and I was busy getting some of my videos ready to be entered when they extended the deadline to April 15th. This was good, because up until they announced the extension, there were very few videos entered in the contest. As a result, over 60 videos were entered for their first contest! This morning, I received a press release from Chlorofilms ; They have chosen their winners and I;m counted among them! Here is the press release: ChloroFilms announces video contest winners 15 May 2009 Chlorofilms announced today the winners of its competition for new plant biology videos on YouTube. Over $8,000 in cash prizes were awarded in this first competition, which promotes the creation of fresh, attention-getting and informative videos about plant life. Grand prize winner (with $1,000 cash prize) is Ela Lamblin of Vashon, WA, for her entry entitled ;Fertile Eyes;. The video, a collaboration with Anna Edlund, combines music, dance, sensual imagery and puns to tell the story of pollination and fertilization in plants in an unforgetable way. First prizes ($500 cash awards) go to Daniel von Wangenheim of Cologne, Germany for his 







Document Number: 4126
at Dillions supermarket in Manhattan (Kansas). We usually dont go anywhere because the town is more serene with the students gone, and we host a dinner for various international stragglers with nowhere else to go. At least I didnt have to go to Whole Foods. Terrible food safety and so insufferable. For the past couple of weeks, Whole Foods has been pushing their turkeys like some form of food porn crack, and repeating the following statements as mantra: No antibiotics ever No supplemental growth hormones* No animal byproducts in feed *Federal regulations prohibit the use of hormones when raising poultry Whole Foods lets birds suffer if they are sick, and follows the law by not using hormones. Should sick animals be deprived antibiotics? Wouldnt that go against animal welfare standards? I dont see how this is the basis for an advertizing campaign. Federal regulators may want to have a look, seeing as they cracked down on Tysons BS claims that they didnt use antibiotics in poultry production that no one else used. Whole Foods does have a bunch of homespun tales about turkeys raised by farmers the way our grandparents did it. Apparently society has learned nothing about food production 







Document Number: 9176
by using clever technologies to circumvent traditional unfounded criticisms of biotechnology. Dr. Franz Krenz was the first speaker of the session. His focus was in describing what have been known as cisgenic technologies, or the moniker sometimes applied to allele-specific marker assisted selection, precision breeding .* Dr. Krenz and colleagues have adopted a very strict interpretation of what cisgenic means. By his definition, a cisgenic plant contains regulatory regions and protein-coding regions from the same species, shuttled by biotechnological means. There are no bacterial genes for resistance, no viral promoters, no other genic sequences. Corn to corn, rice to rice, quince to quince. It would be like moving a gene that controls eye color from one person to another to another to make their blue eyes brown. Homo sapiens to Homo sapiens . Nothing fancy. In plants naturally-occurring beneficial gene variants are quite common, yet oftentimes occur in unimproved species with limited commercial potential. Specific gene variants confer resistance to disease, variation in flowering time and production traits like fruit size and yield. These have been described in many horticultural and agronomic crops. To breed these traits into existing lines using traditional crossing methods might take decades, depending on the 







Document Number: 1175
decade by hand crossing other heirloom varieties and selecting the best of their offspring. These tomatoes are everything a tomato lover dreamed of ; the perfect red color, soft yet firm texture, sweet yet flavorful taste, and they have high yields to boot. You;ve carefully transitioned your farm to organic and received your organic certification last year, so your seeds are in even higher demand than usual. Last year, you had far more requests for these special seeds than you could meet, so this year, you planted hundreds of tomato plants, planning to harvest all the seeds to dry and sell the following year to your tomato-hungry customers. The weather is perfect, the flowers are maturing and about set pollen; and disaster strikes. What;s the disaster? It could be any number of things. Farming is risky. There could be a few cold nights that cause the pollen to die before many fruits are pollinated. There could be a sudden flood that washes away half or more of the plants and stresses the rest. There could be a plague of locusts that destroy the plants. There could be an outbreak of a rare virus that affects the young fruit; Or it 







Document Number: 51
her work with CCD. She has been studying bees for 20 years and heads a diverse team of researchers working to solve the mystery. She said that there there are quite a few ;theories; that her team disagrees with. In particular, she said that CCD is not caused by the rapture or the Russians. She puts cell phones and genetically engineered crops in the same category, choosing instead to focus on legitimate leads. She says that there are many reasons why their group is not looking into these as possible causes, but one reason sticks out: some Amish and organic beekeepers whose hives are isolated from genetically engineered crops, many pesticides, and cell phones in the case of the Amish have experienced CCD, while some conventional beekeepers have not. In other words, there isn;t a common thread connecting colonies that have collapsed. Despite the fact that scientists like Dr. Cox Foster have spoken on the lack of legitimacy of these theories, people continue to write about them, such as this example from the always creative Global Research. I won;t pick the article apart due to time constraints, but wanted to show the range of views. A lot of mainstream articles 







Document Number: 3171
month, making this an exciting month for talking about plant genetics. Plus we;ll have more to say about our own Rally to Restore Sanity in the debate over genetic engineering, and if that was not enough, there will be opportunities for everyone to be able to win fabulous prizes ; and I;m going to tell you about your first chance! The first Biofortified Community Contest is on, and it will be a contest for the best comment or comments. That;s right, just by writing just one awesome comment that contributes to the discussion here, you can win a prize! It could be about some of the many things we talk about on the blog such as the science, politics, social and philosophical issues, personal beliefs, or a collection of helpful links that you have scoured the internet for. Here are the rules: Anyone can nominate someone for this contest, but must link to at least one comment (can be several) by that author. You may nominate yourself! Editors (and me) are ineligible for the contest ; but contributing authors can get in on the action. Comments can be from any date in the past, present, or future . They can 







Document Number: 6060
and I have a bit of a confession to make: I forgot to announce the winner! While several fantastic pumpkins were carved, one entrant thought outside the jack-0-lantern varietal box and went with a Spaghetti Squash. Still Cucurbita pepo , but hilariously carved and lit up! I think this is what I looked like when I read what Andy Kimbrell said way back when. Check out the head splitting, string-vomiting action! So our third community contest, the carving contest goes to GregH , who is also an undergrad horticulture and finance major with quote a collection of plants listed on his profile page. Is that popping sorghum as well? Coolness. Greg wins an embroidered cotton canvas shopping bag (complete with custom pocket with a pen-holder), along with a Norman Borlaug commemorative coin! Maybe belated but just in time for farmer;s markets in the spring, no? Back in October, I really jumped on this community contest concept, probably too many at once, and the winner of our second contest also got lost in the shuffle. They found out that they won by email, mind you, but all of you need to know as well. The theme for this contest, if you 







Document Number: 2253
and Agroecology at Washington State University, recently presented a lecture at Iowa State. I have to admit, a professor of agroecology automatically raises my skeptical eyebrows, but I;d previously read Dr. Reganold;s 2001 letter in Nature: Sustainability of three apple production systems , which was about some pretty solid research, so I was really looking forward to his talk. In this letter, Dr. Reganold and his colleagues showed that organic, conventional, and integrated (aka a mixture of organic and conventional techniques) were each viable methods of farming, each with their own benefits. During this visit to Sustainable Agriculture Colloquium at Iowa State, Dr. Reganold talked about comparing organic and conventional methods, of course! According to Dr. Reganold, indicators of sustainability include: adequate yields of high quality, economics, environmental impact, and social justice, among others. He said that we need to judge all farming systems, including organic and conventional, on the same indicators. One indicator of successful farming practices that Dr. Reganold said needed to change is our fixation on yields. Using yield as a measure of agriculture leaves out many factors, including soil, water, and other environmental effects. It also leaves out the human effect. Conventional agriculture, and much of 







Document Number: 3704
, but we all know that 100% exclusion of unwanted pollen is impossible (at least for now). So, what happens when a farmers field or wild plant population is contaminated with a transgene? Can they be decontaminated? What about gene flow from non-transgenic crops? Strangely, none of the people concerned with transgenic gene flow seem to be concerned about non-transgenic pollen from modern cultivars, which is a much bigger problem. I use contaminated in quotes because nature doesnt see the distinctions we see. Transgene or not, wild or cultivated, all go into a big mixing pot to be stirred by random mating and natural selection. If we are to be concerned about transgenes, we must consider the actual effects that those genes might have, and how those genes might act within a population. There are three types of effects an escaped transgene could have on wild populations: 1) Some transgenes are expected to have a negative effect on the fitness of wild plants. For example, a gene that dramatically increases the size and number of fruits produced by a plant is desirable from an agricultural perspective, but will likely have detrimental effects on a wild plant, because the plant would 







Document Number: 457
have been providing superb input and support in comments and in the forum. So who won? The winner of Community Contest #1 goes to a person who has been helping out for a long time (in corn years) with providing links, digging up sources, and helping to populate our list of GE companies , for example. They helped dig up an obscure article that undermined a persistent myth about soy allergies and GE crops, all while being friendly and funny. And that person is none other than MaryM ! So congratulations Mary, your very own Biofortified Schwag Bag will be on its way for you to fill with groceries, carry your lunch in, or hold while snoopy dancing! Give her a round of applause! Community Contest #2 With contest #1 now over, it is time to announce the beginning of contest #2. This will be the same as contest #1, but with a twist. One of the things that we want to see here is healthy disagreement. C;mon, you don;t have to be a genetically modified organism to know that some of the things we talk about on Biofortified can lead to some heated arguments. Words flying everywhere, food rights 







Document Number: 324
about corn that you;d like to know more about? Let us know in the comments. Myth: Huge amounts of the sizable US corn crop go to HFCS production. Here;s an example that sums up this idea from Grist : ;The Big Corn People began to grow so much royally-subsidized GMO corn that they turned it into millions of gallons of high fructose corn syrup.; It;s true, a portion of the US corn crop is used for HFCS production. It;s also true that corn syrup is cheap because the corn industry receives subsidies. But there;s a lot more to this story. How is corn used? Most of the US corn crop is used for animal feed. In 2006-2007, 5.6 billion bushels of corn were used for animal feed, 2.1 billion for exports, 2.1 billion for ethanol, 753 million for corn sweeteners, 272 million for corn starch, 190 million for corn foods (tortillas, cereal, etc), and 137 for alcoholic beverages, according to Iowa State University;s High Fructose Corn Syrup ; How sweet it is (pdf). It;s more than a little dishonest to blame the monocultures on HFCS, when so much of the crop is used for feed. Again, that;s 5.6 billion bushels 







Document Number: 2189
pain, my daughter was doubled over and gasping. When we took her to the hospital, the doctor took one look at her and immediately ordered a scan. Within hours she was in the operating room to have her ruptured appendix removed. After the operation, the surgeon showed us pictures of the process, including a glossy photo of the inflamed appendix and the staple he had used to close off the end from which it had been removed. Almost immediately after surgery, my daughters fever diminished. Her post-surgical pain was minimal compared to the searing pain that brought us to the hospital in the first place. As I write this, she is still in the hospital where she will remain for a few more days. But the crisis is over and there is improvement by the hour. By the time you read this, she will probably be home again in her own bed. In the May 2009 issue of Bioethics in Brief, I discussed the fear of novelty that often leads to skepticism about new technology. I urged that moderate skepticism may be appropriate if it leads us to logically weigh the risks involved in new technologies, and that caution may 







Document Number: 3320
step closer to making a positive impact on the availability of food for people in developing countries and beyond. Time Magazine reports that Dr. Keerti Rathore and his team, who made the development years ago have now moved on to field trials, a necessary step to test the resilience and effectiveness of the trait in real-world conditions. RNA that Interferes Let me tell you how this works. They used a technique called RNA interference , or RNAi. When plants (and other organisms we are finding) are infected with a virus that uses RNA as its genetic material, they defend themselves by chopping up the offending molecule. Cells use the double-stranded DNA as genetic material, and use the very similar single-stranded RNA to carry information from the genes to the rest of the cell for making proteins. But the RNA that these viruses use is double-stranded, like DNA. Since plants don;t use RNA as a double-strand, this gives them something different to detect and destroy, and that;s what they do. An enzyme called Dicer detects double-stranded RNA and chops it up into little pieces, about 20 bases long, and a complex of enzymes called the RNA Induced Silencing Complex (RISC) uses 







Document Number: 1358
people meeting at Dicks Last Resort to watch the DC event and to encourage each other that we are not alone as people who dont like the hyper-partisan trend in politics. I actually haven;t seen any reporting on the main or local versions of this event that captured it;s spirit or age-diversity. I think maybe this sort of satire is a little too subtle for many people to understand. Even so, I wish there was a rally or some other mechanism to ;restore sanity; in the discussion of food politics . Food Politics Are Not That Different The Comedy Central team does a great job of pointing out the absurdity and imbalance in the world of cable news. They call them out for promoting irrational fear (both from the right and from the left). From my perspective as an agricultural scientist, there is a similar set of voices out there promoting fear about agriculture. These sources present the same sort of circus mirror view of modern agriculture that John Stewart described for other politics at the DC rally. In general politics, people carelessly throw around accusations of racism, or socialism, and compare people to Hitler. In food politics the equivalent 







Document Number: 1132
to come out publicly with a critique of Patricks new book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist . Here is Patricks response: RW: You make claims that have been refuted by the people you reference. This may be okay over a beer, but seems reckless in print. You say DDT was discontinued for use in malaria control by the World Health Organization and USAID. But surely you know that WHO and USAID representatives have already told George Monbiot that they never stopped using DDT for malaria control. ( A Charming Falsehood , The Guardian). Why would you restate this, knowing that WHO and USAID have refuted it? PM: I have provided you with a link to the UN media release titled, Reversing Its Policy, UN Agency Promotes DDT to Combat the Scourge of Malaria , UN News Center, September 15, 2006. Here is the link again where the WHO announces that it is reversing its policy to discontinue the use of DDT after nearly 30 years. USAID made the same decision in 2006. This reversal stemmed from the negotiations towards the Stockholm Convention on toxic, persistent, bioaccumulative chemicals which, in the end, despite strong opposition 







Document Number: 9287
efforts is the yearly Shopper;s Guide to Pesticides . EWG gives many many reasons why they think you should use the guide, specifying that you (the consumer) should eat organic or at least choose the Clean 15 over the Dirty Dozen: The 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables (the Dirty Dozen) are contaminated with an average of 10 different pesticides, with many tainting more than one type of produce. In contrast, the Clean 15, the 15 least contaminated fruits and vegetables, contain an average of less than 2. Eating organic food lowers pesticide body burdens as well. Research shows that concentrations of pesticides in childrens bodies peak during seasons that they eat the most produce, but fall to below detectable levels in just 5 days when they eat organic food. The list of reasons has a lot of scary facts about how many pesticides detected on food, just how ;polluted; our bodies are from the things we eat, and explains how our government barely regulates pesticides. Near the bottom, EWG lets us know that despite the scary facts that the need to eat fresh produce outweighs any risk from pesticide residues. They also remind consumers of the importance of eating 







Document Number: 5545
Crop Biotechnology and Trade - Kym Anderson, New Biotechnology (in Press), full paper at http://web.services.adelaide.edu.au/cies/publications/present/CIES_DP1012.pdf Agricultural biotechnologies, and especially transgenic crops, have the potential to boost food security in developing countries by offering higher incomes for farmers and lower priced and better quality food for consumers. That potential is being heavily compromised, however, because the European Union and some other countries have implemented strict regulatory systems to govern their production and consumption of genetically modified (GM) food and feed crops, and to prevent imports of foods and feedstuffs that do not meet these strict standards. This paper analyses empirically the potential economic effects of adopting transgenic crops in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. It does so using a multi-country, multi-product model of the global economy. The results suggest the economic welfare gains from crop biotechnology adoption are potentially very large, and that those benefits are diminished only very slightly by the presence of the European Union;s restriction on imports of GM foods. That is, if developing countries retain bans on GM crop production in an attempt to maintain access to EU markets for non-GM products, the loss to their food consumers as well as to farmers in those developing countries is 







Document Number: 719
on our experiences, education, philosophy, religion; all of the things that make us who we are. While these individual characteristics are valuable and important, they can lead us to react inappropriately to people who have views that are different than ours. They can also cause us to be combative rather than receptive to proposals of dialogue. One particular example of bias preventing dialogue is conspiracy theories involving ;big ag;. There exists these ideas that everyone who interacts with ;big ag; is somehow part of ;big ag;. People who subscribe to this view include farmers as part of ;big ag;, as described by Nate Taylor on All Things Agriculture : You obviously have many issues with the current food system, and I do not disagree that there are many to go after, but including the farmer in that mix and then calling them Big-Ag because it is easy and people ;understand it; doesn;t help and creates divides. I am not Big-Ag and never have been. There is a real interaction between farmers and ;big ag;. They buy products from and sell their crops to corporations that are considered to be part of ;big ag;. This doesn;t mean that the farmers are 







Document Number: 9069
thought Hitler was a bad fella ; these guys could show him a thing or two ; and they;re creeping up on us quietly without guns or anything like that, but the poison is there. The longer the GM debate went on, the likelihood that someone would invoke the big baddie approached 1 and has now been met. The comparison just doesn;t make any sense. Happily, the great GM debate is now over. According to Wikipedia, a corollary of Godwin;s Law is that ;once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically ;lost; whatever debate was in progress.; That was easy. &lt;wipes hands&gt; Ok, enough of the silliness, I won;t actually stoop to Ms. Fulton;s level. There are plenty of real issues to discuss. While it is unclear in the extremely biased Australian Times article whether Ms. Fulton was referring to farmers who grew GM crops or to the companies selling them, I;m willing to bet it was the latter. Like many anti-GM activists, Ms. Fulton rails against big corporations selling the seed. Specifically, she demonizes them because they ;push the benefits;. This is just absurd ; what corporation or person attempting 







Document Number: 7061
feeling that Dr. Benbrook started with a conclusion and found data to fit rather than starting with a general review then finding significant conclusions. It;s not that I necessarily have any specific problems with the information Dr. Benbrook presents, it;s just that I think he;s leaving some key ideas out of the report that should have been considered. There are also generalizations that just aren;t warranted. There are a lot of problems with this report, but I;m particualrly concerned with the way Dr. Benbrook fails, for the most part, to distinguish between different biotech traits, fails to distinguish and between different pesticides, and fails to consider non-biotech traits that could increase pesticide use. First, all GMOs are not created equal. The two biotech traits currently on the market are herbicide tolerance and insect resistance (Bt). These traits are obviously very different, but most of the report just lumps them together as ;GE crops;, even though the report clearly states multiple times that Bt crops have reduced insecticide use. For example: Bt corn and cotton have delivered consistent reductions in insecticide use totaling 64.2 million pounds over the 13 years. Bt corn reduced insecticide use by 32.6 million pounds, or by 







Document Number: 2511
though, because one of the other panelists ( Jeffery Smit h, a former Iowa political candidate for the Natural Law Party with no discernible scientific or agricultural training) believes that eating GE crops causes infertility, organ damage and endocrine disruption. Of course, the scientific evidence for these statements is about as strong as saying that looking at carrots will give you brain tumors. Can the audience glean that from the information presented on the show? I am afraid not. What we do know is that after 14 years of consumption there has been not a single instance of harm to human health or the environment ( and many indisputable benefit s). I did my best to refute the worst ;woo woo pseudoscience; but it was difficult. I asked the producers (who were very nice by the way) to remove the scary graphics and bullet points but no luck. I argued that showing that stuff would tarnish Dr. Oz;s reputation and harm his viewers (who are now probably terrified- I can just imagine my mother-in-law taking note on all the ;points; made). I had a chance to plug some great science-based, academic, non-profit sites ( bioforitifed,or g, ucbiotech.org and academicsreview.org ) 







Document Number: 6202
Instead of writing about genetically modified plants, I;m going to spend a large portion of my time writing about genetically modified insects and insect pathogens. It may seem odd to some that a blog that mostly focuses on controversies in modern agriculture would ask someone who studies insects to write on their site, but it;s not as counter intuitive as you think. Insects are a huge part of agriculture because they are our biggest competitors for food. One of the most common types of genetically modified corn, the various BT cultivars, were developed to fight the European Corn Borer, Ostrinia nubilalis , which is a tiny Crambid moth which burrows into the stalks of the plants and eventually kills them. An entomologist writing for a site which explores the politics of Genetically Modified Organisms makes sense for another reason, and that;s because entomologists sometimes modify the genes of insects in order to do their work. Some of this occurs naturally, through the actions of polydnavirus particles some parasitoid wasps inject into their hosts to control the behavior, development, and immune reactions of that host. Sometimes it;s simple and artificial such as releasing insects sterilized with X-ray radiation in order to 







Document Number: 7891
Christianity needed some 1500 years before it;s wake-up call came on 31 October 1517 when Martin Luther nailed 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg . These are fast moving times, and environmentalism;s changed much faster than Christianity did. Forty-seven years after the publication of Rachel Carson;s Silent Spring , the corresponding key date to 10/31/1517 in the reformation of environmentalism, is the day in 2009 when Stewart Brand;s Whole Earth Discipline: an Ecopragmatist Manifesto reached the bookstores. It;s not what Stewart Brand says that important (and there is quite a bit I disagree with in the book). It is the open-minded and pragmatic way he goes about questioning the down-side of the romanticism that has dominated the environmentalist movement of the last 48 years. He points out where scientific environmental pragmatism and scepticism got submerged by quasi-religious faith in big ideas that are often wrong. It is these wrong big ideas are now both harming people, and harming the reputation of environmentalism. Environmentalism needs a Martin Luther to rescue it;s reputation. As he rightly says ;it;s fortunate that there are so many romantics in the movement, because they are the ones who inspired the majority 







Document Number: 1350
have more than two fingers. I;ve never taken a course in ecology, and I;ve rarely dealt with full, intact organisms. It is with just such a background that I absorbed a talk by Allison Snow at Rutgers ten days ago. Snow* is an evolutionary biologist and ecologist who;s been running an interesting experiment on wild radishes for more than a decade now. In the 90;s, when transgenic crops like Bt corn and Roundup Ready soybean were beginning to dominant the market (and the landscape), there were concerns that wild relatives would incorporate the transgenes and spread as superweeds. Corn and soybean, with their lack of compatible relatives in the US, are exempt from this concern. However, as more and more transgenic crops with compatible relatives come down the pipeline (and with some, like canola, already here) there needs to be some hard data on just how easily transgenes can persist and spread in wild populations. Wild Radish. USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database. Domestic radish ( Raphanus sativus ), like nearly all domesticated crops, differs profoundly from its wild relative ( Raphanus raphanistrum ). The traits that make for a delicious ingredient in a salad often make for a wimpy competitor in the 







Document Number: 7926
should be a mandatory label. For example, a label that a product contains nuts is justified by severe allergic reactions, even though the additional label may add to the cost of a product for people who don;t have allergies. Any label that doesn;t have a proven hazard is simply a label of preference, so should not be mandatory. Instead, voluntary labels are appropriate. For example, producers may choose to label products as free from animal products if they think the cost of sourcing non-animal ingredients, testing, and labeling will be rewarded by additional purchases of their products by vegetarians and vegans. Non-vegetarians shouldn;t have to pay for a label is based on preference, not science. Practical concerns are not the only reason to label or not label foods, however. Ethics definitely comes into play. Do people have a right to labels, such as labels that indicate a product contains ingredients derived from genetically modified organisms? Chris MacDonald Chris MacDonald, Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Saint Mary;s University , has written about the ethics of labeling GMOs at The Food Ethics Blog : Should Companies Label Genetically Modified Foods? and in a peer-revied paper Corporate Decisions about Labelling Genetically 







Document Number: 9393
International Competition for Agricultural Production Land is Rising Dramatically The food situation in poor countries continues to deteriorate. On World Food Day, October 16th, the number of starving people worldwide will have reached a staggering 925 million. ;Even assuming the very best possible scenario, the poorest nations will fail by a wide margin to produce enough food to feed their own populations over the coming decades,; says Harald von Witzke, President of the Humboldt Forum for Food and Agriculture. ;This rapidly growing shortfall can only be met if richer nations are able to produce and export more food. So far, the EU has turned a blind eye to this looming crisis. Despite the urgent need for immediate action, this important issue has received little or no publicity.; Von Witzke believes that the EU has neglected critical investment in agricultural research for far too long. In the meantime, it has become the world;s biggest net importer of agricultural produce. This means that in order to meet its own demand for food, natural fibres, bio-energy and other agricultural products, the EU uses a virtual land area in other countries of about 35 million hectares, equivalent to the size of Germany. The last 







Document Number: 6433
out of the host. 4-5.) Cells in the female reproductive organs begin producing viral particles. In Polydnaviruses, Nature;s GMOs , I explained how polydnaviruses disabled host immune defenses through genetic modification. A post after that, I discussed how polydnaviruses use modified insect proteins to interfere with these systems. So if you;re a biologically-minded person, there;s one question you should be asking yourself. It;s a rather important question because it;s answer could shed light on what makes these wasps species-specific, and this is essential for any biocontrol project. So;how did they evolve? These systems have arisen at least three times independently with different viruses. The Ichneumonid wasps use polydnaviruses which are derived from Ascoviruses, which are DNA viruses which infect invertebrates. The genus Nasonia uses poxviruses in a manner which is probably the same as the Ichnoviruses and Bracoviruses. We;ll discuss the Ichnovirus and Bracovirus system as examples of model systems. Most eukaryotic genomes are essentially old battlegrounds between critters and their viruses. Viruses can go through a process called endogenization, which is when a virus integrates into the genome of a eukaryotic cell. Viral DNA will occasionally integrate into an organism;s genome and then get deactivated either by mutation or 







Document Number: 7618
incredible new spray that kills, say, Phytophthora infestans , you;d know that somewhere in the world there is a little P. infestans mycelium or spore that is already resistant. If you start spraying thousands and thousands of acres with your new pesticide, you may have a season or a few without late blight, but it;s only a matter of time before this little guy gets into your field and finds a smorgasbord all for himself (to a lesser extent, this probably also applies to multicellular weed and insect pests). This is one of the primary critiques of modern ag monocultures. The 1970 Southern corn leaf blight epidemic is a great example of what happens when a lucky germ stumbles onto a crop that can no longer defend itself. Luckily for us, this is pretty rare. Simple mutations that provide microbes instantaneous resistance to a pesticide (or to a plant;s genetic disease resistance) tend to have pretty nasty side effects (think human resistance to malaria via sickle cell anemia ). This means that stacking up multiple disease resistance genes (natural or transgenic) in a single plant increases the chance not only that no local microbes will be resistant, but also that 







Document Number: 983
glances. Instead, I read deeply and find out more. This post is going to be long, but I think the length is justified since the article has been diligently repeated on Common Dreams and Grist , and of course picked up by Digg and used as part of an anti-GM riff at the DailyKos and other political blogs. Frankly, Im tired of seeing science get twisted to suit an agenda, and Im going to report some facts. The first sentence of Exposed is clearly sensationalist: Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis. Nevermind that scientists never state findings in such definite terms. Any result is simply a hypothesis that hasnt been rejected. It isnt fact until it has been corroborated by multiple studies by other researchers, and until it has been published in a peer reviewed journal of consequence. Thats simply the way science works. I suppose the enthusiasm can be chalked up to journalistic license. The results of this study were published in the quarterly Better Crops (the full name of the publication is 







Document Number: 1544
Why organic foods are an indulgence the world cant afford posted yesterday has the headline: Theyre not healthier or better for the environment and theyre packed with pesticides. In an age of climate change and shortages, these foods are an indugence [sic] the world cant afford, argues environmental expert Rob Johnston. He makes a lot of good points, but without proof, the points are nothing. Ill just run through the list pointing out some flaws and gems in the article. Myth one: Organic farming is good for the environment A litre of organic milk requires 80 per cent more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20 per cent greater global warming potential, releases 60 per cent more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70 per cent more to acid rain. These numbers are surprising, but not altogether different from what Ive read elsewhere. Organically grown food can have yields comparable to conventional in good years, but doesnt yield as well when stressed with pests and unideal climate. So, in our imperfect world full of droughts, corn borers, and various fungi to name a few ; organic fields are often less productive, requiring more land to grow the same amount 







Document Number: 4274
, and they claim to have confirmed that it was written by Dr. Huber. You can find the full text of the letter on the FRFA site with the ominous title Researcher: Roundup or Roundup-Ready Crops May Be Causing Animal Miscarriages and Infertility . The story has been picked up by many bloggers, including Jill Richardson , and even made an appearance on Reuters . I haven;t seen any posts dedicated to a critical analysis of the letter, instead there is a rush to assume that it is correct, despite the lack of citations or other evidence provided for the extraordinary claims in the letter. The story is often accompanied with horrific pictures of dead fetal calves and the words ;Emergency!; and ;Danger!; Are we really all in danger? The claims in the letter bring to mind Carl Sagan;s famous statement: ;extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.; Let;s investigate the claims and determine whether enough evidence is provided. ;This organism appears NEW to science!; In the letter, Dr. Huber claims that there is a never-before-seen pathogen that is caused by or exacerbated by either glyphosate containing Roundup herbicide or the widely used glyphosate resistance gene. The letter opens: A team of 







Document Number: 4517
getting well-used. It is helping us get an idea what issues readers want to discuss apart from what;s on the minds of the blog authors. This forum was one of our top priorities to put together, among several that Anastasia and I came up with during a telephone meeting a few months ago. What I would like to do is reiterate the things we would like to add to the blog, and see what other kinds of features readers and users would like to see. In the coming weeks, I plan to give the blog a much-needed visual and functional update. Biofortified is run with WordPress, which allows for an enormous set of possibilities. I plan to replace the blog;s current theme with a more functional updated one that will look similar. The fading features gallery seen before on the blog will return, which was lost because of a conflict between the current theme and a recent wordpress update. Along the sidebar, we have added Frank;s Twitter widget, an awards section (hopeful for more!), and a Networked Blogs widget that shows who is following the blog in Facebook. With the updated theme, I will also add a much-needed ;Latest Forum 







Document Number: 7656
leads a group of students calling for the school to reverse her decision, GMO Safety reports. The story was also reported in NatureNews . The protesters have destroyed fields almost every year since 1996, when researchers at HfWU first started to study transgenic crops. One of the biggest arguments against genetic engineering is that it is untested. The students at HfWU worry that the only research on genetic engineering will be conducted by big corporations, if they can no longer research at universities. Sadly, the same has been happening in the US. The entire interview with Kathrin can be found below GMO Safety: In early April, GM opponents occupied a trial field at the HfWU, rendering it largely unfit for deliberate release experiments. What do you make of this type of protest? Kathrin Mendler: The fields were destroyed in previous years too when the maize was trampled on and pulled up after sowing. It is important for people to freely express their opinion, but I think its completely wrong to do it this way. You can find ways to put your point across without destroying other peoples property. It annoys me that they treat the property of others like this, 







Document Number: 2972
its long history. After I walked out of the NCCC-167 meeting to pick up my name tag and conference book for MGC, Anastasia had just arrived and we started chatting about many of the things that have been going on with the blog, and in the world. We put up our posters (Anastasia has a research poster and one for MaizeResearch.org, and I brought our latest blog poster) and had dinner. That;s when the first awesome thing happened. When we sat down at a table with our food, a guy named Carl sat down across from us. He took a look at our name tags and told us he knows ; and likes ; our blog. First name-recognition from the blog! We talked with him and the other members of the ad-hoc table party about what we all do, and interesting issues in genetic engineering. We learned a little about GE crop regulations and how bizarringly strict they can be sometimes. For instance, many regulations require that every base pair in the plasmid you use to transform a GE crop be accounted for. The sequence is the easy part, however often times these circular pieces of DNA that genetic engineers 







Document Number: 6079
stayed in a tiny room in a traditional Korean house called a ;Hanok; house. There is a courtyard that everyone shares that the owners have filled with lots of stuff including a rabbit named Mimi. In this quiet place, one can imagine ancient times before the rebirth of this powerful nation that was almost totally destroyed by the Korean war (1950-1953). Now, although most cities are dominated by massive buildings and congestion and where many restaurants are run by industry giants such as Samsung and Hyundai, a quieter life and traditional foods can still be found in the alleyways and countryside. Our first night there, Audrey got up in the middle of the night to sit in the courtyard in the pouring rain. When the lightening got too fierce and frightening she returned to our futon put her head on the buckwheat pillow and slept so soundly that her jet lag was over with the first night. The diet staple here is rice. According to the FAO , 47% of the total caloric intake in Korea were supplied by rice in 1965. These percentages decreased to 35% in 1995, due to incorporation of other foods in the diet. We have 







Document Number: 7866
toxins. A few things have happened in the middle to late 20th century that have turned the tables on food. First, in the developed world, we now have an excess of food. The worry has shifted from having too little to eat, to having too much. Second, the technology of food manufacture has allowed for an exquisite variety of highly palatable foods. The human biological urge for sweets, and probably fats, can be indulged with foods that are higher in both than any in nature. Third, advances in microbiology and nutrition, often implemented by government regulations make the food supply very low in toxins or harmful micro-organisms. Nutritional supplementation and guidelines make it relatively difficult to consume a seriously imbalanced diet. Fourth, as a result of what is sometimes called the epidemiological revolution, infectious and other acute diseases have been greatly reduced in incidence, and can be cured in the great majority of cases. The result of this has been a substantial increase in human longevity, and a shift from acute infectious to chronic degenerative diseases as the main cause of death. Fifth, information about the health effects of different patterns of food intake, and different foods, has become widely 







Document Number: 4722
Study Week as an open source Volume of NEW BIOTECHNOLOGY of Elsevier and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Food security ; sufficient nutritious food at all times to live a healthy and productive life ; is one of the prime challenges for mankind. On the background of the public debate about the potential contribution from transgenic plants and the interest of the Vatican in the this challenge, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences was inviting an interdisciplinary group of independent public sector scientists, known for their scientific rigor and their engagement in social justice, to analyze the peer- reviewed state of science about transgenic plants and to explore the conditions under which the obvious potential of this technology could be made available in a better way for public good and the poor. In summary, the program of the study week was designed (a) to present the potential of plant genetic engineering to contribute to food security, (b) to analyze the causes for the obvious exclusion of the public sector and projects from the delivery of public goods and (c) to develop concepts how to improve the situation to the benefit of the poor. The participants represented a wide and interdisciplinary range 







Document Number: 3705
in New Zealand, where experimenting with genetically engineered food is highly regulated, tasting was banned. How was this forbidden fruit created? By overexpression of an apple transcription factor in the white-fleshed, tasty Royal Gala variety. The transcription factor was isolated from an apple that has both red flesh and red skin, that occurs in Central Asia. However, these apples are normally quite bitter tasting so some genetic manipulation was needed to create a new variety that was red but had good flavor. The GE apple carries at least 5000x more anthocyanins than the Royal Gala. The work was led by Andrew Allan at Plant ; Food Research , a non-profit research institute in New Zealand. Richard Espley, a molecular biologist at Plant ; Food Research, was named one of the MacDiarmid Young Scientists of the Year for his work in apple genetics. The Plant and Food scientists are also trying to develop a red-fruited Royal Gala using marker assisted breeding but do not yet have a commercially viable product. Take a look at this great video describing their work: By the way, if I had not been able to resist temptation, and had bit into the apple (without approval from 







Document Number: 3896
technology, and indeed the ludicrous reaction of GM Watch in particular, to creationist tactics against evolutionary biology. On the other hand, on Orac;s medical blog, he made the comparison between those groups and the Alternative Medicine crowd, including and especially the Anti-vaccination groups. It is fascinating to note that politically, the creationist version of antiscience is conservative, and the anti-vax version is generally liberal. But they share a commonality in that science is rejected as the best means of obtaining knowledge, and something else, be it political or religious ideology takes its place and dictates the facts. I thought it would be a good idea to write a post detailing several of them, and then Steve Savage at Sustainablog went and did it for me. Check out The Bizarre, Modern Coalition of Anti-Science Forces . He didn;t cover every kind, but he delves into several of them including anti-GE forces, anti-global warming activities, and the antiscience-of-the-year, it seems, Anti-vaccination. In the comments section a reader confirms exactly what he is talking about. In the blog discussions that ensued while the voting went on, a few fights broke out over one issue or another, but a very strong sentiment was expressed 







Document Number: 688
Well, I;ve had a little time to mull the ideas over and the motivation of achieving a decent grade in Foundations in Sustainable Agriculture. The result is the following paper about framing agriculture in different ways, and how those frames might hold us back from achieving a truly sustainable agriculture. Let me know what you think! New ways of looking at agriculture Analytical frameworks can be helpful in putting peoples ideas about agriculture, and indeed many other things, into context. In Integrating Sustainability into Agricultural Education, Wals and Bawden (2005, p. 30-32) describe dichotomous ways to see the world. Academics like Wals and Bawden and their predecessors and successors invent and use analytical frameworks to help describe ways of thinking. These frameworks, based on philosophical theory, are artificial divisions. No single one of them is right or correct, theyre just different ways to describe the same things. Nonetheless, it can be very helpful to categorize the ways that people frame the world around them. If we work to understand the frameworks that people use to view agricultural problems and solutions, we might be better able to communicate with people that have frameworks that differ from our own. Improved communication and 







Document Number: 4522
This conference brought farmers, consumers, and seeds from all over the Midwest to attend some workshops about everything from producing seed, to building healthy soils, to market farming and even some were about genetic engineering. Karl was also there and he reminded me that I still have a lot of pictures from my travels last year that I haven;t put up on the blog. So now that I;m back in Berkeley (there;s a story about that which I will tell), I am not wasting any time showing you how much fun I had! Anastasia has set up a Flickr account for the blog, which you can see on the Photos page ! This has made it so much easier for me. I may be smarter than the average corn but all this web stuff is confusing. You can see the pictures from my whole trip in the Flickr photo album hosted on Biofortified here , on the Flickr site , or read more below. Seed Swap! I can;t wait! The fine folks at Vermont Valley Community Farm have got some seed potatoes here of all kinds of colors. Jonnah (holding me) likes the blue ones the best. Their little tubers 







Document Number: 5661
scientists, all working on the genetics of; me! Well me and my brothers and sisters in the great Zea mays family. My flight was delayed, so I missed the first part of the conference. Luckily someone filled me in on what happened. Apparently I;m 1.4 percent Helitron! Good deal. I managed to get there just in time for the first viewing session for posters. But three geneticists barred my way saying ;Is this guy legit?; I thought they didn;t recognize me, but they were pulling my leg, I was expected! That was a relief! I wouldn;t want to miss these posters. This is my favorite part of scientific meetings. Meeting people, seeing what cool stuff they;re working on. Like Patrice, here, who was comparing the chromosomes of some of my cousins by FISH mapping repeat sequences. That means that wherever there were repetitive segments of DNA of different kinds, she made them glow different colors under the microscope! I wish I could show them to you but this stuff is unpublished. And she was simply glowing to see me. Later that evening, I listened to a big presentation by Pam Johnson from the National Corn Grower;s Association. My favorite part 







Document Number: 1211
as well as the big ones like potassium. We can do our best to replace the nutrients with fertilizers (synthetic or organic) but will never match mother nature. So, what do we do? Biochar is plant matter (such as corn stover) that has undergone pyrolysis (heating without oxidation). To put it extremely simply, biochar is a large quantity of biomass ;condensed; into a smaller quantity of charcoal. All of the minerals in the biomass are now in the biochar. Increasing soil health in the form of microbes is another positive effect of biochar. Plants grown in biochar do better than plants in unamended soil (see picture at right, no info on a comparison to conventional or organic soil amendments. I;ll let the International Biochar Initiative (IBI) explain: Biochar is a fine-grained charcoal high in organic carbon and largely resistant to decomposition. It is produced from pyrolysis of plant and waste feedstocks. As a soil amendment, biochar creates a recalcitrant soil carbon pool that is carbon-negative, serving as a net withdrawal of atmospheric carbon dioxide stored in highly recalcitrant soil carbon stocks. The enhanced nutrient retention capacity of biochar-amended soil not only reduces the total fertilizer requirements but also the climate 







Document Number: 3279
countries especially those where corn is a staple food against fumonisin, a toxin produced by fungi. Until now, physicians thought the growth retardation of children in those regions was to be blamed on the poor nutritional value of the complementary maize porridge they receive when breast milk is no longer sufficient. But toxins indeed are involved, the scientists report in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research. The call is made by scientists of the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp and their colleagues of the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority and Gent University. Until now, not much attention was paid to mycotoxins in food (mycotoxins are toxins produced by fungi) with the exception of aflatoxin, of mouldy nuts ill fame. But their research in rural Tanzania does connect fumonisin with stunting and underweight. It is the first time anybody establishes this association. Worldwide, 1 child in 3 suffers from growth retardation and 1 in 4 is underweight. The problems of stunting and underweight are associated with over 5 million deaths of children less than 5 years annually. 70% of these deaths are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Malnutrition is implicated in the majority of these deaths. Already in 







Document Number: 8675
defined*. Both proponents and opponents in the comments and in the official statements had off topic ideas, depending on how they framed the assertion. It;s really a shame because this could have been an opportunity to really discuss how we can forge a new agriculture that is less harmful for the environment. The discussion really needs to include proponents of and experts in genetic engineering, plant breeding, agronomy like Pamela Ronald and Sir Gordon Conway , proponents of and experts in sustainable agriculture, like Matt Liebman and Charles Benbrook , and perhaps most importantly everyday people. If we;re really committed to moving towards a better agriculture for everyone , we need to get past labels, get past ideology, and cooperate. Biofortified was designed to be a place where we can have that discussion, but just like the Economist debate, discussion here can easily get derailed with ideas that are important but not directly related to the topic at hand. The off topic discussion can be really interesting, but decreases the likelihood that we;ll reach any agreement on the main topic. I wonder if reframing of a subject with a slightly more narrow focus would help. In the case of the 







Document Number: 1066
frost-free wheat, the opposite is reported in the UK. The Daily Express reports that GM crops could send food prices rocketing . Wha? In order to understand this claim, you have to take into account the market and regulatory environment in the United Kingdom. As far as I know, the only GE crop that can currently be grown in the UK is Bt maize, although there is talk of more crops being approved in the near future. They also import most of the soybeans used in animal feed from South America, which is growing more and more GE soy each year. Although GE soy can be imported into the UK, it appears that there are still restrictions on these imports that make it difficult for much of this soy to get into the country. Currently, also, foods derived from genetically engineered crops must be labeled as such in the UK, as noted here, some food manufacturers and fast food chains source their soy from non-GE farms. Although it appears that people in the EU don;t care or don;t even read the labels , there is a substantial market for non-GE soy for producers who do business in the UK. Meat 







Document Number: 2198
like to make some quick comments on gene flow. First, pollen of many types of plants are capable of traveling quite far. The exact distances are dependent on wind, weather, plant density, species, etc. For the most part, though, pollen stays near its origin, so that gene flow between separated populations is slow (not many fertilizations between populations). It is fairly easy to test gene flow and pollen spread rates. An elegant example was prepared by Jason Haegle, an undergraduate at Iowa State under distinguished professor Peter Peterson . As described in The Flow of Maize Pollen in a Designed Field Plot , Jason planted purple corn surrounded by yellow corn. He planted the rows 0.76 meters apart (much wider than normal) to eliminate any effect of plant density. He simply counted the purple kernels on the ears in the yellow corn fields to determine how much and how far the pollen spread. Yellow corn plants that were closest to the purple corn of course had the most purple kernels. Three rows into the yellow corn, numbers of purple kernels (thus amounts of pollen from those plants) dropped dramatically. Other studies on maize pollen flow agree that the majority of 







Document Number: 5707
Cotton Genome Sequencing ST. LOUIS and SAN DIEGO (Sept. 22, 2010) The complicated cotton genome is one step closer to having its genetic threads unraveled, thanks to a key research milestone completed and announced today by Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) and San Diego-based Ilumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN). &nbsp;Combining Monsantos knowledge of cotton genomics and Illumina;s next generation sequencing technology, a critical landmark has been achieved that could lead to the development of cotton crops with higher yields, better fiber quality, and greater resistance to diseases and pests. The two companies have completed sequencing a wild Peruvian cotton species, Gossypium raimondii , and will donate their findings to the public. The completion of G. raimondii will aid public and private researchers in their quest to sequence the more elusive genome of domesticated cotton, G. hirsutum . Domesticated cotton, more commonly known as American Upland cotton, accounts for more than 95 percent of U.S. production. Its genome has proven difficult to sequence and assemble because of its large size as well as the large quantity of repetitive DNA. The cotton genome, at about 2.7 billion nucleotides, is roughly comparable to the human genome at 3.2 billion. Additionally, most organismsincluding humanshave two sets of 







Document Number: 8050
16-year-olds should be allowed to create transgenic Escherichia coli bacteria in the classroom. Practical experiments in which students learn how to use plasmids to alter the DNA of the bacteria have been under way for 17 and 18-year-olds in the final year of the scientific baccalaureate at schools across France for the past decade. But this year teachers have for the first time been offered the option of teaching the experiments to younger students. The Committee for Research &amp; Independent Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) in Caen, France, which lobbies for stricter controls over genetic engineering, is particularly upset because in the experiments the students modify the bacteria to become resistant to the antibiotic ampicillin.* Gilles-Eric Sralini, president of the organization;s scientific committee, says that CRIIGEN is in favour of genetic engineering, as long as it is properly controlled. But the necessary restrictions are not currently in place, he says. CRIIGEN ;will urge the education ministry to impose a moratorium until a full debate on the question is organized;, says Sralini. ;We believe such material should not be manipulated by students before they reach university.; He warns against trivialization of a sensitive subject, contamination risks and possible violation of European 







Document Number: 6194
can be stunningly beautiful, and sometimes silly. Margaret Clarke researches the soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum using biotechnology. Dr. Clarke is officially retired, but as a dedicated scientist, she;s continuing her work. She visited Iowa State yesterday and today. Phagocytosis of a bacterium by an immune cell (on a tee shirt!) by Zazzle. In particular, Dr. Clarke studies phagocytosis ; literally ;cell eating;. These amoeba are single celled organisms that eat bacteria (and just about any bacteria-sized particle that might be nutritious). Phagocytosis is the process of forming a cup that engulfs the prey, drawing the prey into the phagocyte, and digesting the prey. Her work has important applications in human medicine, as the phagocytosis process takes place in special phagocytic cells that are part of the immune system of humans and other animals. Learning how phagocytosis works in amoeba can help us to understand how it works in the immune system. Before biotechnology came around, Dr. Clarke used biochemical analysis to determine what sorts of compounds were at work in actively phagocytising cells. She was able to find out that both actin and myosin were present. While this was important information (people used to think myosin was only present in 







Document Number: 1113
to even consider until extraordinary proof is provided (and preferably replicated by another lab and peer reviewed), Don Huber;s claims that Roundup (specifically the active ingredient glyphosate) weakens crops by binding minerals in the soil seems to have at least some merit, at least enough to be taken seriously and examined further. Over the years since Roundup Ready (RR) crops have been released, independent researchers have conducted many studies to determine whether there is a specific problem with some crop varieties with the RR gene, with all crops with the RR gene, or with glyphosate itself. Overall, the research shows that there may be some concern about glyphosate reducing availability of some minerals when the soil is deficient in those minerals. The research hasn;t found a problem with the RR gene itself. It is important to note that the stack of peer reviewed papers indicating glyphosate to be a problem with disease or yield is much smaller than the stack indicating there is no problem. We must look at the entire body of evidence, not just cherry pick one or a few papers, in order to get a clear understanding of what;s really happening. Happily, extension experts from multiple universities 







Document Number: 6359
food and fuel crops Forests of genetically altered trees and other plants could sequester several billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year and so help ameliorate global warming, according to estimates published in the October issue of&nbsp; BioScience . The&nbsp; study, by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory , outlines a variety of strategies for augmenting the processes that plants use to sequester carbon dioxide from the air and convert it into long-lived forms of carbon, first in vegetation and ultimately in soil. Besides increasing the efficiency of plants; absorption of light, researchers might be able to genetically alter plants so they send more carbon into their roots;where some may be converted into soil carbon and remain out of circulation for centuries. Other possibilities include altering plants so that they can better withstand the stresses of growing on marginal land, and so that they&nbsp; yield improved bioenergy and food crops . Such innovations might, in combination, boost substantially the amount of carbon that vegetation naturally extracts from air, according to the authors; estimates. The researchers stress that the use of genetically engineered plants for carbon sequestration is only one of many policy initiatives 







Document Number: 1988
Australias former Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock. Our Green Revolution is near spent. The enormous and lasting gains made in crop yield through conventional plant breeding, mechanization, crop protection and clever agronomy are slowing. But the next era for mainstream broadacre farming is already here, it might well be called the Gene Revolution. More than 95% of Australias near 400,000 hectare cotton crop this summer consists of GM varieties. And in only the 3rd year of commercial production, there are some 133,300 hectares of GM canola in NSW, Victoria and WA this spring an estimated 9% of the total canola crop. What else is coming over the hill? Well, you name it GM research underway in Australia covers: papaya, pineapple, sugarcane, grapevines, carnations, rice, white clover, wheat, Indian mustard, bananas, barley, perennial ryegrass, tall fescue, corn and roses. Most work is focusing on key traits which lessen production risks and underpin yield. The big-ticket item, GM wheat, is just 7 or more years away. Clearly, our farmers and their advisors, and the supply chain all the way through to customers and consumers, now need to start appreciating the GM reality, and separate myth from fact. Fact 1: GM science will 







Document Number: 5703
insects with radiation, it can kill rapidly reproducing cells. High doses of radiation can also damage the DNA in quickly reproducing gamete producing cells to the point where it can;t be read, creating severe mutations that stop important proteins from being made. In other words, sperm are produced, but they aren;t healthy. If female flies mate with one of these males, she won;t produce any offspring. If this happens enough on a large scale, the population plummets because females aren;t producing viable offspring. This technique has been used for years in various disciplines from medicine to agriculture. There;s always room for improvement, and this is no exception. These guys like fruit and long walks on the beach. Flash forward 50 years past the screwworm elimination program (discussed in part 1 ) and several other wildly successful programs. Greatly increased international travel allows pests to spread all over the globe. One pest, the Mediterranean fruit fly ( Ceratitis capitata or Medfly for short), has a host range of over 200 plant species. It specializes on crops where just about any damage justifies control. Medfly larvae feed inside the fruit, so they;re really hard to control because there aren;t Bt crops available 







Document Number: 743
Malaria is caused by a parasite which ruptures blood cells in unison. African trypanosomiasis makes you go to sleep and then die. Dengue fever lays you up in bed for six months in some of the worst agony imaginable. Hell, even veterinary VBDs are horrifying; outbreaks of rift valley fever usually present with random farm animal abortions. In 2008, malaria alone killed 708,000 to over a million people, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa, and an estimated 190 to 311 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, according to the CDC . Diseases like malaria, may actually work to keep poor regions poor. Control methods often do not reach the poorest people due to high cost; vector borne diseases tend to be diseases of poverty. Check out this video made as a public service announcement in 1943 by Disney. Some of the control methods have changed, such as specific chemicals, but not that much. So; what can be done to help save lives in regions with VBD problems? We can vaccinate, in those few cases where vaccines have been developed, and we can kill the vectors, but vector control efforts can be expensive. Education and awareness is great, too; 







Document Number: 8057
mutations in insects. In part 2 , I explained how we can use genetic engineering to make these projects safer and easier. So; part 3. What;s the next step? Put it to the test! A system is only good if we can actually use it. We can test stuff in a laboratory and under cages all we want, but the tests only matter if they have an effect on real-world populations. This step has now been taken. Mosquitoes which have been modified by the Oxford-based company Oxitec to carry tetracycline repressible lethal genes (as described in part 2 ) are being released into the wild to combat outbreaks of Dengue fever in the Cayman Islands (see press release ). This real-world test will help us to see if this technique will work in real-world situations. It;s kind of pretty in a ;they;re gonna kill us all; kind of way. Image via Wikimedia. Dengue is largely spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes which feed pretty much only on humans and are present in the highest populations around our cities;they;re mosquitoes which have adapted to an urban lifestyle. They bite during the day, so we can;t use bed nets. They;re notoriously resistant to 







Document Number: 1703
part of their life cycle and be totally cool in another. It;s one of those weird science paradoxes which make the field of entomology so much fun. In my last series of posts I discussed a new way to bring down pest populations by letting transgenic insects mate with wildtype insects and letting their offspring wither and die from a toxin which builds up inside of them. It;s really just a variation of a technique that;s been around since the ;50s that uses a gene that codes for a toxin ( part 2 ) in place of radiation ( part 1 ). It;s great for everyone involved (except for the mosquitoes ; part 3 ), and it could even lead to the technique becoming more widespread by nixing the use of radiation all together. It turns out that on top of all that we may be able to make mosquitoes work to our advantage. Vaccines work by stimulating an immune response. In short, vaccines are made by either injecting a weakened version of the pathogen or a part of a pathogen like an important protein that;s part of the pathogen into a person. This coaxes the body into producing proteins 







Document Number: 4887
transgenic maize crops in the valley of Barranca, casting doubt on earlier claims by a researcher of their illegal existence. Those claims were central to a recent court case in which Ernesto Bustamante Donayre, a molecular biologist and vice-president of the Peruvian College of Biologists, was convicted of defamation after criticising research by Antonietta Ornella Gutirrez Rosati ; that purported to find evidence of such crops. The existence of the official report was revealed during an international biotechnology workshop organised by Peru;s National Institute of Agrarian Innovation (INIA) in June. Although it has not yet been published, SciDev.Net has gained access to it. The report examines 164 maize samples from the area, and concludes that there was not enough evidence to determine the presence of transgenic crops in the Barranca valley. In November 2007 Gutirrez, a biologist at the National Agricultural University of La Molina (UNALM), Peru, claimed in a newspaper article that she had found unauthorised transgenic maize in the valley. Such maize would have been illegal because any release of GM crops must have prior government approval, although the procedure is not clear as the country;s biosafety regulation is still under discussion. When Bustamante criticised Gutirrez;s study in 







Document Number: 165
and I come from down under ; the land of Vegemite and kangeroos. But it;s really nice to also be part of Biofortified. I;m passing on some old news and some fresher news in this post. Fish make you brainy, or so my dear, sadly missed mother used to tell me. But it is not just fish that makes you brainy. It;s also genetically modified soybean oils. And like fish, these new GM soybean oils can also make you healthier and live longer. Prof Bill Harris, a research group in South Dakota has announced that when overweight human volunteers are given food supplemented with a special new soybean oil, their blood chemistry changes quickly to have the healthy blood profile of omega-3 fats. Omega-3 content in the blood is a good index of improved health. The special soya bean oil that these human volunteers took in their diets was enriched in a natural omega-3 fatty acid called SDA. Genetic modification of soybeans is the best way to coax food crops to make healthy SDA fatty acid. Many other scientific reports establish that the blood composition change seen in people by Prof Harris correlates with improved cardiovascular health. Prof Bill Harris 







Document Number: 1259
Genetic Roulette 1.3 ). In many cases the differences that are claimed are not even statistically significant because the wrong statistical models are used. Quite often the assumptions used when apply the test are violated , and the old saying, &nbsp;a garbage in garbage out applies .When using statistical &nbsp;tests based on certain assumptions it is always important to always ask whether or not the assumptions are justified. But other statistical mistakes are being made when making claims about GM feed safety. A common one is to confuse statistical with practical and biological significance. Even when the assumptions of use a statistical test are justified, a statistical indicator that comes out of them may be of no practical medical or clinical importance. The results &nbsp;may be statistically significant but of no practical or biological importance. Indeed the differences can occur between feeds and foods which are of no importance whatsoever for food safety or nutrition. Most meals we eat are different from one another, but this usually does not matter. The basics of the common misinterpretation of statistical significance is explained extremely well by statistician Schuyler Huck in his great little book about the common misconceptions about statistics. GMO Pundit 







Document Number: 3551
in Western Australia interviewed Seralini on this matte r[link to ABC webpage], and also asked David Tribe to comment about the merits of Seralini;s scientific arguments (strongly criticised elsewhere on GMO Pundit website, for instance in &nbsp; Sad Seralini Statistical Saga &nbsp;and&nbsp; GMO statistics Part 5. FSANZ say non-validated statistical dredging doesn;t mean much ). Seralini has also been strongly criticised by expert statisticians for the mistakes he has made in analysing of experiments done with rats to see how they react to genetically modified corn feed. In this interview &nbsp;with David Tribe &nbsp;&nbsp;we hear about the difference between statistical significance (mentioned by Seralini) and biological significance (not properly evaluated by Seralini). Statistics by itself &nbsp;has very little to say about whether effects that can qualify as being ;statistically significant; are biologically or practically meaningful . Tiny differences that are practically not of any importance to all, or which have no medical or nutritional significance, can still be statistically significant. Many scientists have read the European Food Safety Authority;s demonstration that Seralini;s main conclusions are baseless, but we have yet to hear from Seralini about the comprehensive refutation of his statistical methods made by the European Food Safety Authority. Listen 







Document Number: 6909
diseases to humans in the Independent: ;Opponents fear bacteria inside the guts of animals fed the GM potato which can cause human diseases may develop resistance to antibiotics.; Groups that actively work against deregulation of genetically engineered crops have been making such claims for years. We;ve also seen these claims in peer-reviewed journals (although, far less frequently than in non-peer reviewed media and reports). For example, in the February 2009 issue of Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition , the review Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods : ;An area of concern focuses on the possibility that antibiotic resistance genes used as markers in transgenic crops may be horizontally transferred to pathogenic gut bacteria, thereby reducing the effectiveness of antimicrobial therapy.; Are antibiotic marker genes in genetically engineered crops really a risk to human health? Many people have raised this question and there seems to be a lot of confusion about the issue. It;s time to look into the risks and reasons more deeply. What are antibiotic resistance genes for? Growing plants up from cells. By Mirkov via Michigan State University. In order to understand why these genes are used, we have to look a little at the process 







Document Number: 9371
March 28 Crop Biotech Update . I;ve posted the release below the cut for your convenience. One of the most exciting parts of the WEMA (Water Efficient Maize for Africa) project is that it pulls in such a diverse group ; including research entities from the participating countries, the well known non-profit CIMMYT , and the corporations Monsanto and BASF. In this project, the corporations will not charge any royalties to small scale farmers. I;m assuming they plan to make their profits from large farmers in the developed world that are now or will soon be experiencing destructive droughts, such as Australia. Clearing up licensing issues before a project begins seems to be the best course, especially if we consider the fate of Golden Rice. This ensures that the people who most need the technology will be able to afford it, and that protracted legal battles will be avoided. It;s easy to hate Monsanto at times (especially if you are anti-establishment), but it seems that the company is trying to be a better global citizen, if not for any other reason than to increase their potential customer pool. Who, besides Monsanto and a handful of other biotech companies, has the 







Document Number: 3083
information coming out of the First Global Conference on Biofortification. He wonders if the organizers and attendees were/are too focused on a techno-fix rather than on diverse diets as a solution. This being a conference on biofortification, we talked about biofortification a lot, and it could be argued that biofortification is a techno-fix, whether by breeding or biotechnology. However, we talked about a lot more at the conference, including supplementation and fortification, diverse diets and education, cooking and farming methods. To say that diverse diets were ignored would be incorrect. That obviously isn;t getting through in the materials coming out of the conference through the organizers or media, which is a problem. If we polled each conference attendee, I think most if not all would say that a diverse diet for every human on the planet is the ultimate goal. Many of the sessions addressed this specifically, getting into the details of how diet and nutrition are intertwined. Here are just three examples: Percentage of funds spent by families on different items before and after a 50% increase in food prices. The red and green blocks represent high-nutrient foods from plant and animal sources. Image from Howie Bouis;s plenary talk 







Document Number: 2191
to life. Of course, having Dr. Hector Avalos here helps to keep things interesting. The first ISU Daily article in this round, Avalos: Expelled wrong on Holocaust has accrued almost as many comments and letters to the editor as the articles about Gay Pride week. The whole subject is frustrating, because I dont think there is a controversy. No one should dictate what religious beliefs a person can or can not have. In this country, separation of church and state is a necessity (due to the many faiths or absence of faith present). Therefore, religion can not be taught in state funded schools. Period. If people want to study things other than approved evidence based curricula, they are welcome to do so at home. Dr. Gonzalez is also welcome to study these things, but not while he is on the payroll of a public university to study science. If he was a religious studies professor, things would have been entirely different. The NY Times reports today about Dr. Francisco Ayala, a former Dominican priest and current evolutionary biologist and geneticist at UC, Irvine. Dr. Ayalas thoughts on the ID / Evolution controversy are amazing, unlike any I have every seen. 







Document Number: 1901
it was too late to go, so this year I had it marked on my calendar, and I contacted the organizers months ago about a media pass. Now with my cheap hotel room reserved and fuel in the car I;m all set to go. What will I find at the conference? This is the first conference of this type that I have gone to, although I have been to an organic show-and-tell shindig here at the UW, this conference will be new to me. From looking at the schedule , it seems that it is mostly oriented toward farmers, but there should be plenty for me to check out . The first thing I will see when I get there is the seed swap, which will be a first for me. There is a possibility that I will be able to interview someone about seed saving and/or backyard breeding. Otherwise I;ll take a good look around and maybe get some comments from people. Saturday will be an interesting day for me, though. At 8:30 in the morning, Charles Benbrook from The Organic Center will be giving a talk: Telling the Story of Organic Food Health Saturday I ; 8:30am More 







Document Number: 4658
the program featured an abundance of voices from antitechnology organisations but gave no effective scrutiny of their scientific arguments or credentials. The object of The 7.30 Report discussion was a the new variety of corn bred by cross pollinating different existing corn varieties so that it contains eight different agriculturally advantageous traits. This is the so-called SmartStax corn. This contains six different protections against insect damage and two different versions of herbicide tolerance. SmartStax corn is a genetically modified food product so that component varieties of SmartStax corn have each been tested to ensure that they are completely equivalent to the non-GM parental variety in terms of nutritional and other effects on animals. ABC TV quotes a representative of the Adelaide-based organisation Institute of Health and Environment Research saying that this new corn is akin to a cocktail of drugs in terms of its hazard potential. The words polypharmacy effect are used, presumably meaning that the corn is like a cocktail of drugs. What is missing from this discussion is an analysis of whether a food is a drug. Staple foods and drugs are fundamentally different*. Corn is a food staple, and is digested to its harmless and nutritionally valuable 







Document Number: 2326
table. Another difficulty is that without full knowledge about how the world works, without practical engagement with the challenges of findingsolutions to real world problems, it;s easy to regard distant problems as being unimportant. The proverb out of sight out of mind comes to mind. One example of this is bad take-up in industrialised countries of vaccination programs for diseases which have seemingly been brought under control because of active vaccination programs. In the absence of raging disease parents think that diseases such as measles will not strike their own children. In the area of food production and abundant availability of food over the last 30 or 40 years seems to make future food security something we don;t have to worry about. So we should listen to debates about new technologies particularly keenly even though they are unpopular among many people:&nbsp; Leading environmental campaigners support nuclear and GM Leading environmental campaigners have performed a u-turn on two key technologies they have opposed for decades by openly calling for greater use of nuclear power and genetically modified crops to help the world tackle climate change. Daily Telegraph, UK,&nbsp;By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent Published: 10:15AM GMT 31 Oct 2010 The activists now 







Document Number: 8992
First, gather as many ingredients as you can from your garden. In our garden, I found multi-colored swiss chard, Kale, chives, thyme and parsley. Our young hens, Snickerdoodle, Lemon Drop, Raven, Cheez-It and Oreo provided the eggs. The backdrop to our garden is a mural on the side of our barn, painted with California poppies, rice plants, sunflowers and (look closely) a red double helix. Artist: Jim McCall, Elastic Media . Next, prepare the crust: 1 cup barley flour 2 cups white flour 1 tsp salt 1 cup unsalted butter 1/2 cup unsalted margarine, frozen grated rind of 1 lemon 1/2-3/4 c iced water Measure flours and salt into a Cuisinart fitted with a steel blade. Mix briefly. Add in diced butter and margarine. Chop until mixture resembles consistency of cornmeal. Remove from cuisinart and mix in the water an lemon rind with a fork. Shape into one large ball and one small ball. Refrigerate for 20 minutes or so. Roll out chilled dough on floured surface, in between 2 floured sheets of waxed paper. Place larger crust into a pie pan with a circumference of 28.3 inches (r=4.5 inches). Layer the rest of the cheese on the base. Trim 







Document Number: 6273
NYT, 2/20/09) All of the scientists have been active participants of the Regional Research Projects NCCC-46 ;Development, Optimization, and Delivery of Management Strategies for Corn Rootworms and Other Below-ground Insect Pests of Maize; and/or related projects with corn insect pests. The comment appears as follows: ;Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good, unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.; It appears that the leaders at these seed companies have not yet embraced the idea that the acceptance of GE crops is dependent upon peer-reviewed, scientific research that evaluates effectiveness, safety, or impact on non-target species. Without access and transparency and evaluation by independent scientists, it becomes impossible to determine the suitability of GE crops for agriculture. Hopefully, in the light of these comments to the EPA, the companies will 







Document Number: 5687
swept the competition in a landslide! Any moment now they will be the proud owner of a new Biofortified tote bag. Thanks for disagreeing with someone with politeness and respect and above all ; constructively ! Second, it seems that no one has yet entered our inaugural annual frankenfood carving contest , and the deadline was set for this coming Wednesday. Now I;m sure as you ghosts and goblins go to bed tonight on Halloween, there are scary pumpkins smoldering outside on your doorstep. Don;t throw them out ; take a picture and upload them to your profile and have a chance to share in a glorious victory. As of now, the contest deadline has been extended to Sunday, November 7th, at midnight Pacific, as always. And to sweeten the pot, the winner will not only get a cotton canvas tote bag with the blog emblem emblazoned on its side, they will be the first here to receive a very special gift ; A mint-condition Norman Borlaug commemorative coin! Fantastic! This special prize is courtesy of MaryM. A big thanks to Mary;s generosity! The coin is in its original plastic wrapper for you crop coin collectors. So now;s your chance 







Document Number: 4585
first GE Papaya resistant to Papaya Ringspot Virus, which grows there today (and even surrounds and protects organic plots of Papaya), and is currently investigating several other crops and their potential for improvement. Those efforts have been put in jeopardy recently as the council of the big island of Hawai;i banned the growing of GE taro and coffee with no allowance for continued academic research. Mayor Kim vetoed the ban, which was overturned by the council. In the debate over genetic engineering in Hawai;i, it is interesting to see anti-GE groups claim that farmers do not want the technology. First, it is the farmers who ultimately decide what to grow on their farms, and the mere fact that they are choosing to grow it wherever it is legal to do so is a testament to the fact that many actively do want to grow it. Another interesting point of contention is whether or not farmers will be helped or harmed by GE crops. In what I have read of the Hawai;ian debates, few actually depended upon the argument that GE crops aren;t tested enough for human consumption. It has been brought up, but the argument hasn;t held much weight because 







Document Number: 3647
ones like IBM, have programs that reward their employees for joining a gym or following a preventive health care regimen. Now, some employers are trying to affect their employees diets by offering healthier foods in their cafeterias and giving employees coupons for healthy prepared food items stocked in local grocery stores. Full Yield (a company that does not seem to have a website!) is a new company working to prepare the healthy food offerings that employees are encouraged to buy. Together with Harvard Pilgrim, an insurance company, Full Yield will track employee health to see if it improves with their food options. Why am I bringing this up at Biofortified? Sunshine quinoa salad by sonicwalker. Click the photo for the recipe. Via flickr. The prepared food from Full Yield is not your typical prepared food. ;The choices may include turkey chili, quinoa salads, salmon cakes, chicken tagine, mixed bean wraps and whole-grain peanut butter cookies,; according to the Times article. Employees in the program are encouraged to eat only Full Yield items or similar whole food meals prepared at home. In these few menu items I see a swath of biodiversity, things never seen in the typical American;s diet. If 







Document Number: 5090
State, has done just that. The following, posted with permission, is an up-to-date review of CCD research. It includes information from a variety of sources, from fact sheets to peer-reviewed journal articles. Introduction Honeybees ( apis mellifera ) are the primary pollinator available to agriculturalists in the United States. This makes them a critical part of US agriculture. Crops such as ;almonds (82% of the world;s supply and 100% dependent on interstate pollinators); apples; cherries; blueberries; broccoli; carrots; cranberries; cucurbits like cucumber, melons, squash, pumpkins, and gourds; (Stankus 2008) are heavily reliant on honey bees for pollination. Traveling hives provided by commercial apiary services pollinates many of these crops. A current epidemic, called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), affecting honeybee hives throughout the US threatens the apiarist industry. In the US during 2006-2007 29% of beekeepers reported some loss to CCD with some losing up to 75% of their stock (Winfree, Williams, Dushoff, et al). CCD is characterized as a mysterious loss of worker bees in the hive. There are no corpses to be found as the bees apparently wander far from the hive to die. The hive generally has sufficient food stores to maintain the population. The hives also generally 







Document Number: 4357
to shut their immune systems down. So how does this all work? A good system to use to describe how polydnavirus proteins work is the ankyrin/vankyrin pathways. It;s easy to visualize how they function and many other functions (Toll, Phenoloxidase silencing, etc) work in an indentical manner. Apoptosis is a vital immune defense where the cell begins producing enzymes called capsases which indiscriminately chew proteins up in the cell. If there;s a virus infecting the cell, the simplest way to save the whole organism is to destroy the infected cell. Destroy the infected cell, ensure no viral replication takes place, save the whole critter. Lots viruses have antiapoptotic proteins, and polydnaviruses use similar proteins to stop other immune processes which would kill the parasitoid larvae. In the simplest apoptosis pathway, we start with NFkB proteins floating around the cytoplasm of the cell bound to an IkB protein in a fashion that;s not unlike a zipper. What would be comparable to the ;teeth; of the zipper is a specific structure called an ankyrin domain which links the proteins together. There are two proteins linked together in the picture below. The one on the right is a protein which binds to a 







Document Number: 2447
biological questions up as well as addressing some of the intellectual property questions. If you have specific questions about Monsanto*, I hope you;ll bring them to Monsanto;s blog Beyond the Rows or ask some of the many Monsanto employees on Twitter such as @Mica_MON and @JPlovesCOTTON . The donation Monsanto;s May 13 Press Release Monsanto Company Donates Conventional Corn and Vegetable Seeds to Haitian Farmers to Help Address Food Security Needs is a good place to start to find out exactly what was donated and how it got there. Importantly, the donation was approved and by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry was involved in selecting seeds that would be ;appropriate for the growing conditions and farming practices in Haiti.; The exact way the seeds are being distributed ensures long term benefits from this one time donation: The initial seed shipment will be distributed to Haitian farmers by the WINNER project, a five-year program to increase farmer productivity funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). WINNER will provide the in-country expertise, technical services and other inputs, such as fertilizer, needed by farmers to manage the crops. ;Our goal is to reach 10,000 farmers this growing 







Document Number: 8235
45 days or more and are firmer than unmodified tomatoes, which I imagine makes for great tomato sandwiches! Before getting into the how , let;s talk about why this research is important. According to Enhancement of fruit shelf life by suppressing N-glycan processing enzymes in this week;s PNAS, post-harvest fruit and vegetable softening is a big problem, with losses accounting for almost 50% of all produce in developing countries. India, the country that funded the research, and the world;s 2nd largest fruit and vegetable producer, loses 35-40% of produce to softening. Squished tomato by limaoscarjuliet via Flickr. We all know that post-consumer food waste is a big problem, and we can alleviate this somewhat in our homes and by choosing restaurants that try to reduce waste. But there isn;t much we can do about pre-consumer waste ; from grain that rots in the silo due to fungus to tomatoes that rot in transit due to ripening. By reducing pre-consumer food waste, we can reduce the number of acres needed to produce the same amount of food. In India, preventing all fruit and vegetable softening would be like reducing the amount of land needed to grow fruits and vegetables by 35-40%! 







Document Number: 3525
on biology, have a read: Thanks for the optimistic article Can We Create New Life? (Feature Story, November 26). One has to be suspicious of any government policy being fast-tracked, especially one as revolutionary as genetic-engineering promotion. From a rational perspective, such a mysterious business requires more caution than normal, not less. To express the problem/risk as simply as possible requires an analogy: Think of GIGO garbage in, garbage out as used in information processing. The mal-ware, such as viruses, etc., which can damage computers, are created to appear to be normal information. In this way the computer is tricked and absorbs these programs into the computer software as if they are beneficial. Only later does the damage appear. But by then it is too late; your work is garbage, or lost altogether. Science often regards humanitys existence as depending on a delicate balance of forces in nature. These forces evolved this balance over a long time with perhaps trillions of iterations of trial and error in genetic combinations to get to us and our environment now. With this in mind, think of the information that we must absorb in order for our life programs to exist, to continue, to 







Document Number: 3634
are many urban myths going around. From our friend Stephen Lendman;s characterization of it as a ; GMO proliferation bill ,; to the claim that it will ban backyard gardens, many of the myths seem to follow a similar pattern. And almost no one who promotes these myths has even bothered to read the bills. Point of fact ; if you read the text of the bill , there is absolutely nothing in it about genetic engineering, so where do they get this idea? Nevertheless, myths such as these have traversed the intertubes and the lack of fact-checking combined with the sensationalism (and perceived plausibility?) of such a bill have put it on youtube , blogs, and some news sites. Linn Cohen-Cole, who reads half of what she writes about genetic engineering, understands half of what she she reads, and fact-checks half of what she understands, wrote a prolific piece for OpEd News Blogs called Monsanto;s Dream Bill, HR 875 . It was short, (not just short on facts) and spread very widely on the internet. The folks at the Monsanto Blog ended up writing a post explaining how their company doesn;t even have a position on the bill. Marion 







Document Number: 9212
whether or not they support our arguments, and regardless of the source. I heartily agree, but place emphasis on the need for facts based on considerable research, not speculation based on one poorly done study. I also appreciate their discussion of mutagenesis (I;m hoping to post on the International Atomic Energy Agency;s reccomendations soon). The impossibility of objectivity Too often, disagreements on any issue ; including scientific ones ; are a dialogue of the deaf.&nbsp; It is rare indeed for two people with radically opposed views to be prepared to listen or accept that there may be nuggets of truth in their opponent;s arguments. This does not just apply to activists with a firm belief in a particular cause, it is also characteristic of professional scientists who we might naively expect to behave better. The reason for this is simple. We all have inbuilt world views and biases, and they inevitably colour our judgement, however objective we strive to be. We talk about scientific facts, but (at the risk of sounding too post-modernist) many of these are based on a particular accepted interpretation of the available evidence. Scientists should always strive to be objective and base their conclusions on hard 







Document Number: 1233
other. How can a conventional farmer or researchers know how to make their farm more sustainable if they arent at least given an introduction to the subject? How can organic farmers apply new technologies that benefit their farming methods if they arent exposed to them? Obviously some methods are more transferable than others, but knowledge is always useful. For example, a friend of mine in ISUs sustainable ag program has told me about a recent experiment that tested the yield and pest incidence of two farm layouts: one large field planted with alternating years of soy and maize, or planting the field in strips of soy and maize (wide enough for farm equipment) then alternating the strips each year. The second layout had higher yields and decreased pests, presumably because most pests (insect, fungus, virus) attack either soy or maize, not both. The strips isolated the pests, meaning that less pesticides were needed. There was also more biodiversity in the field. This method would certainly be considered more sustainable, and it is also more profitable for the farmer (minus slightly longer time on the tractor). Extension agents told farmers about the experiments results, but none switched, preferring to stay with 







Document Number: 5015
to Monsanto; and Jeffrey Smith is all over youtube and google video too talking about his ;Seeds of Deception; book. This stuff thoroughly debunks you, dear. So whilst you waste your time on this, I;m buying 100% organic and so is everyone I know. I don;t think the commenter bothered to read the post before commenting. If she had, she might have realized that at least some of the anti-GE information out there is based on lies and exaggerations, which indicates that I am not ;thoroughly debunked;. Unfortunately, the writers of things like ;The World According to Monsanto; have an agenda, so are incapable of and/or unwilling to present information in a ;fair and balanced; manner. Instead, they twist the hard work of scientists to say things that the researchers never intended. They select studies that have been debunked, attribute unrelated problems to the ;evils of genetic engineering;, and so on. I suppose one might say that I have an agenda, but in my defense, I am simply advocating that people keep an open mind and seek to understand the science before rushing to conclusions or succumbing to propaganda. The best sources of information are never those on the fringes, 







Document Number: 4065
and the solutions that are needed. The silver lining, though, is that solutions are out there. If we focus our efforts, we can feed the hungry, protect the environment, respond to new and old challenges. The talk was videotaped, and the link will likely be posted by the ISU Lectures Program here . I purchased The Doubly Green Revolution , and had it signed! I;m looking forward to reading it and sharing my thoughts. You can read parts of the book on Google Books . There were so many topics that my notes from the talk don;t flow very well, so please bear with me. My comments are italicized , the rest is approximately what Sir Gordon had to say. I;ve added a few links, if you would like more information. Speculators triggered the food price crisis but speculators were triggered by 1) Australian droughts, 2) increased 1st generation biofuel production, and 3) increased fertilizer prices that were in turn a result of increased oil prices due to a decline in the dollar. Cost of both of the main ingredients of diammonium phosphate fertilizer has increased. Oil is needed to produce ammonia, and sulfur is in short supply. Additionally, long 







Document Number: 2695
more about themselves on their profiles, and for visitors to be able to see the people behind the words a little more clearly. Finally, while words can cross and get tense at times, we feel that it will foster more civil discussions if you can find out more about the person behind the comments you are responding to. Coding, testing, and implementation of this new system is now complete. Behold, I give you FrankNSpace !* Let me tell you what you can do with this. All registered users will appear on the Community page , which you can find in the page navigation above. Browse around, click on a profile and see who they are. On the left will be their personal details, as much or as little as they have decided to enter. On the right, you can see their most recent comments, posts (if any), and also their most recent forum posts. Some of these features were built into the plugins we are using, but others I coded de novo. I;m particularly proud of the Latest Forum Posts section that I wrote ; as far as I know no one else has done this to build on the 







Document Number: 6244
and what we were thinking about calling it . Well now the wait is over and all will be explained. I am pleased to introduce regulars and newcomers to the GENetic Engineering Risk Atlas, aka GENERA . This is intended to be an atlas of any and all peer-reviewed research related to the relative risks of plant genetic engineering in the context of plant breeding. David Tribe has maintained a list of 300 papers related to this topic on GMO Pundit, and earlier this year we decided that all this information needed to be more visible and accessible to everyone. After searching deep within the bowels of WordPress plugins and php code, I figured out how to use the WordPress platform to host and manage a separate set of custom pages that will store and organize details about each study in a way that people can easily browse and search to find what they want. Check it out , play with the links and look at the example entries and you;ll see why I hardly posted anything on the blog in June or July! The Atlas currently only tells you how many studies have been entered, but when we have 







Document Number: 2296
breeding, biotechnology, and nutrition. When I;m not in the lab or the field, I write about the science, ethics, politics, economics, etc of genetically modified plants at my blog Genetic Maize . I;m also a contributor at the blog Clashing Cultures where the interactions of science and religion are explored by people from different faiths and different scientific backgrounds. As of now, I;ll also contribute to Biofortified , writing about my favorite topic, plant genetics, and how this field affects the world around us. I;m very exciting to be working with some of my favorite bloggers on this project. I just hope I can find time to do it all! Genetic engineering is such a complex topic, one that people (both proponents and opponents, scientists and lay people) oversimplify far too often. It is rarely correct to make a blanket statement about ;all GMOs;. For example, I think most of us would agree that herbicide resistant crops created by a large corporation are fundamentally different from the flood tolerant rice created by a scientist with public funds and freely distributed to small farmers in developing countries. These two have different ethical, environmental, safety, social justice, and intellectual property issues, just 







Document Number: 1837
embrace scientific conclusions in other areas of science, but not in this area. Most Europeans dont consider themselves to be anti-science or particularly technophobic. In fact, Europes full embrace of the scientific consensus on another environmental issue, global warming, has enabled the continent to take the clear lead on climate change, with the most ambitious emissions targets, the first carbon trading market, and the greenest urban infrastructure plans on the planet. Europes scientific disconnect is more broadly true of eco-minded citizens worldwide: They laud the likes of James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri but shrink in horror at the scientist who offers up a Bt corn plant (even though numerous studies indicate that Bt cropsby dramatically curbing pesticide useconserve biodiversity on farms and reduce chemical-related sickness among farmers). So why the disconnect? Why do many environmentalists trust science when it comes to climate change but not when it comes to genetic engineering? Is the fear really about the technology itself or is it a mistrust of big agribusiness? Contributing their views (in order) are Pam Ronald, Raj Patel, Nina Fedoroff, and Noel Kingsbury. Read the article , I;ll offer a few opinions about it after the jump. In my humble opinion, 







Document Number: 515
The malting barley used in this beer is of the Haruna Nijo variety, developed by Sapporo. This barley is the 4th generation produced from barley that spent 5 months aboard the International Space Station in the Zvezda Service Module . The hops from Furano, Hokkaido were also from seeds that spent time in space, although I wasn;t able to find out how long they spent up there. This all sounds pretty cool, a simple feel good pro-space research event. Sure, it;s cool, and I wouldn;t mind having a taste, but my first thought after reading Barley + Space = Space Beer! on Wired was: were there any mutations in the barley or hops that were caused by the exposure to gamma rays, etc while in space? Should the lucky few who get to try it be worried about unintended changes in the barley and hops from gamma rays and other mutagens in space? Multiple groups in China have been purposefully using the mutagenizing effects of space as a tool to develop new traits in crops including alfalfa and rice. Unfortunately, these researchers have been publishing in Chinese journals and other journals that I don;t have access to. A 2009 paper 







Document Number: 7234
with new heads of the FDA and USDA, there has been a strong call for better food safety oversight. One of the issues being discussed is combining the sometimes bizarrely split food regulatory duties of these two agencies into a single food and agriculture agency. Some want tighter regulations, others want to tighten down only on large food processing (or growing operations), but many just want to give the underfunded FDA the teeth it needs to do its job. Amid the clamor for food policy changes, the Madison-based Onion announced that the FDA Approves Salmonella ; which had me in stitches! Anyhow, it was only a matter of time before an anti-GE activist latched onto the food safety discussion to try to bring attention to genetically engineered foods. Monday, Jeffrey Smith put up a new column on his Huffington Post blog, asking Will Obama;s Food Safety Team Finally Regulate the Biggest Food Safety Hazard of Our Time? What, alfalfa sprouts ? Oh right, genetic engineering. Keep in mind the fact that there has not been a single confirmed case of anyone getting sick from a genetically engineered food. Even that guy that claimed to be allergic to Starlink corn and 







Document Number: 1007
worth taking a look at. A couple things to note about the video ; Cramer repeats the claim that Monsanto has raised its prices by 42% without finding out that it was based on a misunderstanding. The article it was based on was comparing an older variety of GE soybeans to a newer one with different breeding and different transgenic traits. But many took it to be a sign that the big bad gene giant was accelerating the prices of the same old seeds. You can read more about it at Looking Beyond the Headline at the Monsanto blog. To put it another way, I have Windows XP Home edition on my computer, but there is the newer Windows Vista to consider as well. If I was buying a new computer right now, the price of XP would start at $79 according to a google price search I just did. Vista would begin at $107 for the home edition. This is a 35% increase; does it mean that Microsoft is jacking up its Windows prices? If you ask Microsoft, Vista is a superior product (although opinions differ on that estimation). The newer varieties of seeds are supposed to be worth 







Document Number: 9441
engineered crops for many years, which never succeeded. His most recent effort was during the 2008 Presidential campaign. He organized efforts to seek campaign promises to label GE foods from the major candidates, asking people to send in written requests with a standard, printed form for them to sign and send to Winters. After a while, his site announced that all of the democratic candidates supported labeling. I learned about this seven months ago when Jeffrey Smith claimed that President Obama had promised to label GE foods. After some investigation, it turns out that he did not make that promise at all. You can read about the whole miscommunication here . During my investigation, I actually called up Craig Winters on the phone to talk to him about it. He seemed somewhat optimistic about convincing Obama;s presidency of his position, but he had not read about Obama;s statements in support of the technology, either. Winters was certainly very busy with other matters ; when I called him he had just gotten out of surgery the previous day. Winters not only started The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods, he also organized a nonprofit organization to accept donations to support anti-GE 







Document Number: 7453
column contained the following: ;STICKS TO American Crystal Sugar Company, based in Moorhead, Minn., for sourcing sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets designed to withstand the herbicide Roundup. Since sugar beets account for half of the nation;s granulated sugar production, GE ingredients will soon be present in just about every nonorganic, multiple-ingredient product people buy, says the Organic Consumers Association, which has called on American Crystal to reconsider its decision. Products containing GE ingredients are not required to be labeled as such.; I like food labels. I wish we had more, but if we are going to have one label, we;ve gotta have them all; I want to know every step in the growing process, from how much the workers are paid to what types of pesticides are used to how they rotate their crops each year. Information about the size and location of the grower would be nice too. On the small amounts of pre-prepared foods I buy, I;d especially like to see a ;Vegetarian; or ;Vegan; label so I don;t have to scour the ingredients list for random gelatin or guess if the rennet is GE or from a calf;s stomach lining. I;d like all of this information 







Document Number: 2425
with unsourced beliefs about how some food safety-related bills must be secret ways of proliferating GE crops. I was about to click off, but then I decided to check out page two. While skimming a section on ;GMOs in the G20 Agenda;, I found a proliferation of ellipses (;) in quotes. One in particular stuck out to me: The Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Organization said: ;We don;t need regulation of a technology that can feed, fuel and heal the world. The G20 leaders need to recognize that GM;.is the solution; to a pressing world need. Applying our lesson from before , I did a search for that quote to find out what was removed. It seemed dubious because I have never heard of anyone claiming that we do not need any regulation of GE crops. All searches traced to an article reproduced in multiple locations, such as on GMWatch.eu . Titled GM may be on the agenda at the G20 summit , The Times, by Mark Handerson/Henderson (depending on which reproduced article you look at). But there is no such article at The Times Online by their science editor, Mark Henderson. So I immediately emailed Stephen Lendman to find out what 







Document Number: 8710
any type of farming (or really to the production of anything), his main work is actually on animal agriculture. The return on investment of most types of animal agriculture is small compared to that of plant agriculture. For example, cattle require about 6 pounds of feed to produce 1 pound of muscle. All of the water, fertilizer, and pesticides required to grow 1 pound of plant material is thus multiplied by 6 to produce 1 pound of beef. Granted, it isn;t quite that simple, as parts of plants that aren;t used for human food can be fed to animals, but the point holds, even in organic systems. Demand for animal protein is increasing rapidly both in developed and developing countries. This means that the amount of land used to produce food for animals will also increase. Some lands that aren;t suitable for plant agriculture may be better put to use as pasture land, but those areas can not possibly supply per capita demand for meat ; more than 200 lbs per year per person in the US, according to the USDA (and that;s an average, theoretically factoring in the 3.2% of vegetarian and vegan Americans). This image from the University 







Document Number: 3912
and proponents of local or regional food systems. How can that be? Well, we dont think these ideas are conflicting at all. We think biotech** goes hand in hand with sustainability. We;d like to someday see vendors at farmer;s markets proudly displaying the traits they use in their produce to benefit the environment and consumers. There are many ways that biotech traits can help farmers reduce inputs and have more biodiversity on their farms, and ways to help food be more local. Two great examples are apples and tomatoes. Both of these are extremely popular fruits, are a healthy addition to any diet, and are eaten fresh as well as processed. Both can be grown in a variety of climates, but have a short growing season in most places, meaning that they are often shipped long distances before they get to consumers. There are a lot of specific traits that could be put into locally adapted varieties of apples and tomatoes to help make it easier to grow in a wider variety of places for a longer season, decrease pesticide use, and increase profit margins. A recent example of an apple trait that could help small local farmers is scab 







Document Number: 2148
and not-so-common logical fallacies conveniently listed in alphabetical order. Most of this post was written by Brian Dunning of the excellent podcast Skeptoid , who has generously given us permission to use his work here with some modification. The content can be found in its original form at Skeptoid , in the episodes A Magical Journey through the Land of Logical Fallacies ; Part 1 , A Magical Journey through the Land of Logical Fallacies ; Part 2 , and Some New Logical Fallacies . What is a fallacy and why are they used? First, what is a logical fallacy? The Wikipedia definition is as good as any: In logic and rhetoric , a fallacy is a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning in argumentation . By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor (e.g. appeal to emotion ), or take advantage of social relationships between people (e.g. argument from authority ). Fallacious arguments are often structured using rhetorical patterns that obscure the logical argument, making fallacies more difficult to diagnose. Also, the components of the fallacy may be spread out over separate arguments. A shorter definition for logical fallacy is provided by Brian: ;the 







Document Number: 9540
of GM wheat. In parallel to the global R&amp;D program to deliver valued GM wheat varieties including significant work in Australia the grains industry;s supply chain-wide assessment process is underway. A key step is the release at this week;s International Grains Forum in Perth, WA, of the document `GM wheat a seven to ten year program of consultation and collaboration;, prepared by Agrifood Awareness Australia Executive Director, Paula Fitzgerald. ;We have time on our side and are taking a long-term view as it is accepted fact that GM wheat is at least seven years away from commercialisation. The document outlines the series of actions that will occur in the years ahead and has been endorsed by a range a key Australian grains industry stakeholders.; Keith Perrett, GRDC Chairman says the case for GM wheat R&amp;D is compelling: It;s an accepted fact that the global human population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and farmers will have to produce more food from finite land and water resources. Australian farmers will have a key role, as while we produce just 3% of the global wheat harvest each year, it accounts for near 15% of the global wheat trade. Importantly, wheat 







Document Number: 4713
never stop rice breeding, by the International Rice Research Institute. Variety IR8 is the original ; Miracle rice ; of the 1960s. This carefully-crafted variety has a stunted, semi-dwarf phenotype, which increases it;s harvest index (the proportion of grain biomass to total biomass), and allows it to resist lodging (falling over into the mud), even when heavily fertilized. As with wheat, the creation of dwarf varieties of rice played a major role in the enormous yield gains of the Green Revolution. But now it;s in trouble! IR8 originally produced yields of 9.5-10.5 tons per acre (twice the contemporary average), but recently it;s been down to 7. The question is: did the genetic makeup of IR8 drift over time or has something in our environment changed? Some researchers tested this by growing out 30 year old stored IR8 seed from the International Rice Gene Bank and comparing it to its own great-great-great-grandchildren. As far as they could tell, the modern accessions of IR8 that have been self-pollinated for 30 years were identical to the original stock of IR8, but they both produced low yields (15% less than other modern rice varieties). Somehow IR8 is no longer as well adapted to its 







Document Number: 4735
affect insects, and which spread in pollen. Consider this news on the topic: Public release date: 22-Dec-2010 Public Library of Science Movement and threat of RNA viruses widespread in pollinator community Penn State researchers have found that native pollinators, like wild bees and wasps, are infected by the same viral diseases as honey bees and that these viruses are transmitted via pollen. Their research published on December 22nd in PLoS ONE , an online open-access journal for the communication of all peer-reviewed scientific and medical research. This multi-institutional study provides new insights into viral infections in native pollinators, suggesting that viral diseases may be key factors impacting pollinator populations. According to Diana Cox-Foster, co-author and professor of entomology at Penn State, pollinator populations have declined for various reasons, including ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which are emerging as a serious threat. ;RNA viruses are suspected as major contributors to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD ), where honey bee colonies die with few or no bees left in the hives. Recent detection of these viral species in bumble bees and other native pollinators indicates a possible wider environmental spread of these viruses with potential broader impact,; explains Cox-Foster. The researchers studied viral distributions 







Document Number: 8488
discussed some ways that a conventional farmer might accidentally make life difficult for an organic farmer. Some people might not believe it, but gene flow aka ;contamination; can happen regardless of organic status. Organic plants could even screw up genetically engineered plants if pollen goes where it isn;t intended. One example is in plants that are genetically engineered to silence an unwanted protein. Peanuts or wheat could be (and have been ; peanuts , wheat ; though they are not yet on the market) engineered to eliminate allergenic proteins from those crops. Any genetic contamination from ;regular; peanuts or wheat could be very problematic because it would re-introduce those allergenic proteins. Someone prone to hyperbole might even call those genes ;malicious; because they would be turning an otherwise safe food into a dangerous food for those who are allergic. Mandarin orange on the tree. Image by Wikipedia. Another example, one that;s happening right now, is Mandarin oranges in California (thanks to Karl for bringing this up). No GMOs necessary ; the case here is regular old seedless Mandarin oranges. Farmers growing seedless Mandarins can command a higher price for their produce than if they had seeds. However, any stray citrus 







Document Number: 7652
on Biofortified. This is a group blog on plant genetics and genetic engineering, to try to sprinkle a little fertilizer on the discussion of the majority of the eukaryotic biomass on this planet ; plants! And we;ve got some plant genetics-based blog posts to talk about, but the theme for this edition is FRANKENPEOPLE! Yes, human genetics has been up in the news lately, and there is no shortage of blog posts discussing it. We begin with Josh Witten at the Rugbyologist, who discusses the uncanny genetics of the X-Men . Wrestling with mutation rates and variable mutant powers, Josh settles on the weirdness of the claim that the mutant gene is inherited from the father ; wait, if it is on the Y-Chromosome, how come there are female mutants? Perhaps the X-gene is not a mutant gene per se, but an epimutant that is the result of a change in paternal gene imprinting? Changes in gene expression are becoming more and more important these days, as our tools to study them are improving. Eliza Strickland at the 80beats Discover Blog talks about the long-lasting effects of child abuse on the genome. We must learn from the rats and lick 







Document Number: 4115
love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatillos and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil;. A White House carpenter, Charlie Brandts, who is a beekeeper, will tend two hives for honey. If we all dug up our lawns, planted 55 kinds of vegetables and tended it very carefully, the world would be a better place. That said, who has time? Certainly not the Obamas. The White House grounds crew and the kitchen staff will do most of the work. Still, I love the symbolism of it, and though it will be costly (vegetables harvested from showcase gardens such as the Obamas; are much more expensive than produce from an organic commercial farm), it will provide a great education tool for the fifth graders that will help tend the farm and for White House visitors. I hope one of her assistants plants some corn and teaches them about insects and disease. She can show them how to feel the tip of 







Document Number: 7439
his grandson is a minor star in the field of sport. The foodies there find molecular gastronomy really exciting. So he investigated further, and found this in the regular scientific literature: Food for tomorrow? How the scientific discipline of molecular gastronomy could change the way we eat viewpoint EMBO reports (2006) 7, 1062 ; 1066 Herv This Introduction For years, a new culinary trend called molecular cooking has been touted as the most exciting development in haute cuisine. It is now the newest fashion for chefs to offer their customers fake caviar made from sodium alginate and calcium, burning sherbets, spaghetti made from vegetables, and instant ice cream, fast-frozen using liquid nitrogen. In the most recent ranking of the world;s top 50 chefsby the British magazine Restaurantthe top three chefs were Ferran Adria from El Bulli in Rosas, Spain; Heston Blumenthal from The Fat Duck in Bray, UK; and Pierre Gagnaire from his restaurant in Paris, France (Restaurant, 2006). In 2005, Blumenthal was first and Adria came second. What is remarkable is that all three of these talented and popular chefs have been inspired by molecular gastronomy. What is molecular gastronomy? Is it only a temporary trend for people who 







Document Number: 6141
. Develop better seeds ; Monsanto will double yield in its three core crops of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030, compared to a base year of 2000. The company will also establish a $10 million grant designed to accelerate breakthrough public sector research in wheat and rice yield. Conserve resources ; Monsanto will develop seeds that will reduce by one-third the amount of key resources required to grow crops by the year 2030. The company will also join with others to address habitat loss and water quality in agriculturally important areas. Help improve farmers; lives ; The company will help improve the lives of farmers, including an additional five million people in resource-poor farm families by 2020. The first two are good, but we expect improved seed from a seed company. I;m particularly interested in the third point. The press release tells us that ;Monsanto also is committed to sharing its expertise in a way that gives [resource poor farmers] access to modern agricultural technology.; For example, ; drought-tolerant maize for Africa that will be made available to farmers royalty-free.; Players include AATF , CIMMYT , the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and government 







Document Number: 1603
to&nbsp;environmentalism and to define sustainability as the key to achieving&nbsp;environmental goals. This requires embracing humans as a positive&nbsp;element in evolution rather than viewing us as some kind of mistake. I&nbsp;believe we should celebrate our existence and constantly put our minds&nbsp;toward making the world a better place for people and all &nbsp;the other&nbsp;species we share it with. A lot of environmentalists are stuck in the 1970s and continue to promote&nbsp;a strain of leftish romanticism about idyllic rural &nbsp;village life powered by&nbsp;windmills and solar panels. They idealize poverty, seeing it as a noble&nbsp;way of life, and oppose all &nbsp;large developments. James Cameron, the&nbsp;multimillionaire producer of the most lucrative movie in history, Avatar,&nbsp;paints his face and joins the disaffected to protest a hydroelectric dam in the Amazon. I believe: - We should be growing more trees and using more wood, not cutting&nbsp;fewer trees and using less wood as Greenpeace and its allies contend.&nbsp;Wood is the most important renewable material and energy resource. - Those countries that have reserves of potential hydroelectric energy&nbsp;should build the dams required to deliver that energy. There is nothing&nbsp;wrong with creating more lakes in this world. - Nuclear energy is essential for our future energy supply, especially if&nbsp;we wish 







Document Number: 1496
intellectual property (IP) and biotechnology for a bit. It;s a contentious subject for a lot of reasons, but some new ideas I;d never thought of before came up today. I don;t have a background in IP, so please feel free share your thoughts and ideas in the comments! Developing a biotech trait does require a lot of funds, similar to developing a new medicine. There;s testing and trials, safety and regulation ; all of it costs money. In order for a company to invest funds and people into a project, they have to have some reassurance that they will be able to make a profit after al that expense. Intellectual property protection, whether on a new widget, medicine, plant variety, or even movies and music, helps ensure that no other company or person will be able to collect profit that the inventor or creator deserves. Of course, patents and other forms of intellectual property protection (IPP) do have their limitations. Right now, IPP may be at once too strict and too lax. IPP is too strict in that patent holders must pursue violators of their patents, or risk loosing the patent. In other words, to follow the law, patent holders 







Document Number: 5249
highlight some comments of others. The first thing that occurs to me in this discussion about the hybrid seed is that there still is a lot of misinformation flying around about it. Beverly Bell, who ;sounded the alarm; about farmers supposedly planning to buy and then burn the donated hybrid seed , continues to make stuff up about the situation. While Monsanto never offered to donate GE seeds, Bell claims that the Haitian Agricultural Ministry rejected such an offer. Ronnie Cummins from the Organic Consumers Association assumes it to be true and expands upon the tall tale : ;Monsanto wanted initially to dump GMO seeds on Haiti, but even the corrupt Haitian government knew that this would spark a rebellion, so Monsanto cleverly decided to dump hybrid seeds instead.; However according to Monsanto, they never offered GE seeds , ever. Bell and Cummins both repeat the claim that hybrid seed cannot be saved, or is worthless to save. Also not true. The traits of saved hybrid seed will have a distribution of combinations of their parents; traits, but will still grow. I would like you to watch this short video which contains an interview with an ;Agronomist; named Mark who 







Document Number: 8733
I just hope he has the courage and skill to implement these ideas. The entire piece can be found below the cut. Hat tip to Parke Wilde at US Food Policy for finding it. Posted on Fri, May. 23, 2008 Defuse this crisis by Joe Biden Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, has said: ;Without food, man can live at most but a few weeks; without it, all other components of social justice are meaningless.; Today, millions of men, women and children around the world face, at best, hunger, at worst, starvation. By the World Bank;s calculations, the price of indispensable staples ; wheat, rice, maize ; has doubled in the past three years. From Haiti to Egypt to Bangladesh, riots have broken out as people demand the right to affordable food. For the billion people in the world who live on less than a dollar a day, higher food prices are the difference between a full stomach and hunger. For many, it is the difference between life and death. The United States is not immune to the effects of the food crisis. At home, the price of eggs has jumped 35 percent. A gallon of 







Document Number: 7806
are living in or on your skin or inside your body. Yet, several small, concerted groups work to express it as a distinct medical condition. Red and blue fibers, described as &quot;Morgellons fibers&quot;. MD was first described in academic literature in 2005, when an unidentified number of patients described itching, crawlingsensations, lesions, and the eruption of red and blue fibers and granules from their skin. Most had Lyme disease, and MD was thought to be significantly related to that (Savely &amp; Leitao, 2005). Recently, agrobacterium was indicted as the new culprit, when two self-identified MD patients with scleroderma were found to have increased amounts of cellulose-protein complex in their connective tissue (Savely &amp; Stricker, 2007, Harvey et al, 2009). A multi-systemic medical framework for MD with immunodeficiency problems has been described (Harvey et al, 2009). Lesions, attributed to Morgellons Disease. . The majority of physicians and researchers consider MD to be synonymous with DP (Murase, Woo &amp; Koo, 2006), with the difference that it is not believed to be parasites, but about the fibers and granules (Robles et al, 2008). In response, proponents of MD as amedical condition herald it as different from DP, citing a lack of pre-existing psychopathology 







Document Number: 4011
transfer of an inserted bacterial gene via pollen and seed dispersal in cotton plants more accurately than previously available methods. Shannon Heuberger, a graduate student at the University of Arizona;s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and her co-workers will publish their findings in PLoS ONE on Nov. 30. The transfer of genes from genetically modified crop plants is a hotly debated issue. Many consumers are concerned about the possibility of genetic material from transgenic plants mixing with non-transgenic plants on nearby fields. Producers, on the other side, have a strong interest in knowing whether the varieties they are growing are free from unwanted genetic traits. Up until now, realistic models were lacking that could help growers and legislators assess and predict gene flow between genetically modified and non-genetically modified crops with satisfactory detail. This study is the first to analyze gene flow of a genetically modified trait at such a comprehensive level. The new approach is likely to improve assessment of the transfer of genes between plants other than cotton as well. ;The most important finding was that gene flow in an agricultural landscape is complex and influenced by many factors that previous field studies have not measured,; said 







Document Number: 8260
existed, they report in the August 13 issue of the journal Science. To the surprise of researchers, this RNA complex seems to play a critical role in the ability of the organism to infect human cells, a job carried out almost exclusively by proteins produced from DNA;s instruction manual. ;What these cells are doing is using ancient RNA technology to control modern gene expression,; said Ron Breaker, the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale, investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and senior author of the study. In old textbooks, RNA was viewed simply as the chemical intermediary between DNA;s instruction manual and the creation of proteins. However, Breaker;s lab has identified the existence and function of riboswitches, or RNA structures that have the ability to detect molecules and control gene expression ; an ability once believed to be possessed solely by proteins. Breaker and many other scientists now believe the first forms of life depended upon such RNA machines, which would have had to find ways to interact and carry out many of the functions proteins do today. The new paper describes the complex interactions of two small RNA molecules and two larger 







Document Number: 5970
by Ray Schnell, USDA-ARS) EurekAlert 16 Sep 2010 Analysis of the chocolate genome could lead to improved crops and products The sequencing and analysis of the genome for the Criollo variety of the cacao tree, generally considered to produce the world;s finest chocolate, was completed by an international team led by Claire Lanaud of CIRAD, France, with Mark Guiltinan of Penn State, and included scientists from 18 other institutions. ;The large amount of information generated by this project dramatically changes the status of this tropical plant and its potential interest for the scientific community,; said Guiltinan, professor of plant molecular biology, Penn State. The researchers not only sequenced the genome of this ancient plant, but assembled 76 percent of the genome linking 82 percent of those genes to the 10 cacao chromosomes. This analysis identified a variety of gene families that may have future impact on improving cacao trees and fruit either by enhancing their attributes or providing protection from fungal diseases and insects that effect cacao trees. ;Relics of the ancestral Criollo first cultivated by Olmec or Maya people can still be encountered in old Mesoamerican plantations or in forests where the Maya live,; said Siela Maximova, associate professor 







Document Number: 4200
as a result of its ability to inject genes it carries inside its own cells into plant cells. Ability to mate with other organisms is well established and widely studied among common bacteria such as E. coli , and they can be very promiscuous, in that a wide range of target organisms including very unrelated organisms such as yeasts can accept genes from them in the mating process. But to do an injection of DNA into a target organism Agrobacterium needs to be stimulated by chemical signals from plant material. This scientific paper shows that chemical signals on plant tissues are available to encourage mating by these same Agrobacterium bacteria with fungi that grow on plant surfaces. The work documents that genes can naturally pass between bacteria and fungi&nbsp; on the surfaces of plants.&nbsp; It;s one of the many demonstrations that natural gene movement occurs between widely separated organisms on evolutionary trees, as fungi and bacteria, which are very distant relatives on the evolutionary tree of life. &nbsp; Investigating Agrobacterium -Mediated Transformation of Verticillium albo-atrum on Plant Surfaces Abstract Background Agrobacterium tumefaciens has long been known to transform plant tissue in nature as part of its infection process. This natural 







Document Number: 8448
different biological kingdoms that are found in the natural world. Click on the natural GMOs tag to find these examples. This new paper by Pernilla Vallenback and co-authors for which there is open Internet access, provides a thorough characterisation of an example where a gene segment has moved between two different types of grass species that are reproductively isolated in nature. Preliminary information about this event has appeared in the literature before this time, but the new paper provides a thorough characterisation of the nature of the genes near the natural transgene. The authors do not have any clear idea of how the event occurred but the evidence in the paper shows that it does occur, and as a mobile gene related gene segment appears near the natural &nbsp;transgene, quite likely it was involved in some way in the movement of DNA between two different species. The authors talk about a vector for the DNA movement, which might be a virus, or might be some other&nbsp;agency&nbsp;such as a parasitic insect that injects plant cells with material as part of its life cycle. Because its review section at the start contains an excellent introduction to the scientific literature on the topic 







Document Number: 4498
show that bacteria evolve new abilities, such as antibiotic resistance, predominantly by acquiring genes from other bacteria. The researchers new insights into the evolution of bacteria partly contradict the widely accepted theory that new biological functions in bacteria and other microbes arise primarily through the process of gene duplication within the same organism. Their just released study will be published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics on January 27. Microbes live and thrive in incredibly diverse and harsh conditions, from boiling or freezing water to the human immune system. This remarkable adaptability results from their ability to quickly modify their repertoire of protein functions by gaining, losing and modifying their genes. Microbes were known to modify genes to expand their repertoire of protein families in two ways: via duplication processes followed by slow functional specialization, in the same way as large multicellular organisms like us, and by acquiring different genes directly from other microbes. The latter process, known as horizontal gene transfer, is notoriously conspicuous in the spread of antibiotic resistance, turning some bacteria into drug-resistant ;superbugs; such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a serious public health concern. The researchers examined a large database of microbial genomes, including some of 







Document Number: 8626
will end up in the progeny of non-transgenic plants, weedy relatives of the crop, or wild relatives that grow nearby due to pollen flow. Transgenes can also be moved from place to place by accidental or purposeful movement of seeds. How much transgene flow is actually happening is a subject of some controversy, but what about gene flow between non-transgenic plants? There is potential for problems whenever plants that aren;t supposed to cross stray from their intended mates. Some things to think about include how gene flow happens at the field and genetic levels and what characteristics of the genes themselves can affect permanence of contaminating genes once they get into a variety they shouldn;t be in. Gene flow with transgenes can help us to think about gene flow of ;regular; genes In the 2004 paper Gene Flow from Cultivated Rice (Oryza sativa) to its Weedy and Wild Relatives , Li Juan Chen showed that a marker gene ;flowed; in their test field from transgenic cultivated rice to weedy rice at rates between 0.011 and 0.046 % and to wild rice at rates between 1.21 and 2.19 %. The marker gene Chen used is called bar , which is easy 







Document Number: 4263
if you ask me. After a short drive from Madison to St. Charles, IL, the one-day conference started just after lunch. Some of the talks on the first afternoon were on the effect of pieces of the wild teosinte genome in maize varieties, aka introgression lines, and selecting for dark orange color in the kernels, for example. Reid, a fellow UW-Madison grad student, gave a great presentation on the performance of some new sweet corn lines compared to popular varieties. On the second day, the first order of business was a round-table discussion from 8-11:30, where breeders and grad students could get up in the middle of the group and draw their breeding strategies on an easel. During a break, I snapped this photo of some of the presenters and other innocent bystanders, and as a result, when I went in front of the group to talk about my plant breeding videos, my only question was about the blog! As you can see, Frank here was telling people about it. Note Wenwei Xu on the left, and Seth Murray and Marilyn Warburton in the 3rd and 4th positions. Marilyn studies resistance to fungi that produce Aflatoxin, a toxin that stunts 







Document Number: 535
overtaxed natural populations. Regulation has been successful in some areas ( Alaskan salmon ), yet failed miserably in others ( Mediterranean tuna ). The big question is: how can humans continue to enjoy eating fish but avoid the extinction of popular species? Aquaculture is one solution. Farming has been especially successful with vegetarian fish like tilapia and catfish, because they can be fed grain based meal. It hasn;t been as sucessful with carnivorous fish because they require a high protein meal that is typically made from smaller fish like anchovies. Overfishing of the smaller fish has negative effects on wild ecosystems. Researchers at Mississippi State may have found the solution. Feed made from insects contains high quality protein and is cheap to produce. Excerpts from the press release are below the cut. Aquaculture, the commercial production of seafood in managed ponds or tanks, currently supplies about 46 percent of all seafood consumed in the world today. The United Nations; Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that commercially grown supplies will rise to 75 percent of consumption in the next 20 years. ;The supply of wild-caught fish has really been flat since the late 1980s, and those stocks have little chance of 







Document Number: 5064
with lower applications of costly fertilizer. Nitrogen Use Efficiency has got him, well, rationally optimistic about the environmental benefits of some GE traits. Imagine you could wave a magic wand and boost the yield of the worlds crops, cut their cost, use fewer-fossil fuels to grow them and reduce the pollution that results from farming. Imagine, too, that you could both eliminate some hunger and return some land to rain forest. This is the scale of the prize that many in the biotechnology industry now suddenly believe is within their grasp in 2010 and the years that follow. They are in effect hoping to boost the miles-per-gallon of agriculture, except that the fuel in question is nitrogen. In a play on those who call GE crops an ;unmitigated environmental disaster,; he instead calls them an unmitigated environmental miracle. While I wouldn;t go so far as to call them a miracle, it is quite astonishing what has been achieved in the literature in so short a time, and what traits we are likely to see commercialized in the next decade. The Union of Concerned Scientists, however, just released another report, this time questioning the usefulness of genetic engineering to make crops 







Document Number: 9947
cells, control the plant;s respiration: how much carbon dioxide gets in and how much oxygen and water vapor gets out. The control isn;t very good, though. Most plants just have their stomata open all day every day so they can pull in lots of CO2 to use during photosynthesis to make sugar. And that means a lot of water, painstakingly pulled up from the soil, through the roots, gets lost. If stomata could be more selective, only opening when more CO2 was needed for photosynthesis, then water could be conserved. An enzyme called carbonic anhydrase raises the levels of CO2 in chloroplasts so the plant can make plenty of sugar. It does this by converting CO2 from its storage form carbonic acid back to it;s useable form: CO2 + H2O H2CO3. Carbonic anhydrase also appears in the guard cells, where it controls the opening and closing of stomata. Julian Schroeder , Professor of Biology at UC, San Diego hypothesized that more carbonic anhydrase in the guard cells would place tighter control over opening and closing. His group tried shutting off the carbonic anhydrase gene in the stomata of a little plant called Arabidopsis . Those plants were unable to respond 







Document Number: 8728
ways to involve stakeholders such that there are safety controls. Its not a perfect system, but it seems to work. The latest example regards sugar beets in Oregon. Map from Guide to Oregon. There is a large valley on the West side of Oregon named Willamette Valley (shown in green on the map). The valley is heavily agricultural in between all of those highways, and is where a lot of sugar beets, table beets, and chard are grown for seed (according to Organic Seed Alliance). Because these seeds are used all over the country, its important to have genotypic integrity. This seed is even more sensitive because lot of it is organic. Farmers who buy the seed and eventually sell the beet roots as organic need to have them GM free, especially with the advent of new voluntary testing and labeling of products by the Non-GMO Project (which I discuss in Labeling GMOs ). According to the Organic Seed Alliances post Judge Whites Decision: USDA-APHIS Violated National Environmental Policy Act in deregulation of RR sugarbeets and Judge overturns approval of Roundup Ready beets from the Associated Press, USDA/APHIS failed to consider transgene flow to seed production fields in Willamette Valley 







Document Number: 7109
. We watched a live webcast, sent in questions, and followed the conversation in twitter with the hashtag #agcast. It was a pretty fun two hours because not only were people discussing the webcast real-time, the discussion was leaking into the webcast itself in the form of comments and questions being read from it. Very cool and 2.0-ish. Alex Rinkus from Croplife has provided a link to the entire webcast on Vimeo, feel free to watch the whole thing. I will make a few several comments after the fold. The whole affair probably took a lot of planning, and the integration of twitter comments into the video webpage was impressive. This is the first time I have seen that kind of detail. It is especially good because even people who don;t twitter can see the discussion unfolding. The display of twitter comments behind the speakers was also a nice touch, however it was difficult to read them in the video ; it was probably more for the physical audience at the event. But seeing as how Anastasia had two of her ;tweets; read aloud on the webcast, making both Frank and me jealous, it The format got me thinking about 







Document Number: 3846
talking, of course, about the ability to syndicate feeds from contributor;s blogs ; but not only that ; to have it automatic, hands-free, and self-formatting for this blog. Like many a layperson might be able to imagine a genetically engineered plant that they would not know how to transform, setting up this capability was beyond the coding abilities of the geneticists editing this blog. I for one, have learned about html and php through fiddling as a geneticist might make a mutation and study its downstream effects. Although the metaphor may seem backwards, it makes perfect sense to me to see lines of computer code as if they were analogous to genes and not the other way around. But like many genes in a genome database, there;s no easy annotation for special features for blog plugins that don;t yet exist. Rather than wait for natural variation to give something for bloggers to select for, we had to call on the help of an intelligent designer to produce it ex nihilo. Charles Johnson created the highly versatile plugin, FeedWordpress , which allows you to subscribe to feeds on other blogs to import their posts into your own. It was perfect for 







Document Number: 7421
to broad discussions that affect everything we do in communicating risk. The take home message, for me, is that there are people in dire need that deserve better, and improved nutrition is the key to solving many problems. As Mark Whalqvist said in a symposium about ;Weaving biofortification into the global development agenda;, good nutrition is not really about rights. It;s about equity, fairness. A child growing up in rural India or Uganda deserves a chance for healthy brain and body development just as much as a child growing up in Washington, DC or Ames, Iowa. It;s only fair. Just defining the problems can be difficult. On a global scale, we have one list that has been agreed upon by representatives from counties all around the world. The Millennium Development Goals , developed by the UN and adopted in 2000, are a good list of the things that those of us in the developed world need to work on both in our own countries and in the developing world (bonus: cute logos). The list isn;t so good for accountability and determination of success because it is based on many factors that aren;t easy to measure but it;s still a useful 







Document Number: 8339
held this high office.Never before has the internet played such a huge role in the election, transition, and future administration of a president. And at least in my memory, I haven;t seen a president so prepared to hit the ground running in a crisis. The last two times a president decided to do something about a crisis, he first had to cancel his vacation! There are a lot of things on his list, and executive orders are flying out of the Oval Office. Some believe that among his list of things to do is to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods, but as I will demonstrate below, it is not on his list. First, a bit of background. Obama has made his policy priorities public, and has made it a point to include people who both agree and disagree with him a part of his administration. Further channeling the memory of Abraham Lincoln, he even rode from Illinois to Washington D.C. on a train. The first 100 days are going to be a very exciting time in the realm of presidential politics. President Obama has already vetted and selected several people to form his cabinet, which were announced 







Document Number: 4501
of a 90-day rat study with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)-rich oil produced from GM Yarrowia lipolytica yeast produced no adverse effects at doses up to 976 mg EPA per kilogram of body weight per day, according to findings published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. Exposure to EPA oil produced no test substance-related effects on body weight or nutritional parameters, neurobehavioral parameters, clinical or ophthalmological observations, hematology or urinalysis parameters or microscopic pathology at any tested dose, wrote researchers from DuPont, led by Susan MacKenzie. The safety profile of EPA oil was comparable to that of GRAS fish oil. These results support the use of EPA oil produced from yeast as a safe source for use in dietary supplements, they added. More at &nbsp; Nutra ingredients Scientific report Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2010 Sep 6. [Epub ahead of print] Safety assessment of EPA-rich oil produced from yeast: Results of a 90-day subchronic toxicity study. Mackenzie SA, Belcher LA, Sykes GP, Frame SR, Mukerji P, Gillies PJ. DuPont Haskell Global Centers for Health and Environmental Sciences, E. I. duPont de Nemours &amp; Company, 1090 Elkton Road, Newark, DE 19711-3507, USA. Abstract The safety of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) oil produced from genetically modified Yarrowia lipolytica 







Document Number: 1812
44 recent omic comparisons between GE and non-GE crop lines. Those profiling techniques (transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) have been increasingly applied to the analysis of genetically engineered (GE) crop plants with regard to their food safety and nutritional equivalence. None of the published omic assessments has raised safety concerns about GE cultivars. The results show that genetic engineering has less impact on the expression of RNA or on protein and metabolite levels than conventional breeding or environmental conditions (e.g. drought). Differences between GE crops and their comparators should be analyzed in a wider context of natural variation. The most pronounced differences were consistently found between the various conventional varieties, a trend linked to the crop diversity maintained or created by plant breeders. This should be put in perspective taking into account that conventional breeding is generally regarded as safe, despite the fact that the nature of the changes in new conventional cultivars are usually unknown. Metabolomics is becoming the prevalent approach but does not yet provide added value for food safety assessment compared to the currently used analytical methods. More basic research is required before non-targeted large-scale methodologies can be internationally certified and accepted. The study concludes (emphasis added): Today, 







Document Number: 8027
in Southeast Asia. Asia has its own problems, including floods and food-unfriendly government policies, as I described in ; Rising rice prices not caused by biofuels ;. However, Asians have been increasingly dependent on Australian rice, instead planting cash crops for export in their own fields. Droughts and economics in Australia have resulted in decreased rice harvests just when the food was needed most. Worse, limited water rights mean that farmers in Australia have to choose what crop to plant. The price of wine grapes is higher than that of rice, so the farmers did what they had to do. Sadly, as I;d gleaned from other reports, the shortages doesn;t seem to be anyone;s ;fault;, with no one thing to blame. Instead, it;s a mash of mostly unrelated events and conditions that have come together in an unforeseen way to create a terrible result. Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety, he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, and now it has stopped. The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain 







Document Number: 3080
a poll. They called a thousand random people over the phone and asked them just two questions: 1. Do you buy organic food, such as produce, meat or dairy products? (Yes/No) 2. Please rate your concern with organic food crops that are contaminated by genetic engineering. Are you Extremely concerned Very concerned Somewhat concerned Not concerned at all Sounds like a pretty simple exercise. However, I question the use of the term ;contaminated.; This is a loaded term, and assumes one of the things that they want people to believe ; that organic agriculture should not include genetic engineering. This introduces a bias into the poll. For instance, if you asked these two similar and benign questions, you would get two different results: A. Please rate your concern with organic food crops that cross-pollinate with hybrid crops. B. Please rate your concern with organic food crops that are contaminated by pollen from hybrid crops. Of course, hybrids are allowed in organic agriculture, but I;ll bet my backyard garden harvest for this entire year that if you ask these two questions the word ;contaminated; will have a measurable effect and cause people to answer that they are more concerned than they 







Document Number: 8543
). Thus one of the global challenges for the next century is the need to develop high-yielding varieties that require minimal inputs, so that impacts on biodiversity can be minimized. An alternative to the ;high-input; approach is to expand the number of organic farms. Because organic farmers do not use synthetic pesticides, their farms support higher levels of biodiversity than conventional farms. Some organic farms can yield as much, for some crops, as conventional agriculture ( Reganold et al. 2001 ; Maeder et al. , 2002 ), although in some cases the yields of organic cropping systems is considerably lower than that of conventional or integrated cropping systems ( Bruulsema TW et al. 2003; Maeder et al., 2002 ) In cases of low yield, organic practices would require more land be farmed to maintain and increase output levels, thus potentially leading to reduced overall biodiversity. What is the net effect on wildlife when the land being converted to wildlife-friendly farming has a lower yield, and so more land, somewhere, must be farmed to provide the same harvest? A new study this week published in Ecology Letters seeks to answer this question. The research indicates that when the organic yield per 







Document Number: 2422
the Center for Food Safety;s effort to halt Monsanto;s spring planting of GMO alfalfa crops. Nutiva is concerned about the impact that genetically modified organisms are having on our natural world;; Oxnard, CA (Vocus/PRWEB) February 17, 2011 Last month the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the deregulation of Monsantos genetically engineered, Roundup-Ready alfalfa. According to the New York Times, this would authorize the unrestricted commercial cultivation of genetically modified alfalfa, a decision profoundly disappointing to the organic community and one that promises an epic battle to determine the future of organic foods in North America. The Center for Food Safety (CFS), is pursuing all legal remedies to oppose this decision. CFS, a nonprofit organization, representing 180,000 members across the nation, is focused on curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and promoting organic agriculture. CFS Executive Director Andrew Kimbrell said, CFSs legal team is the organic communitys last line of defense against this GMO threat to farmers and consumer choice. Nutiva has pledged $25,000 to CFS to support its legal work. With Organic Foods Endangered, Who Will Take a Stand Against Monsanto? Nutiva founder and CEO, John W. Roulac, comments on the deregulation, Nutiva is concerned about 







Document Number: 4919
berries while leaving the soil healthier and more genetically diverse. ;Our findings have global implications and advance what we know about the sustainability benefits of organic farming systems,; said John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science and lead author of a paper published in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLoS ONE. ;We also show you can have high quality, healthy produce without resorting to an arsenal of pesticides.; The study is among the most comprehensive of its kind, analyzing 31 chemical and biological soil properties, soil DNA, and the taste, nutrition and quality of three strawberry varieties on more than two dozen commercial fields ; 13 conventional and 13 organic. All the farms in the current study were in California, home to 90 percent of the nation;s strawberries and the center of an ongoing debate about the use of soil fumigants. Conventional farms in the study used the ozone-depleting methyl bromide, which is slated to be replaced by the highly toxic methyl iodide over the protests of health advocates and more than 50 Nobel laureates and members of the National Academy of Sciences. In July, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the EPA to reconsider its approval of methyl 







Document Number: 6930
other attributes of a food, downplay the number of calories, and not pay as much attention to the nutrition facts panel. A couple recent studies by Schuldt and Schwarz (1) show this happens with the word organic on the label as well, with food and exercise. Indirect evidence has suggested this for awhile (associations of organic withhealthy among many other inferences). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. In the first study , they showed 114 college students, split into 2 groups a Nutrition Facts panel for conventional Oreos or Oreos that were made with organic flour and sugar that had the same number of calories. They were asked to rate on a scale if they thought the cookies they were shown had in comparison to other brands more or fewer calories and if they should be eaten more or less compared to other brands. They also completed a New Ecological Paradigm scale which measured how pro-environmentalist they are. On average the organic oreos were rated as having fewer calories compared to other brands, and were rated more appropriate to eat more often. They also found that a higher level of pro-environmentalism more strongly biased the calorie content perceptions of the organically 







Document Number: 7739
being no approval at all, the second, unrestricted approval, and the third, approval with certain geographic restrictions. (For some discussion on this, see Anastasia;s post on alfalfa and mine on our joint comment to the USDA .) So already, the political process with GE crop deregulation is getting more interesting, but one fascinating aspect of all this is the new and surprising level of infighting amongst opponents of genetic engineering, particularly in the Organic agriculture sector. All it took was proposing something between a blanket Yes or No ; something that recognizes that all farmers have a reasonable right to grow crops as they see fit ; and that the goal should be coexistence amongst all segments of agriculture. As soon as the topic of coexistence came up. Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association fired off a shot, with USDA Recommends ;Coexistence; with Monsanto? We say Hell No! The Agriculture Department is dutifully drafting a comprehensive ;coexistence policy; that supposedly will diffuse tensions between conventional (chemical but non-GMO), biotech, and organic farmers. Earlier this week industry and Administration officials met in Washington, D.C. to talk about coexistence. Even though the Organic Consumers Association tried to get into the meeting, 







Document Number: 2146
environment. Ive already covered analyses suggesting that there isnt enough evidence that suggests organic foods are better for your health, so is the higher cost justified by a lessened environmental impact? Bahlai et al. published a paper suggesting that the dichotomous classification of organic and conventional is not optimal for sustainability, we must evaluate pesticides individually. According to the authors, sustainable agriculture programs put an emphasis on the development of organic and natural insecticides to control pests, with the assumption that they are safer on the environment compared to synthetics. Public opinion also leans toward this assumption as well. The various practices (organic, conventional, or integrated) have been studied producing different results on sustainability. Differences in methodologies, practice classifications, and a number of other variables make it difficult to draw conclusions at this point. Importantly, they note: each system is characterized by a suite of practices which are ideologically, rather than empirically defined, these systems are not mutually exclusive from each other , and vary from region to region depending on regulations. Because of these variations, generalizations about the overall sustainability of one system over another are never universal. Organic farms do indeed (generally) use pesticides, they just arent synthetically 







Document Number: 7588
agricultural situations. My role here on Biofortified is to write about the basic biology of pests, but I will be discussing management from time to time. Ellipsidion australe: Cockroach? Yes Pest? No. To say that insects are pests would be far too simplistic because of their sheer diversity. The two families of parasitoid wasps I;ve been discussing, the Braconids and Ichneumonids consist of about 180,000 species together. If you want something to compare this to, there are roughly 10,000 mammalian species. There are a lot of insects around us, and they all have different ecological roles. While some insects feed on crops, others feed exclusively on other insects which makes them the enemies of our enemies and thus;our friends. Even in a monoculture system, there are interactions between pest animals, their environment and people. Understanding these interactions is key to understanding things like why we need pesticides or why your town is inundated with ladybugs every year. So;what, exactly constitutes a pest? The most simple definition of a pest is an organism which pisses us off. That;s really it; the term is completely anthropocentric. Pests are creatures which interfere with our activities in any way, shape or form. In agricultural 







Document Number: 745
divided into categories as well as how those categories overlap. Identifying pests and how they cause damage is only one part of the puzzle. There;s another part of the puzzle that comes along when you start treating the crops and when talking about pesticides, it;s one that;s the most frequently overlooked. Economics need to be taken into account when treating crops because, believe it or not, going easy on the pesticides can actually be beneficial to farmers. The latest paradigm for pest control in agricultural situations is called ;integrated pest management;, which I;ll refer to as IPM from here on out. It takes an economical approach to pest management by sampling pests, looking at how they damage crops and what numbers of a pest are sufficient to damage a set of crops. This is much better than randomly spraying pesticides at anything which looks like it might be eating your crops because it takes into account how much money you;ll spend and save on treatments. It also encourages a conservative use of pesticides which not only lessens a pest;s exposure to pesticides and selection pressure for pesticide resistance but also lowers the amount of pesticides sprayed in the field. Although 







Document Number: 1281
corn, soybeans, wheat, seed corn, and popcorn over many of those years it has truly changed what we are able to do and what we will be able to do in the future. Equipment technology has created a way for us to be able to be better stewards of our ground and resources. Biotechnology has allowed us to push the food, feed, and fuel production to levels that only a few short years ago, many people would not have thought possible. Plus, we are utilizing fertilizer at a better rate. We are reducing our need for irrigation, in irrigated crop production. We are using fewer and fewer pesticides, which not only allows for a healthier product but also for cleaner natural resources like streams and drinking water. For the farmer, this new wave of biotechnology, has allowed him to plant sooner and get over more acres faster. It also allows for a crop that can remain in the field in good condition longer. It is also allowing for new ;green; technologies to come along with the feedstocks from the field being used for future cellulosic ethanol production and for helping coal fired electric plants to create a cleaner energy as 







Document Number: 3657
the cyanobacterium was not consumed. Instead, it stayed there, establishing a new home inside the confines of its voracious captor. We now know this happy accident was a momentous first step towards a greener, more botanical planet, because our little cyanobacterium was the photosynthetic ancestor to that most remarkable organelle: the chloroplast . (By law, any discussion of chloroplast origins compels me to mention the similar origin of the mitochondrion. With those requirements now met, let us now continue.) The focus of this post will be more technological than biological, but there are a few basic facts we need to get out of the way before we can proceed. Briefly: Chloroplasts, along with leucoplasts, proteinoplasts, elaioplasts, amyloplasts, statoliths, and chromoplasts, belong to a class of organelles known as plastids . The names of these other plastids aren;t important so long as you realize the chloroplast isn;t the only game in town. That;s why the title of this post is ;Plastid Engineering; and not ;Chloroplast Engineering.; Plastids replicate separately from their host cell, and in any given cell there can be 100 to 1,000 plastids. Moreover, plastids contain multiple copies of their genome ( plastome ) to the point where a 







Document Number: 4495
Poster Competition For Graduate and Undergraduate Students . I was very excited about the competition this year, because my research is very important to world food issues. The poster is: Characterizing seed storage proteins in teosinte and tripsicum , with the objective statement ;To find unique seed storage proteins in relatives of maize that might be used to improve maize nutritional qualities.; I like to imagine that Norm Borlaug would approve. I purposefully chose a table at the opening of the room, just as I did last year, so I would be easily noticeable. I even brought samples of the seed so people could see for themselves how different teosinte and tripsicum are from maize, because everyone likes hand-on science. I thought I did all the right things to make a good showing, even if my poster wasn;t the best. Unfortunately, the judging was less than smooth. Each poster was assigned two judges from a pool of about six judges. My first judge, who I;ve interacted with before, read my poster and joked with me for a bit. I was concerned that he didn;t ask many specific questions about my research. His last question was ;how would this affect food 







Document Number: 1745
it;s a little difficult to work with, but with perseverance and the right software ( JMP is the best!*), I was able to re-do the EWG analysis but with the newest available data. Below you can find my results with a through explanation of what I;ve done and why. The results are posted without all the commentary at Produce Pesticide Rankings which has all of the results and Pesticide Produce Rankings Tables which has comparisons of my results to the EWG results. You can download the original USDA data yourself or check out the Latest PDP Findings of Interest to Consumers . See Produce Pesticide Rankings Part 2 for the real scoop on which produce is the most and least safe. Concentration and LOD My first step was to compare the detected Concentration to the Limit of Detection . The LOD seems to have been ignored by EWG. The LOD is the smallest concentration of the chemical you are looking for that will give a positive signal with the method used. Every method/chemical combination has a different LOD that can be found by comparing a blank (no chemical) to smaller and smaller concentrations of the chemical. If the detected concentration 







Document Number: 5404
but human error plays a bigger role in GM contamination Careless handling of seeds may be the key reason for the unintended spread of genetically modified (GM) crops, a study has found. The discovery challenges the widespread belief that the main source of GM contamination is the transfer of pollen by bees from GM crops to non-GM counterparts in neighbouring fields. Human error during seed production and handling is the more likely culprit, say the researchers. Stands of non-GM crop plants are currently planted near or within fields of modified crops to provide refuges for pests. This technique helps prevent the pests developing resistance to the pesticides used on GM crops. But human error could undermine this widely used strategy, the paper says. Shannon Heuberger, an entomologist at the University of Arizona, United States, and her colleagues measured the gene flow the movement of genes between different populations that occurs when a plant from one population fertilises a plant from the other in Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton, the widely planted GM crop, in 15 fields in Arizona. They found that gene flow via the transmission of pollen by bees was rare. Fewer than one per cent of seeds produced by 







Document Number: 7255
the changes really mean? Is the US government really part of a Monsanto-led conspiracy to force the impoverished into a cycle of dependency on patented seed and pesticides? The Pesticide Action Network of North America sums up their view of the situation in their newsletter : After its introduction in the Senate a year ago, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton have been quietly pressing for this piece of legislation that aims to fight global hunger with one hand while orchestrating a giant taxpayer subsidy to pesticide and ag biotech companies with the other. The bill, also known as the Lugar-Casey Act ; for Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA) ; would refocus aid programs on agricultural development, with a caveat: public funding of genetically engineered (GE) seeds is what this bill means by agricultural development. I don;t know if PANNA actually read the Act, because there;s a lot in there about agricultural development that has nothing to do with genetic engineering, as you;ll see in this post. Genetic engineering Corporations One of the biggest arguments against improved seed, whether biotech or simply hybrid, is that it is developed by corporations. To be fair, this is often true in 







Document Number: 6947
crops and the use of glyphosate in the environment. This is not a new controversy, but many statements released in recent weeks by groups opposed to the use of genetically modified (GM) crops have claimed that glyphosate use and Roundup Ready technology will be disastrous and that glyphosate has damaged crop production by decreasing nutrient availability to plants, reducing nutrient content of food and livestock feed, and increasing plant susceptibility to disease (Zerbe, 2011). There also are claims that glyphosate is contributing to an increase in more than 40 plant diseases that may also affect human and animal health (Smith, 2011; Zerbe, 2011). However, evidence to support these claims has neither been presented to nor evaluated by the scientific community As scientists, we are equally concerned about the health of the environment and the sustainability of agricultural production. We have previously addressed questions on the impact of glyphosate and manganese (Mn) interactions on soybean (see http://www.btny.purdue.edu/weedscience/2010/GlyphosateMn.pdf ). &nbsp;In this article, we discussed the limited research available on the impact of glyphosate and glyphosate resistant crops on Mn nutrition of soybeans, and encouraged producers to avoid ;insurance; applications of Mn for the sole purpose of counteracting perceived plant health damage due 







Document Number: 1815
Summerset Winery , yum!). Why choose blue and purple? Anthocyanins, of course. These natural plant compounds are nice to look at, and there is a lot of evidence that they have protecting health qualities for those who eat them, protecting us from diseases like cancer, diabetes, and obesity. So, what do we do to make sure that people can get recommended amounts of anthocyanins? Anthocyanin-rich berries are delicious but expensive and only available during certain times of year. Most people do not seek out red cabbage or brightly colored heirloom varieties of veggies like carrots and cauliflower . In the US, the most frequently eaten vegetables are potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes. Purple tomatoes exist, but heirloom tomatoes have issues like splitting and little time till spoilage. This is fine if you buy them at the farmer;s market and eat them the next day, but is not suitable for things like pasta sauce production (cans and bottles are where most people get their RDA of tomatoes, but it turns out they are healthier that way!). Varieties like Cherokee purple , while awesome, don;t produce anthocyanins throughout the fruit. One option would be to develop tomatoes with high concentrations of anthocyanins. The 







Document Number: 5282
April, trickery in the name of brief entertainment spreads creativity and hilarity throughout the lands. On April Fools, you could play a trick on a friend and have a chuckle amongst a few people, or attempt to spread a joke across the intertubes to maximize the number of affected individuals. Last year on Biofortified we were subjected to a hostile takeover by Greenpeace , and this year I was hoping to do some sort of joke on the blog, but my trip across the world was befuddling my plotting and scheming. I couldn;t think of anything before I left, and was worried about being able to pull something off. Then the ;Pineberry; hit the news. A white strawberry that tastes like pineapple ; sounded fantastic. While people on Wikipedia were debating whether these press releases on March 31st were real or not, to me it didn;t matter. Time to pile on. I pulled a story from the Guardian (that was about the Large Hadron Collider) and rewrote the article . Then I had to edit the features of the html page to make it seem real. (Why would a story on strawberries have physics articles in the related article section 







Document Number: 5779
of voting to decide the winner. Each day, I will post a reason why I think Biofortified deserves your vote. The reason for today is Science. We bring lots of it to the site, and we would like to bring more. Understanding the issues involved in genetic engineering in agriculture means that you have to understand some of the science. You don;t have to have a Ph.D. to have an opinion on the topic (it sure helps), but like any important issue it pays to do research first. Would you buy a car without researching your options? Maybe you don;t need to know exactly how a four-stroke wankel engine works, but knowing the difference between a V6 and a V8 might be important if you want to make the right decision for your driving needs. Wouldn;t it make sense to treat the genetics of the food you eat (and the clothing you wear) with the same information-oriented approach? That is one of the primary reasons why we started this blog almost one year ago: To build a resource for people who want to learn more about plant genetics and genetic engineering, to be confident that they can contribute to the 







Document Number: 4431
I think Biofortified deserves your vote: Dialogue. One of the reasons why we started a group blog to talk about plant genetics and food is because of the many opportunities it allows for dialogue, of several kinds. First, it allows scientists to start talking about their work and the work of others in a manner that people without a background in genetics can access. Most people in this country, and many around the world, have access to a computer that is internet-capable and can read about it. Scientific Journals are the primary go-to place for the latest science and the most complete summaries of knowledge and issues, but these are often behind a registration wall that limits its access to only a small part of the population. On a science blog such as Biofortified new research can be presented where almost anyone can access it, and in a language common to non-scientists. But more importantly, it allows those members of the public to be able to respond with comments, criticisms, and write their own blog posts linking back. Now the one-way flow of information can be two-way, which is how most people discuss issues they find important. This is the 







Document Number: 3538
to 632 votes, leaving behind our leading opponent the Non-GMO Project, at 260 votes. During the course of the day, we have gained about 570 votes to their 100. There are still two more days left to the contest, and you never know how much things may change down the road. So today I will present another reason why I think Biofortified deserves your vote: Honesty. Last week, a day into the final voting week, we received a comment on our entry from Megan Westgate, the Executive Director of the Non-GMO Project. I will reproduce it in full: Biofortified Pro GE? Although you say here you are not pro GE, on your own homepage there is a link to ;Other Pro GE Blogs; implying that yours is one, too. And there is no link to anti GE blogs (which would be a requisite if you really were committed to balanced representation). You even have a link to ;Monsanto According to Monsanto; (the industry blog), but no link to the powerful documentary ;The World According to Monsanto.; Given these facts, how can you really say that you are offering both sides? Your entry here doesn;t seem honest. Anastasia and I both 







Document Number: 1579
To help to that end, I will present the fourth reason why I think we deserve a little of your time: Michael Pollan. When I first heard about the contest, the grand prize was a ;social media training; session and a conversation with Michael Pollan. As I noted on my personal blog, I have been waiting to do an interview with him for almost three years. Back in 2006, I participated in a panel discussion ( available here on UCTV ) with him and others on Food, Farming, and Genetics, as part of the Community Book Project at UC Davis, which focused on The Omnivore;s Dilemma. Pam Ronald was also the moderator of the discussion. Our group conversation left more questions than answer in my head, so I asked him if I could interview him sometime on my radio show and he agreed. A combination of timidity, lack of radio show after moving to Madison for grad school, and the sheer amount of demand on Pollan;s time, it hasn;t yet happened. In the interim, more questions have piled up. Not just about genetics, but even about the philosophy of science, the future of agriculture, and whether he thinks that health 







Document Number: 8240
discovered last night that a stealth competitor that no one noticed has rapidly gained votes. On Monday it was at 2 votes, last night when I saw it it was at 218 votes. Right now it has passed the Non-GMO Project and is sporting 368 total votes! This entry is the Orwellian-named Campaign for Healthier Eating in America , an initiative started by dance instructor and author Jeffrey Smith. Orwellian? Oh yes, it isn;t about getting people to eat more vegetables and cut down on saturated fat ; it is about getting people to eat blue corn instead of yellow corn to avoid GE crops. In fact, on their website, Smith explains how manufacturers can advertise in his ;shopping guide,; for a nominal fee of course. What does the money go to? Interestingly, Smith is on the Communications Committee of the Non-GMO Project. Anyway, for my final reason why I think Biofortified deserves your vote, I will briefly discuss the grant that comes with the grand prize. When we entered, there was no such grant being awarded. Consequently after it was added, we have thought about what we would want to do with that money. Here are some of the 







Document Number: 7801
problem and how can we develop changes that will have the most benefit? Agricultural Life Cycle Analysis is a useful tool in collecting information and making decisions. LCAs take every input and every output into consideration including difficult to consider ouputs like greenhouse gas emissions. Nathan Pelletier from Dalhouse Uni in Nova Scotia presented his work on ag LCAs at Iowa State recently. He explains that actually conducting LCAs can be difficult. First, we need to define the scope of the analysis. For example, if we consider milk production, we should likely include the cow herself, food, water, and waste. We probably should include all of the inputs and outputs associated with feed production and transportation. We might include the inputs and outputs of pasteurizing and transporting the milk. Also difficult is actually quantifying all of the inputs and outputs to air, soil, and water. Finally, it is difficult to complete a meaningful impact assessment including the identification of ;hotspots; or most negative impacts. Despite the difficulties, LCAs are worth the effort. Nathan reminds us that agriculture produces 1/3 of global warming emissions. The demand for food will will double by 2050, so we need to half the impact to 







Document Number: 3690
thorny regulatory thicket; that makes almost impossible the use of advanced gene modification methods, researchers say. In a new study published today in the journal BioScience , scientists argue that major regulatory reforms and possibly new laws are needed to allow cellulosic bioenergy to reach its true potential as a form of renewable energy, and in some cases help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. ;It;s extraordinary that gene modification technology, which has been adapted more rapidly than any other technology in the history of agriculture, and had some profound environmental and economic benefits, has been regulated virtually out of existence for perennial cellulosic biofuels crops,; said Steve Strauss, a distinguished professor of forest biotechnology at Oregon State University, and lead author of the paper. In the report, the authors noted that exotic plant species pose a serious risk of spread and ecosystem impacts, but face much less stringent regulation or obstacles than genetically engineered crops, which are carefully designed to solve problems, not cause them. A genetically modified plant in which one or a few genes have been changed is treated as more of a risk than an invasive species that has thousands of new genes, and 







Document Number: 665
few other commercialized traits, such as virus resistant papaya and squash, but why aren;t there more? We see all sorts of papers about awesome genetically engineered traits, from nemotode resistance to nutritional enhancement to really specialized traits like nicotine free tobacco and allergen free peanuts. There are so many traits that we even started a list at Biofortified in an attempt to keep track of them all. These traits have been developed and tested for efficacy, often with public funding, but haven;t make it to the commercialization stage. All that;s needed is a little breeding to get these traits ready for market. Why don;t we see them in the grocery store? UC Davis researchers Kent Bradford and Jamie Miller have collected a huge amount of data on genetically engineered traits and presented it in their recent paper The regulatory bottleneck for biotech specialty crops . It;s a short but insightful piece. Don;t forget to check out the supplementary material that has lists of all the different traits they found described in the literature. Here;s the first two paragraphs to whet your appetite: Specialty crops, which include fruits, vegetables, nuts, turf and ornamental crops, are important components of human diets and 







Document Number: 8774
need completely different soils and climates. That;s why we see a lot of corn and soy grown in Iowa and Illinois, rice in California, and wheat in Kansas. The first generation (or seed based) biofuels have focused on corn, soy, and rapeseed in Europe. None of these grow where rice can grow. Therefore, the amount of rice planted and harvested has nothing to do with land prices or a move to biofuel crops. Some people have said that the rising costs of corn have caused people to buy rice instead. I can imagine this happening in cultures where both starches are used (such as Mexico and South America) but corn has never been a staple food in south east Asia. So, what is causing the rice shortage? Rising fuel costs have also increased the prices of agricultural inputs fertilizer and pesticide. Withholding these inputs can cause decreased yield. Floods have wiped out rice fields through force, and rice plants submerged for more than a few days will die. Increased demand without an increase of supply will of course cause a shortage as well. I;m certainly not the first person to make the disconnection between the rice shortage and biofuels. Philip 







Document Number: 3296
a statement of fact, it is plainly obvious, but what is less obvious is that it also makes a splendid guiding principle for life. I try as best I can to base my life in the best that science has to offer, but I know (more than most it seems) that often times, science does not have all the information we need to make decisions. In many areas of science, from global warming to evolutionary biology, there are gaps in our knowledge that make deciding on a course of action difficult. So I think we need to return to some of the fundamentals. Some scientists say that we don;t know enough about global warming, that the gaps in our knowledge of climate science are too big to make policy decisions based upon it. We could just listen to the majority of climate scientists, but ;consensus; is not a reliable guide for truth ; it merely reflects the current state of knowledge, which in science, is always changing. But what is not changing is that large corporations continue to profit off of climate science denialism, and the risk of inaction outweighs the risk of action. In evolution, creationists often point to 







Document Number: 8998
this entry. Dr. Popescu is a scientist in Romania, working at one of the country;s several crop testing laboratories. The information herein is paraphrased from her presentation. First let;s talk about Romania. I;m no expert, but I;ve hosted Romanian scientists in my lab. It is a country and people trying to join the highly industrialized nations of the world. There is a desire to move from the historical challenges of being a former Eastern Bloc nation into a modern economic power. Right now a sagging economy is weighing heavily on the country and impairing their ascent. Until recently, one of their strengths was agriculture, and one of their major crops was potato. In particular, they used Bt-producing transgenic potato to resist attack of the Colorado Beetle, a beetle clearly out of its jurisdiction in Romania. Switching to Bt potato saved $10 million USD a year for farmers, $4 million in insecticides and $6 million in their application. Here transgenic technology made the farmer more competitive and helped Romania grow as a food exporter. Romania also grew herbicide resistant soybeans. Before 2007 they were net exporters of soy, forming the basis of a trade surplus for the growing nation. Romania went 







Document Number: 4384
describing anyone as unprincipled can hardly be regarded as a compliment. But principles define our way of thinking and making decisions and can blind us to evidence which is inconsistent with our world view. Objectivity is something we should value in all walks of life and in policymaking it should certainly be the norm. However, politicians are all too often big on principles, despite the reality that the most successful governments are often of the pragmatic centre rather than based on doctrinaire politics of any particular shade. A big principle which currently dominates transport policy is that private cars, road transport generally and short distance air travel are intrinsically bad and must be minimised. In the energy field, the mantra of renewables uneconomic and unreliable wind and solar power blinds policymakers to the need to maintain an affordable and reliable power supply while maintaining the fiction that current biofuels are of net benefit. And in agriculture, romantic notions of farming on natural principles ignore the realities of food demand growing without extra land being available; &nbsp;(original edited) ; Transport, you might argue, is to some extent a luxury once the essentials of life have been taken care of (although I 







Document Number: 1809
At the Maize Genetics Conference, I got to listen to their Chair of the Research and Business Development Action Team, Pam Johnson (you can find my summary of her remarks in my post Research and the Recession ). She was a little overenthusiastic, but generally made sense, advocating for better cooperation between government and industry to produce more useful research. I hate to say it, but, was all that just for show? Like any special interest group, NCGA puts out information that is biased toward their own agenda. This is nothing new, every special interest group from Greenpeace to AgBioWorld does it. I know it happens, and yet, I was still shocked yesterday when I read the report Research Shines Light on Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone ( full paper ). The cause of the hypoxic zone has been thoroughly researched by multiple respected organizations including NOAA and USGS , but NCGA throws all that research aside in this report. Lets not blame nitrogen fertilization of corn, they say. Instead, its increased population causing more sewage and the fertilization of lawns (really, they say that). Some of their points are valid, but taken as a whole, the report may as 







Document Number: 9007
either caffeine (or herbicides) into embryos can easily damage the embryo, but humans can&nbsp;safely&nbsp;drink caffeine in moderation. Takashi Kobayashi, Atsuyuki Nishida, Akane Kurokawa, and Fumio Ariyuki (1995) Cardiovascular Malformations Induced by Caffeine and Phenobarbital in Chick Embryos AATEX 3. 17-27 The usage of chick embryos for studying the mechanism of cardiovascular malformations caused by chemicals was studied. Caffeine, well known as a teratogen for the cardiovascular system of chick embryos, was administered at the dose of 3.0 mg per egg to chick embryos from two different breeds between incubation day 2 (ID2, Hamburger and Hamilton stage 14) and 5 (Hamburger and Hamilton stage 27). The eggs were incubated until ID12 to examine the cardiovascular malformation. Treatment at Hamburger and Hamilton stage 19 (ID3) was highly lethal and treatment at this stage and at stages 23-24 (ID4) induced a high degree of cardiovascular malformation in the embryos from both breeds. The embryotoxicity caused by caffeine in the two different breeds similarly varied with the developmental stage of treatment. Paganelli, A., Gnazzo, V., Acosta, H., Lpez, S.L., Carrasco, A.E. 2010. Glyphosate-based herbicides produce teratogenic effects on vertebrates by impairing retinoic acid signalling . Chem. Res. Toxicol., August 9. The broad spectrum herbicide 







Document Number: 740
the potential benefit of providing high-quality animal protein without putting additional pressure on declining wild fish stocks. However, these salmon present some potential risks that warrant examination. First, effects on the health and welfare of the animals must be determined. Second, if genetically engineered salmon were to escape and become established in the wild, native salmon populations or other aspects of the ecosystem could be adversely affected. Third, this genetically engineered trait or some part of the development or rearing process might have health consequences for consumers. These risks must be fully addressed before deregulation can be considered. The science behind the salmon In 1989, the founder animal of the AquAdvantage salmon line was created by injecting an Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ) egg with a gene construct (termed opAFP-GHc2; figure 1a ) that contained a promoter and termination region from the ocean pout ( Zoarces americanus ) antifreeze gene and a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ). The ocean pout antifreeze promoter was previously shown to be constitutive, or continually expressing, in salmon (1), in contrast to the native growth hormone promoter in salmon, which only expresses in response to certain environmental cues such 







Document Number: 4503
;is working with the Chinese government to reward farmers in China that grow the firm;s genetically modified (GM) rice, with carbon credits that they can sell for cash.; The rice will reduce fertilizer run off (responsible for oceanic dead zones) and decrease emissions of nitrogen oxide. How does it work? Arcadia;s website isn;t telling all, but I was able to find a paper in the Canadian Journal of Botany: Engineering nitrogen use efficiency with alanine aminotransferase . See the abstract below: Nitrogen (N) is the most important factor limiting crop productivity worldwide. The ability of plants to acquire N from applied fertilizers is one of the critical steps limiting the efficient use of nitrogen. To improve N use efficiency, genetically modified plants that overexpress alanine aminotransferase ( AlaAT ) were engineered by introducing a barley AlaAT cDNA driven by a canola root specific promoter ( btg26 ). Compared with wild-type canola, transgenic plants had increased biomass and seed yield both in the laboratory and field under low N conditions, whereas no differences were observed under high N.The transgenics also had increased nitrate influx. These changes resulted in a 40% decrease in the amount of applied nitrogen fertilizer required under field 







Document Number: 6598
ethical lines. The idea connects ethics to science and engineering, but it frames the relationship in a misleading way. Moral notions and practices inevitably influence and are influenced by science and engineering. The important question is how such interactions should take place. Anticipatory ethics is a new approach that integrates ethics into technological development. Trends in Biotechnology, December 2010, Vol. 28, No. 12 589 QUOTE Directing rather than interfering What are we to make of the rhetoric of going where no humans should go? The above analysis suggests why the questions raised are so important and why the rhetoric is misleading. We should be asking whether science and engineering are taking us where we want to go; bringing morality into engagement with science and engineering ensures that human ends and values are served. However, the rhetoric of line-crossing and restricting is misleading because it suggests that science and engineering are endeavors that move independently of society, and, now and then, must be interfered with, restricted or diverted. This blinds us from seeing science as a means to social ends and it deflects attention away from issues about how science and engineering are now being directed. Acknowledgment that science and engineering 







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has been obtained in Peru that is also a victory for those who value their own personal freedom to express scientific criticism. The scientific method is dead if we do not give full licence for practitioners to offer untrammeled objective criticism to anyone who claims scientific credibility. Senior respected Peruvian scientist Ernesto Bustamante had been subjected to criminal prosecution for defamation for merely stating that publically made scientific statements about genetically modified maize were spurious. This defamation action is part of a very disturbing worldwide trend in which the legal process is abused to silence public comment by scientists who speak out about inaccurate statements that are made by activists. General background to the defamation case involving Ernesto Bustamante has been presented in previous GMO Pundit posts: GM report adds twist to Peruvian defamation case Peruvian national agency refutes basis for legal suit against Dr Ernesto Bustamante for expressing scientific comment on spurious claims. Criminal defamation laws are being used to silence scientists We are thus extremely pleased announce in the current post the good news about Ernesto Bustamante;s successful legal appeal to the Superior Court of Lima : The Fifth Criminal Court of the Superior Court of Lima constituted 







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honored to be this month;s host. The entries span a wide range of scientific topics that defies summarization. You;ll just have to see for yourself. In no particular order, I present to you this months Scientia Pro Publica. . Dirk Hanson presents Anandamide Hits the Hedonic Hot Spot at Addiction Inbox . This explanation of why marijuana causes the munchies includes discussion of the search for drugs to decrease appetite. Captain Skellett presents Thought controlled computers? Recent research says yes. at A Schooner of Science . Here, the cutting edge of computing meets neuroscience. DNLee presents Heritability ? what you get from your folks at SouthernPlayalisticEvolutionMusic . Defining heritabilty and contrasting it with inheritance, all explained via rap music ; in this case Juvenile;s Mama Got Ass (She Get it From Her Mama). Alexander Peter presents Foam Roller Stretches to Reduce the Risk of Iliotibial Band Syndrome at FoamRoller.org.uk . This article provides some tips on how to prevent the risk of developing Iliotibial Band Syndrome by using a foam roller to relieve the stress from the IT band. Michael Parsons presents 10 Psychological Reasons Why Most Diets Fail at Masters In Psychology . Diets can be tough to keep 







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stressful. A quiet life in the country sounds idyllic to people balancing the demands of a job, urban living and paying for it all. But part of this philosophy extends beyond avoiding the stresses of everyday life and wants to turn the clock back to a time when everything, including farming, was simpler and somehow ;better;. By this reckoning, it is important not just to lead a less hectic life, but also to consume in a more ;sustainable; way. The s-word has now become shorthand for all that is good and environmentally friendly; we may not know what it means, but it has warm, comforting connotations and is undeniably A Good Thing (to take the&nbsp; 1066 and all that &nbsp;approach). But, like so many other common terms, few people can actually define sustainability, at least in any meaningful way. The conventional Brundtland formulation, in full, says that: ;Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of &nbsp; needs , in particular the essential needs of the world;s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and 







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it is safe for humans and the environment, several EU member states have since banned its cultivation. What are the political reasons behind this ban? And what is MON810 corn exactly? In this report, VIB seeks to answer those questions. It turns out that politics, not science, is the main driver behind the current bans. Aside from the political aspects of the cultivation of the crop, the report also focuses on the molecular underpinnings of MON810 corn, its economical and environmental impact and its consequences for agriculture. Download of report available at link. Update: From comments on this post syndicated at Biofortified Bernada comment: Trusting tests and studies is problematic according to Scientific American. Research on genetically modified seeds is still published, of course. But only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal. In a number of cases, experiments that had the implicit go-ahead from the seed company were later blocked from publication because the results were not flattering. It is important to understand that it is not always simply a matter of blanket denial of all research requests, which is bad enough, wrote Elson J. Shields, an entomologist at Cornell University, 







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engineering that is the target. Nature News reports in Transgenic bacterium sparks row in French schools , that CRIIGEN, led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, is advocating that useful, direct education in fundamentals of genetic transformation should be kept from high school students. I guess it was only a matter of time. The particular brand of extreme belief about the risks of genetic engineering espoused by Seralini, who is the president of the scientific board of The Committee for Research &amp; Independent Information on Genetic Engineering ( CRIIGEN ), has now spilled over into the inevitable conclusion that anything and everything GMO-like should be in advanced low-air-pressure biosafety labs only. Because simple things done a million times over such as adding a plasmid to a tube of harmless bacteria to demonstrate how basic genetic engineering works is knowledge that French high school students should not have access to. Why? Because doing a safe, controlled experiment ;trivializes; a touchy subject. [Seralini] warns against trivialization of a sensitive subject, contamination risks and possible violation of European directives on the manipulation of genetically modified organisms in confined spaces. ;I am also concerned that practical classes erode the time spent imparting knowledge of biology,; he adds. 







Document Number: 5897
attempt to feed more than a few percent of the total number of people. We don;t have enough nitrogen to feed the world in the natural sources of fertiliser that organic farmers are allowed by the ;artificial; rules they have set for themselves. Attempts to expand acreage devoted to organic farming are severely restricted by the availability of essential nitrogen fertiliser components. We need extra synthetic fertiliser to do the job. We cannot rely on the organic approach for more than a modest fraction of the worlds food. This fact of life has been well documented by Vaclav Smil &nbsp;in several books, including Enriching the Earth: Fritz Harber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production MIT Press 2001. Is it then surprising that some members of the organic food industry cheat when it comes to fertiliser, by using synthetic nitrogen to supplement their ;organic; fertiliser manure? This cheating has shown up in a recent report in the LA Times: Organic fertilizer maker accused of using synthetic chemicals Kenneth Noel Nelson Jr. is indicted on 28 counts of mail fraud in connection with an alleged years-long scheme to dupe farmers and agriculture product distributors. By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles 







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radio subject matter ) to helping fund the IRRI , and promoting Pam Ronald;s book, Bill Gates et al are really trying to improve the agricultural conditions in more troubled nations while also raising awareness about the issue. Along with providing vaccines and working on eradicating diseases, they have a lofty set of millennium goals in agriculture. There are millions upon millions of hungry mouths to feed (and feed well), and they are hard at work making this possible through technology, infrastructure, and building a knowledge base within those countries so that they can continue to produce food under their own innovative powers. However, not everyone views the Gates Foundation;s involvement in the developing world as a good thing. Eager to shape foreign agriculture in a less technological way, critics have objected often to any use of fertilizers, pesticides, genetically engineered traits, and even hybrid crops. Arguing that agricultural aid should be limited to organic techniques, anything that smells of technology (which is strange because organic is a specific set of technologies) is immediately associated with big business interests in developed countries like the US. For years, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates foundation was associated with the likes of Monsanto, 







Document Number: 6398
did the heavy metal get in there? In making HFCS that natural sweetener, as the Corn Refiners Associaton [sic] likes to call it caustic soda is one ingredient used to separate corn starch from the corn kernel. Apparently most caustic soda for years has been produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants, where it can be contaminated with mercury that it passes on to the HFCS, and then to consumers. First of all, Im no particular fan of corn syrup; it tastes nasty and I avoid it. However, I also avoid added sugar or rice syrup or any other sweetener because I eat enough calories without them. Various types of foodie have been railing against HFCS for a long time, but I havent actually be able to figure out why. Instead of saying HFCS is bad we should be saying processed food is bad. Any special link between obesity and HFCS was broken in December with a comprehensive review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (see press release in Newswise ). The other argument against HFCS is that we are growing too much corn, but this is a sidestep at best. If people really cared about the amount of acres 







Document Number: 6076
non-peer-reviewed reports, but can we trust them? Let;s take Research Shines Light on Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone ( full paper ) as an example. This report by the National Corn Growers association was, to be blunt, biased to the point of falsehood. I explain how in Rotten Corn . The organization has an agenda to put corn farming practices in the best possible light, which means every report we see from them will have some degree of spin. We should expect some degree of spin from any of these groups, but sometimes they overstep the line. Spin can be frustrating, particularly when we have specific evidence that contradicts what the special interest group said. What happens when the bias isn;t as obvious as in the NCG;s hypoxia report? Sometimes these reports seem 100% legitimate, especially when we agree with the agenda of the group, and especially when we don;t have the prerequisite knowledge to judge them. Even worse, there are many situations where two groups will put out directly opposing reports. Each group claims to have the ;real; information, sometimes even calling out opposing reports. The most recent example of this is the Organic Center;s Impacts of Genetically Engineered 







Document Number: 6701
is withdrawing from the Leonardo Academys initiative to develop a sustainable agriculture standard for American National Standards Institute. While ASA supports the goal of a sustainable agriculture standard, it has become clear that that the Leonardo Academy process is biased against a balanced and open analysis of modern agriculture. Fifty-four other commodity and farm organizations representing U.S. production agriculture interests joined ASA in withdrawing from the Leonardo Academys process. ;This decision was not made easily,; said ASA Board member Ron Moore, a soybean producer from Roseville, Ill., ;for it means walking away from nearly two years of investment in active Leonardo Academy Committee membership in an effort to produce an on-farm standard. However, it is clear based on actions this past summer that any continued effort cannot and will not overcome the serious systemic limitations and chronic biases that are inherent in the structure the Leonardo Academy has set up for this initiative.; After being elected Vice-Chair of the Standards Committee at its inception, Moore has served as Acting Chairman since June 2010. Despite the Leonardo Academys claim that the Committee is made up of members from ;across all areas of agriculture,; in reality the Committee is dominated by environmental 







Document Number: 311
practices proves to be the concept of sustainability as it relates to the environmental impact of many industries. U.S. soybean farmers have long been good environmental stewards. &nbsp;Soybeans represent one of the most popular legumes plants that naturally restore valuable nitrogen to soil. Precisely for that reason, soybeans represent one of the most common oilseeds as part of a crop rotation. The soybean checkoff has demonstrated, in several ways, the sustainability of U.S. soybeans and soybean production. The United Soybean Board (USB) and the soybean checkoff collaborate with U.S. agriculture industry leaders, as well as with the industrys customer base, to measure and establish a baseline for sustainable U.S. soybean production. The checkoffs definition of sustainability reads: Sustainable soybean agriculture will meet the needs of the present while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs by adoption of technology and best practices that increase productivity to meet future needs while being stewards of the environment, improving human health through access to safe, nutritious food and enhancing the social and economic well-being of agriculture and its communities. The United Soybean Board (USB), the farmer-driven research and promotion checkoff organization for U.S. soybeans, recognizes the need to support 







Document Number: 2412
be willing to fund solutions. Distinguished Professor John Pesak sent the editorial to some ISU students and faculty, saying: ;He makes some excellent points with which there cannot be too much disagreement.; Indeed, who can say that developing crops that can handle new challenges is a bad thing? I;ve posted the full article below for your convenience. A quick summary of Stem Rust Never Sleeps : Stem rust is a fungus that can decimate wheat fields. In the 1950s, Dr. Borlaug and others developed resistant wheat lines, but these lines are no help against a new strain of the fungus. We, as a planet (and especially in the US), must fund research to prevent the loss of millions of tons of wheat. Unfortunately, the US is doing exactly the opposite, cutting funding for agricultural research. Specifically, stem rust research at the Cereal Disease Laborotory in St. Paul Minnesota is poised to loose funding, according to Dr. Borlaug, despite the importance of the research. Say what you will about the Green Revolution ; but Dr. Borlaug knows how to feed people. If anyone is equipped to notice an upcoming crisis, it;s him. We all need to contact our congresspeople and representatives, 







Document Number: 1189
first plenary talk, titled Stress tolerant maize for the developing world ; Challenges and prospects. Find the abstract of her talk at the end of this post. Of all of the staple grains, maize is the most drought susceptible. Wheat is fairly drought tolerant, and rice is irrigated. Maize is sensitive to variation in rainfall, and since it is typically not irrigated, any year to year variation in rainfall will be seen as year to year variation of yield, with low rainfall years yielding less than high rainfall years. There are some drought tolerant varieties that don;t have such variation with rainfall, but they are consistently low yielding, even in high rainfall years. In order to provide enough food for growing populations, maize must be developed that can maintain reasonably high yields even in drought years. A second major problem with maize is nitrogen. Maize reacts well to fertilizer application, providing (to a point) higher yields with higher amounts of nitrogen. However, less than 50% of applied fertilizer is used by the plant, leaving much of the nitrogen unused This unused fertilizer can be carried via surface waters to places like the Gulf of Mexico where it can contribute to 







Document Number: 8365
we use, we might find different definitions and different opinions of how useful they are in determining the safety of products of genetic engineering. The USDA provides information on Food Safety Assessment and Considerations as part of their Focus on Food Biotechnology page at the Food Safety Research Information Office . What substantial equivalence can do is give us a starting point. We know that there is variation in amounts and types of proteins and metabolites, gene expression, and other parameters from variety to variety, from environment to environment, and from plant to plant. For example, if I use a microarray to find similarly and differently expressed genes in two genetically identical plants grown in slightly different environments, such as different temperatures, I will find some genes that have significantly different expression. Similarly, plants of different varieties grown in the same environment will have different gene expression profiles and even two identical plants in the same environment will have some differences. The first step in a comparative assessment is to test and compare the genetically engineered variety to a genetically similar variety that doesn;t have the trans- or cis-gene. Tests can include gene expression, metabolic profiles, feeding studies, and more. 







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an Environmental Impact Statement. According to regulation, an EA is sufficient if potential harm is found to be minimal, but an EIS is needed for anything that is less well understood, such as a new trait (and this is hardly a new trait). After reading the EA, I agree with the USDA that the potential environmental harm is minimal, and I think the potential economic harm is minimal as well, due to some very specific characteristics of beet biology, which I;ll explain in this post, followed by a discussion of mitigation strategies that might be used to control gene flow in beets (sorry, folks, this is going to be another long one). Beet flowers and seeds, originally from Koehlers Medicinal-Plants circa 1887, via Wikipedia. Beet biology Sugar beets are biennial, which means they need two years before they reach maturity. During the 1st year, the plants produce a large root that, when dried, is 15-20% sugar. During the 2nd year, the plant uses those stored sugars to produce flowers and then seeds. Sugar beets harvested for sugar, therefore, dont produce flowers or pollen or seeds. Sometimes a few plants will bolt or flower when they arent supposed to, such as 







Document Number: 9282
case. In a landslide 7:1 ruling (with one recusing), the high court has lifted the nationwide ban on planting genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant alfalfa. What does this mean for GE alfalfa and sugar beet plantings that have been affected by the courts? Although the social media chatter over the case was mostly characterizing it as crucial to win to ;stop; GE alfalfa, it was really more about what the proper course of action is for the GE regulatory process, and whether a court can issue an injunction against planting GE crops while the environmental impact statement (EIS) is being drafted, without having to provide evidence of harm. For more background information, read my previous post about the case . In essence, the court was considering whether the lower court was right in ;remanding; the GE alfalfa back to the USDA to determine whether it was ok to plant, while also issuing an injunction preventing them from saying it was ok to plant until the EIS is complete. SCOTUS ruled that the lower court acted wrongly by remanding and enjoining at the same time. The District Court abused its discretion in enjoining APHIS from effecting a partial deregulation and in prohibiting the 







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is being held today. The case is Monsanto Company v. Geertson Seed Farms, ( SCOTUS Wiki ) and depending on how this turns out, it could mean the end of genetically engineered alfalfa forever or the eventual destruction of all organic dairies, right? Well, no. So what is the court case about? The court case is not actually about GE alfalfa, although this legal battle began with alfalfa. In 2006, several groups joined together led by the Center for Food Safety to sue the Secretary of Agriculture over the deregulation of roundup-ready alfalfa produced by Monsanto. The USDA had conducted an Environmental Assessment according to its GE crop approval policies and concluded that there were no big issues that they needed to investigate further. If they had found any in the assessment they would have moved on to the much more involved Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The court case over GE alfalfa was decided in 2007, with US District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer saying that the USDA should have done the full EIS, and placed an injunction on future plantings of GE alfalfa until such an EIS is conducted by the USDA. Farmers already growing the alfalfa could continue 







Document Number: 6997
that can affect the thyroid. Thankfully Greenpeace is not issuing demands for the banning of all seaweeds in food. Hopefully the case might highlight the idea that a balanced overall diet is more important for human health than any particular so called ;healthy food;. Soy product robbed me of joys of motherhood: lawsuit figure Daniella Miletic October 1, 2010 The Age , Melbourne Bonsoy milks the life out of a mother Erin Downie and 24 other plaintiffs lodge a class action against the distributors of Bonsoy for the product;s toxically high levels of iodine. ERIN Downie drank Bonsoy when she became pregnant because she was told it was the best soy milk on the market. When she had trouble breastfeeding, she drank more. She put it in her porridge, in her smoothies, in her cups of tea. She never imagined the soy milk would allegedly lead her to be admitted to hospital twice, and leave her so weak that she couldn;t shower herself or pick up her baby, Mirakye, after she was born.&nbsp; Crying, Ms Downie yesterday spoke of how her dream of being an active, engaged mother was taken away after her daughter, now two, was born. Ms Downie 







Document Number: 9363
both those in favor and against genetic engineering are engaging in healthy repartee. I am glad to see Duncan and Jasmine offering their perspectives on labeling issues. Reading the comments, it is almost as if everyone is surprised to be enjoying talking to each other! In the tweetverse, I think I have made a new friend in Gavin ( @morethanorganic ), and although we both strongly disagree on both genetically engineered golden rice and cross-pollination issues, we both learned that we agree that sovereign nations should have the right to decide for themselves whether to allow their people to grow it . If I had thought that he was just another hard-line anti-GE person I might have thought that he believed that wealthy nations could tell the Philippines ;no; to keep orange grains from showing up in their imports. Imagine how horrible that would be if it happened! I think most people can recognize that fact, and are not lacking in moral grounding. He also learned that genetic engineers aren;t haphazardly throwing genes out in the wild without analyzing the potential consequences . This is what everyone can gain from civil and indeed, friendly dialogue. On the other hand, someone 







Document Number: 9852
prepare our thoughts for what we wanted to talk about (And what we wanted to eat), and I daresay we did well on both accounts. Golden Gate from Aquatic Park We coordinated our flights from Wisconsin and Iowa to meet up at about Noon on Saturday the 23rd, giving us ample time to hang out and zoom around the Bay Area before the big dinner. We stayed at my folks; place in Petaluma, so it was very convenient that Michael happens to live near to where I grew up! They were happy to host, and to use us as an excuse to go eat Thai food! First of all, it was great to spend the weekend hanging out with Anastasia (and Frank). Over the last couple of years, while joining forces to write about plant genetics, we have not only become good friends but also research collaborators. It makes me wonder if science blogging should join the list of suggested activities for professional development at graduate school? I;m serious. Whether we were sitting in a restaurant by Aquatic Park, checking out the Japanese tea gardens and botanical gardens at Golden Gate Park, or driving all around we discussed a million 







Document Number: 4207
, I showed how Jim Riddle;s 10 reasons why genetic engineering is incompatible with organic agriculture apply equally well to plant breeding. But many plant breeding techniques are allowed in organic agriculture. So how can these characteristics apply to both breeding and genetic engineering while one is compatible and the other is not? The answer lies in a tangled web of invalid logic and unsound argumentation. It requires not only misrepresenting genetic engineering, it also misrepresents organic agriculture. Let;s go through point by point. (You might need a cup of coffee or a stiff drink) 1. Basic science. Humans have a complex digestive system, populated with flora, fauna, and enzymes that have evolved over millennia to recognize and break down foods found in nature to make nutrients available to feed the human body. GMO crops and foods are comprised of novel genetic constructs which have never before been part of the human diet and may not be recognized by the intestinal system as digestible food, leading to the possible relationship between genetic engineering and a dramatic increase in food allergies, obesity, diabetes, and other food-related diseases, which have all dramatically increased correlated to the introduction of GMO crops and foods. 







Document Number: 9423
sterile seeds that cannot be regrown. The use of this technology to force farmers to repurchase their seeds every year is often what causes the greatest objection from opponents of genetic engineering. But what is interesting is that like the films where this technology gets its nickname, it can also be used to protect seed-saving farmers. ;Terminator; technology, also referred to as ;Suicide Seeds,; are marketing terms coined by GE opponents to reframe what is technically called Genetic Use Restriction Technology , or GURT. This technology can take several forms, the most widely discussed one was developed by scientists working at the USDA and the Delta and Land Pine company, which is now owned by Monsanto. It works by means of three engineered genes, that when brought together in one plant, they act in combination to halt the development of embryos in the seeds the plant produces. The result is a plant that produces food as normal, but does not produce fertile seeds. For those that are interested in a full scientific explanation of the technology, you can read about it here . But in short, GURTs can be used by seed companies to protect their intellectual property by preventing 







Document Number: 8215
but how about the farmers who grew your veggies and raised the bird? I know some people out there take the time to draw attention to the source of their food for special meals, and it looks like even our President, Barack Obama, would like citizens to take a moment to reflect on their food this week. He has declared Thanksgiving week National Farm-City Week ! A PROCLAMATION Our Nation;s farm and ranch families supply many of the basic necessities of our daily life. They manage a large portion of our country;s fertile land base, and they are caretakers of our valuable natural resources and diverse ecosystems. Their connections with urban and suburban communities are critical to our economy and to the nourishment of our people. During National Farm-City Week, we express gratitude for the contributions of our Nation;s farmers and ranchers, and we rededicate ourselves to providing all Americans with access to healthy food, and thus, a healthy future. Pioneered by Native Americans, agriculture was our Nation;s first industry. For agriculture to thrive in the 21st century, we must continue to cultivate the relationships between farmers and rural businesses and their partners and customers in cities and towns. American 







Document Number: 1786
and more. But I have a moment in my favorite coffee shop in Culver City to share a little song I put together. As you are probably aware, I;ve been chatting and debating with some folks over at Grist lately, and the conversations have been both revealing and instructive, while also being up close and personal. It was amazing to see as I pointed out that both Tom Philpott and Tom Laskawy were wrong on basic facts and also wrong on interpretations, that they have not once responded to my comments. Doug Gurian-Sherman laid down a bombshell that he doesn;t care if anyone thinks his stuff is peer-reviewed or not, and an anti-GE campaigner thanked me for being the first scientist to explain something to her (brownie points that didn;t last very long, apparently). And amidst a string of personal attacks, a surprise defender swooped in! There;s not enough time for me to find each comment, but the verses here are all based on real comments, you can search my Grist comment account to find them if you like. And this holiday season, Grist itself sent me half a dozen requests for money as a registered user (besides banner ads 







Document Number: 9122
other little things running in the background that you may or may not have noticed, this new addition is something I;m really excited about. I have been to many sites that have their own forums for allowing users to start their own discussions, and I have wanted to add one to the site for some time. But those forums are often tacked on to the sites where they are hosted, and feel like an external addition, not unlike a lean-to. No one wants to hang out in a shed attached to a mansion! And to have to have two sets of keys to get into each one? No thanks! Yes, the new forum is contained within the site, thanks to a spiffy wordpress plugin called Forum Server . It places the forum into any page you want within the site, and so the discussion happens with the look and feel of the site it is a part of. Seamless. But the best part about this plugin is that it taps into the same base of users that the blog uses. Register for one and you are registered for both! One set of keys does it. Plus, if you sign up 







Document Number: 3003
by D Tribe. There is much debate and concern about food security and development for Africa. On a hopeful note, several GMO Pundit posts have dealt with the wonderful story of improved corn growing output in Malawi (see links at the end of this posting). GMO Pundit has now found the time to look over the FAO official statistics for corn production and corn trade in Malawi.&nbsp; He has produced from official FAO statistics the graph shown above. This graph documents the overall economic story surrounding the decisive government policy response to the disastrous 2005 food crisis in that country with interventions that subsidised seed and fertiliser inputs for 1 million smallholder farmers. The the trade and farm statistics suggest that Malawi has made a break from the past as a result of this carefully considered intervention. The past consisted of all too frequent food emergencies;and Malawi was at these times of food crises, a food import-dependent country. The present record shows that that Malawi is now a major maize exporter with significantly increased capacity to produce the staple maize crop. It will be fascinating to follow the ongoing results of corn trade from this country, which will hopefully increase 







Document Number: 879
global food system between now and 2050 and&nbsp;identify the decisions that policy makers need to take today, and in the years ahead, to ensure that a global population rising to nine billion or more can be fed sustainably and equitably. The global food system will experience an unprecedented confluence of pressures over the next 40 years. On the demand side, global population size will increase from nearly seven billion today to eight billion by 2030, and probably to over nine billion by 2050; many people are likely to be wealthier, creating demand for a more varied, high-quality diet requiring additional resources to produce. On the production side, competition for land, water and energy will intensify, while the effects of climate change will become increasingly apparent. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate will become imperative. Over this period globalisation will continue, exposing the food system to novel economic and political pressures. Any one of these pressures (drivers of change) would present substantial challenges to food security; together they constitute a major threat that requires a strategic reappraisal of how the world is fed. Overall, the Project has identified and analysed five key challenges for 







Document Number: 6149
the environment attract a hail of abuse from other scientists. Emily Waltz asks if the critics fight fair. The article is pretty good, and it discusses a 2007 paper about Bt corn negatively affecting caddissfly larva when compared to non-Bt corn. ;Toxins in transgenic crop byproducts may affect headwater stream ecosystems;, by Rosi-Marhsall et al. You can access the paper here , and also read Anastasia;s commentary about the paper with Even Scientists make Mistakes at Genetic Maize. Waltz;s article doesn;t focus so much on the paper itself so much as the responses to the paper, with implications for the culture of scientific debate following controversial results. If someone comes along with a preliminary result that is based on a study with some problems, and there is a danger that it could be used politically to everyone;s detriment, what is the proper response? Shoot it down with all your guns blazing, snipe the problems at a distance, or politely suggest a more rigorous examination? Will the latter response prevent it from being used to make policy decisions? In the case of this particular paper, it was used by anti-GE organizations, and found its way into supporting the French ban on 







Document Number: 5980
of Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development was held under the sponsorship of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at its headquarters in the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican from 15 to 19 May 2009. During the course of the meeting, we surveyed recent advances in the scientific understanding of novel varieties of genetically engineered (GE) plants, as well as the social conditions under which GE technology could be made available for the improvement of agriculture in general and for the benefit of the poor and vulnerable in particular. The spirit of the participants was inspired by the same approach to technology that Benedict XVI expressed in his new Encyclical, in particular that Technology is the objective side of human action (1) whose origin and raison dtre is found in the subjective element: the worker himself. For this reason, technology is never merely technology. It reveals man and his aspirations towards development, it expresses the inner tension that impels him gradually to overcome material limitations. Technology, in this sense, is a response to Gods command to till and to keep the land (cf. Gen 2:15) that he has entrusted to humanity, and it must serve to 







Document Number: 692
and anecdotal claims, but that is not the reason why I bring it up. The discussion was derailed by a few tangents, and I was just about to abandon reading it any further, until someone posted their real reason why they believe that GE foods are unsafe. Personal experience. Barbara Peterson , a retired correctional officer from California, described how she eliminated a food reaction that her mother was having, through dietary changes. She then went on to experiment on herself: You;d think I would have learned from this, but no. I kept on with the processed foods for myself, along with the good stuff. Well, guess what? Yup, I got the ugly stuff too. This stuff was so bad that it started on my leg and spread all the way to my shoulders and down my arms. It looked like the worst case of oozing poison oak you have ever seen. It felt like bugs were crawling under my skin, and I couldn;t sleep. I was going crazy. I started experimenting on myself, and researching about GMOs. At first, I cut out everything but raw veggies, fruits, and organic eggs. I started clearing up. It took a while, but 







Document Number: 1318
answers the question this way : ;this is weird: agriculture is biotechnology, and just breaking ground with a sharp stick and throwing some seeds in is an example of an ;unnatural; human practice; He also publishes the opposition;s ; top secret email ;, which has some gobbledy-gook about how farmers are turning against GE crops (um, name one?) and contaminating nature (massive reductions in insecticide use on BT cotton fields and enhanced biodiversity is destruction?). PZ also asks you to ;notice who is backing up all their arguments with citations of the peer-reviewed literature.; Don;t forget to vote . My final statement: Virtually every food we eat has been genetically altered. Unless you eat wild Alaskan salmon, chanterelles gathered from your local forest, Sierra Nevada yampah and wild blueberries, your diet consists entirely of foods that have been modified by humans and domesticated in artificial, fabulous ecosystems;called farms. GE crops are the latest addition to our farms. Are Bt cotton and GE papaya different from conventionally bred cotton and papaya? Yes. Scientists have introduced a bacterial gene into corn and a snippet of virus into papaya. These alterations are not feats that could have been carried out with conventional breeding 







Document Number: 9421
soybean, and winter wheat produced 90% as well as their conventionally managed counterparts;. In their paper, Organic and Conventional Production Systems in the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trials: I. Productivity 19902002 , the researchers point out that the 90% is an average. In 34% of site-years, mechanical weed control methods were not successful, resulting in only 74% yield compared to conventional. In the remaining 66% of site-years, yields were 99% of conventional. Producing as much or more with fewer inputs is definitely the right direction in a world where inputs are becoming more and more expensive. A less positive note can be found when we consider how unpredictable agriculture can be, with insects, weather, and fungi just to name a few. University of Illinois researchers found that high CO2 levels cause plants to loose their ability to defend themselves against herbivorous beetles . This could become a serious problem, considering that CO2 levels have been steadily rising. Climate change is already causing huge fluctuations in weather patterns, including droughts, freezes, and floods. A destructive wheat fungus has recently spread from Africa into the Middle East and Asia; Is it realistic to expect organic methods to keep up with all of 







Document Number: 1685
mission statements and no clear agenda for attaining their stated goals. I once spent a summer working for the latter type. A hallmark of this kind of crew is the use of the petition (bonus points if it;s online and has been circulating for more than a year ). Issue-specific petitions almost never work when directed at agencies; they are often unsophisticated (in a legal sense) and rife with ambiguous language and emotional rhetoric. If I were more cynical, I might point out the possibility that many people in charge of these groups are aware of their petitions; minuscule chances for success and instead use them to gin up controversy and interest in their cause, which is always a great way to get a few email addresses or financial contributions;some petitions even have a convenient donate button right next to where you ;sign; your name! A quick google search for ; gm labeling petition ; pulls up, well, more petitions than I really care to count. Most make seemingly modest demands about the ;right to know,; consumer education, and truth in advertising. Is that an accurate view of the debate: Consumer education versus corporate secrecy? Truth is, the legal reality 







Document Number: 9114
24th, 2010 . 1 Comment Since I was a teenager in the Seventies, Ive always regarded myself as a pretty green. Green in the environmental sense that is. I remember the campaign to get lead out of petrol with affection. I studied Environmental Science at university and can remember talking long into the night about issues affecting the planet. I think I even joined the Ecology Party, the forerunner of the Green Party when I was about 18 though I dont remember doing anything other than pay the subscription. Jobs were short when I graduated and I got a job formulating cosmetics rather than doing the environmental work I had originally had in mind. I was surprised to find myself in an industry where people seemed pretty positive about issues close to my heart. Biodegradable surfactants were a new thing but there was never any question of using anything else. I have spoken on other blogs about the fact that formaldehyde was still in use then, but was being removed purely at the initiative of the chemists in the labs. Given this, I have always listened with care and attention to the environmental lobby. For a long time I didnt 







Document Number: 6116
the farm;s Seeds of Change variety trial. The green striped, red striped, orange, dark striped, etc. tomatoes represent only a fraction of the 75 varieties the farm trialed this year. There are a couple of red slicers in the mix as well. In their newsletter, the Student Farm crew (Eric, Larisa, Sasha, Ari, Ethan and Raoul) asks us customers to observe how the trial tomato varieties compare to the hybrid red slicers in terms of flavor, texture, and degree of softness. Today;s baskets include: peppers, okra, onions, garlic, chard, basil, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, figs, grapes, zucchini, Chinese Long Beans, green beans, and pumpkins. The Student Farm recipe of the week is from chow.com . Pumpkin Curry. When cooked, pumpkin becomes sweet and makes the perfect partner for fiery chili and warm spices such as cumin and turmeric. Despite its quick cooking time, this dish has a rounded flavor. Serve as a vegetable aside to meat and fish dishes or by itself with steamed basmati rice or flatbreads and maybe an accompanying salad. INGREDIENTS 1 pound pumpkin or butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes 1 teaspoon turmeric 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 2 1/2 cups water 7 ounces freshly grated coconut 







Document Number: 1956
(D-PA), in response to authors of blog posts and petitions that didn;t quite seem to have read it before getting all excited about it. The next big GMO scandal involves recommended changes to the Codex Alimentarius Commission of the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. All relevant documents have been posted by the Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL), apparently unknown to those who would have us up in alarm. The Institute for Responsible Technology (founded by Jeffery Smith ) wants us to pay attention to their Action Alert ; Codex Conference (emphasis original): Please send this URGENT message to US Government leaders to protect your right to know which foods are made from genetically modified organisms (GMOs); They must stop US negotiators at an international (Codex) conference from May 3-7, from pushing an agenda that could make it difficult for anyone, anywhere in the world to label foods as genetically modified (GM) foodor even make non-GMO claims on their products label. A petition on CREDO Action Network is even more alarming (emphasis mine): ;the current U.S. draft position paper declares that mandatory labeling laws such as they have in Europe are ;false, misleading or deceptive.; If the U.S. succeeds in 







Document Number: 5425
ramp up surveillance; provide farmers with resistant wheat varieties &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;ITHACA, NY (27 February 2011)The United Kingdoms Department of International Development (DFID) and the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation today announced they will invest US$40 million in a global project led by Cornell University to combat deadly strains of Ug99, an evolving wheat pathogen that poses a dangerous threat to global food security, particularly in the poorest nations of the developing world. &nbsp;The five-year grant, made to the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) project at Cornell will support efforts to identify new stem rust resistant genes in wheat, improve surveillance, and multiply and distribute rust-resistant wheat seed to farmers and their families. &nbsp;We cannot overstate the importance of this announcement on the part of two of the most important funders of solutions for addressing the causes of poverty, hunger and disease in the developing world, said Ronnie Coffman, Cornell professor of plant breeding and genetics and director of DRRW. Against the backdrop of rising food prices, and wheat in particular, researchers worldwide will be able to play an increasingly vital role in protecting wheat fields from dangerous new forms of stem rust, particularly in countries whose people can ill 







Document Number: 8699
synthetic food colorings. The bills have been pushed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest which charges the food dyes have been linked to ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The Maryland bills deal with the dyes: Blue 1; Blue 2; Green 3; Orange B; Red 3; Red 40; Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. One of the bills would prohibit public schools and child care facilities from providing food with the coloring in it. The second bill would require a label warning: The color additives in this food may cause hyperactivity and behavior problems in some children. Use of the dyes would be banned in the state in 2012. The food industry opposes the bill saying the link to ADHD is based on flawed research while the Food and Drug Administration states there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that the colorings cause hyperactivity. I;m rather conflicted about this. On the one hand, there really isn;t any science backing the idea that dye causes ADHD, although perhaps there is a genetic predisposition that is exacerbated by the dye. There are studies showing a link between dye and hyperactivity ; is that enough of a reason to 







Document Number: 388
choices. I am a label reader. If there is an excess of added sugar or too many ingredients with names that I don;t recognize then I don;t buy the product. Not all information, however, is useful. A few months ago our local food coop began posting red ;consumer alert; signs that say, ;Conventional foods that contain corn, soy, or canola may be genetically engineered.; I nd these signs more annoying than helpful. It is a little bit like the warnings posted on science textbooks in some states that say, ;This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory which some scientists present as scientic explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants and humans. No one was present when life rst appeared on Earth. Therefore, any statement about life;s origins should be considered as theory, not fact;. Neither statement says anything informative about the state of our food nor the creation of our universe. With no specic hazards associated with GE foods or evolution, how can a consumer use these statements to make a more informed choice about the risk to their health or to their faith in God? The National Research Council Committee states that attempts to assess food 







Document Number: 2725
many. After at least three decades of ;rapid growth,; Organic now accounts for 0.52% of harvested US cropland. NASS did not go ahead and compare the yields of Organic crops to equivalent data for the rest of agriculture, but all that data is publicly available and I have posted a comparative analysis on SCRIBD . Organic crop yields are generally lower, but it is hard to put that into perspective. What does it mean for Organic corn yields to be 71% of the national average? What does it mean that Organic soy yields are 66% of the national average? One way to put this in perspective is to ask the question, ;how many years ago was non-Organic ag getting the kind of yields that Organic saw in 2008?; Through a host of technical and operational advances, the yields of most crops in the developed world have been increasing steadily ever since the mid 20th century. This is a very good thing because we have thus been able to feed a growing world population without even more land-use-conversion than has happened. A high research investment crop like corn has yields that have been going up at a pace of 2 bushels/acre/year 







Document Number: 2794
I would put together a short list of genetic engineering campaigns that rose and fell this year. Get ready for the Top Flops of 2009! Beet This The first campaign I would like to talk about is part of an ongoing effort to oppose genetically engineered sugar beets. Sugar beets are an interesting variety of plant, bred from chard and fodder beets to become a white behemoth that is up to 1/5 sugar by dry weight. About 30% of the sugar produced in the world comes from these beets, 1 million acres of them in the US, so it comes as no surprise that sooner or later a GE sugar beet would come along. Europe, however, is a much bigger producer, apparently for political and historical reasons as much as biological. (Read the Wikipedia page for more history.) Growing fields of beets is not always easy, and conventional sugar beets have often required many applications of different herbicides and pesticides. When Monsanto;s Roundup-Ready sugar beets came along in 2008, they were very popular among farmers that adopted them, and 2009 saw a dramatic expansion with about 90% of acres in the U.S. being planted with the biotech beets. This got 







Document Number: 9628
that policy decisions must be based on empirical data and objective risk-benefit analysis, not arbitrary classifications. The paper was Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans (full text) by Christine Bahlai et al . Long story short, the research showed that some synthetic pesticides were more environmentally benign than some organic pesticides, showing that it;s inaccurate to say that organic pesticides are better for the environment. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they are not. The paper itself is really great, deserving of its own post (see Organic pesticides arent necessarily more sustainable than synthetic by Colby Vorland), but I;d like to talk about the organic-conventional divide. Normally I don;t approve of thoughts in scientific journal articles that aren;t immediately related to the research, too often authors stray into questionable territory. But Christine;s thoughts here are immediately related to her findings, and her results may indicate that big changes are necessary in the way we think about farming. Separating out ;organic; as defined by the USDA may be beneficial in the short term for farmers that have transitioned to certified organic methods who can then charge a premium, but in the long term, the 







Document Number: 6521
to pests has&nbsp;benefited&nbsp;even non-transgenic corn, a new study led by scientists from the University of Minnesota shows. The study, published in the Oct. 8 edition of the journal Science, found that widespread planting of genetically modified Bt corn throughout the Upper Midwest has suppressed populations of the European corn borer, historically one of corn;s primary pests. This areawide suppression has dramatically reduced the estimated $1 billion in annual losses caused by the European corn borer, even on non-genetically modified corn. Bt corn, introduced in 1996, is so named because it has been bred to produce a toxin from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that kills insect pests. Corn borer moths cannot distinguish between Bt and non-Bt corn, so females lay eggs in both kinds of fields, said the study;s chief author, University of Minnesota entomology professor William Hutchison. Once eggs hatch in Bt corn, young borer larvae feed and die within 24 to 48 hours. Because it is effective at controlling corn borers and other pests, Bt corn has been adopted on about 63 percent of all U.S. corn acres. As a result, corn borer numbers have also declined in neighboring non-Bt fields by 28 percent to 73 percent 







Document Number: 4927
on one grain as their primary food source (the conclusions of the paper are after the cut). Simply introducing a varied diet, fortified foods, or supplements would solve malnutrition, but these are not options for poor populations in areas with unstable governments. They need a self sustaining way to improve the food that is available to them (i.e. that doesnt need additional monetary input). The simplest or most obvious way to solve malnutrition, then, would be to improve the crops that the people eat. For those people who eat only maize or rice, a change in the nutritional profile of the grain would have a huge effect. Traditional breeding has been less than successful, and can take decades before a noticeable difference is achieved. Some improvements are not even possible with traditional breeding, if the desired trait does not exist in the gene pool of the species. Enter genetic engineering. Humans now have the capability to improve the nutritional profile of a plant by adding genes that code for the desired trait. One example is the famed golden rice. Rice contains no beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of blindness in children, and 







Document Number: 5449
(or less, I suppose) their farm can make if they transition to organic, given their specific situation. If you take the course, let me know what you think. The Rodale Institute does a lot of good work, although I am frustrated by their nonscience views on quite a few topics, including raw milk and genetic engineering. The whole technology-is-evil schtick is less than productive, but many organic techniques are productive. I used to have a very negative view of organic because of their rejection of science, but Tomorrow;s Table by Pamela Ronald changed my views. She explains that reduction of chemical inputs and impact on the environment can be best achieved with a combination of organic techniques and careful application of genetic engineering. Buying organic doesn;t necessarily mean ;I think GMOs are evil; but it does mean ;I don;t want to eat pesticides, and am looking for a change.; Thanks to Dr. Cornelia Butler Flora of NCRCRD for pointing this course out to ISU;s Sustainable Agriculture students. The course overall is a good introduction to what organic is and its benefits. Not unexpectedly, I do have a few critiques (as well as compliments); The course includes a too brief history 







Document Number: 813
the first talks of the morning at 8 am, because they were about transposons. The rest of the day was filled with poster presentations, talks about online genetic resources, and a discussion of gene annotation. Anastasia was there with me, and she;ll have all sorts of good stuff to talk about as we give the 51st MGC the exposure it deserves! Transposons are really neat. Also known as Mobile Genetic Elements, Transposable Elements, or just ;jumping genes,; they are sequences of DNA that are capable of popping out of a chromosome and inserting themselves into another. The most well known kind of transposon contains a gene that encodes for an enzyme called Transposase, which physically chops the transposon out of the DNA strand it is in, and puts it in another. The result is a gene that does not remain in a fixed location, and ;jumps; around the genome from Chromosome to chromosome, turning other genes on and off if it inserts in them or near them. Transposons were first described in Maize, by the famous Cornell biologist Barbara McClintock, and are thought of as some of the source of genetic variations that fuel evolution. Sometimes they can incorporate bits 







Document Number: 2709
you read this, it might seem that I am turning the facts around. Please remember that I;m just trying to fill in the other half of the story. If I was to write a paper on the possible effects of GM crops, I would include information on both positive and negative effects. I understand that it isn;t Greenpeace;s goal to provide both sides of the story, but they really should, if they want to help consumers make good decisions. Instead, they are only providing half of the story, as well as half truths and some outright lies, and effectively telling people what to think, instead of responsibly spreading information. No matter your views, this is just wrong! If you;d like to know more details about any of these points, or if you would like to see some peer-reviewed research to back anything up, just let me know in a comment. On to the response! There is growing scientific evidence that GE crops are harmful to biodiversity and the environment. Where is this evidence? Strangely, no specific examples are given. Furthermore, once GE crops are released into the environment they cannot be recalled. As living organisms they can reproduce and pollute 







Document Number: 4144
Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue gave a speech positioning Georgia as a future center for biotech research. It was his state of Georgia, however where those infamous stickers disparaging evolution could be found ; Cobb County to be precise. In 2004, his statement for a ;balanced; approach to teaching evolution ; where it is not taught as ;fact.; Apparently he wants the benefits of a thriving biotechnology industry in his state without supporting the bedrock of modern biology in his state;s high school science classrooms. It seems that Florida is not the only state where the living is contradictory! The star of the lunchtime diversion from our food, however, was Elton John. With music awards too numerous to list, and a prominent role in the fight against HIV and AIDS, he delivered an impassioned speech in which he said that we are losing. Not only have we not been able to completely stop the spread of the disease on a biological level, but the primary ground that we are losing on is the social level. Although his speech was not about plants, it was excellent and I would like to share a portion of it: I recorded the last ten 







Document Number: 5814
to Yield. You can read the whole thing here , and the press release is here . Of course, as the title of the report suggests, Gurian-Sherman did not explicitly conclude that GE crops have not decreased yields ; he concluded that GE crops did not increase yields significantly. At face value, it seems like a reasonable conclusion, one that follows from my understanding of the GE traits that are currently grown: mostly herbicide tolerance and pest resistance. In the case of herbicide tolerance in corn and soy, Gurian-Sherman concluded that the trait did not increase yields, while progress in plant breeding continues to do so. Also fairly reasonable-sounding is his conclusion that pest resistance from Bt crops did increase yield slightly ; increasing yield by about 3-4% since its introduction in 1996. I have yet to delve into how he makes these determinations, you can expect another post from me on this report down the road. (Especially since Gurian-Sherman has been saying elsewher e that Bt contributed 4-5% ; which is it?) But as far as the press release is concerned, it is leaving out crucial information ; Bt corn has allowed (slightly) higher yields to be grown with 







Document Number: 4944
posted a Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) report titled, The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production. This report should have been accompanied by a clear statement that the report does not represent the policy of the United States Government, and given this, the report has been removed from the agencys Web site. It should be noted that USDAs National Organic Program regulations exclude the use of genetically engineered organisms in organic production. Additionally, FAS has no role in the administration of the National Organic Program. ; It turns out that there was a resounding negative response from certain organizations that do not like genetic engineering ; and the very thought of organic + biotech is disconcerting. It led to a pile of emails sent in the USDA;s direction. The Organic Consumer;s Association told a whopper when they first heard about it: This USDA report attempting to make the case for ;organic genetically engineering; is part of a well-funded campaign coordinated by Monsanto and their governmental, corporate, and non-profit partners to legitimize a dangerous and untested technology. First of all, USDA employees are very careful about their contacts. Secondly, according to GE opponents, Monsanto is all about the chemicalz. So why would 







Document Number: 6754
after our discussion with Jeffrey Smith, a few more people signed up to comment! Last week, we passed the 2,000 comment mark, in far less time than it took to get to the first kilo-comment. Let;s keep it going! One of the things that we hope to build here is a community of people of all stripes, spots, and other allelic combinations who feel comfortable discussing issues in genetics and agriculture despite their disagreements. And hopefully coming out of that we may find that we have fewer disagreements than we started with. We try to put a face and words to the people who run and write the blog, and those who send in contributions ; but there hasn;t been much of an opportunity to learn more about our regular readers and commentators, and for you to learn about each other. One of the things that makes this blog different is that we want people to discuss what we write about, and discuss what they want to write about, too. Just as we try to show how multidimensional we are, so too is everyone who sticks around on this blog. So to expand our possibilities, I;m happy to announce that 







Document Number: 1863
online information (journal articles and web pages), I generated a network on Genetic ID and the firm;s connections to a complexity of actors and institutions. The resulting network outlines what is clearly a convoluted network of bias ; both politically and theologically ; against GE and GMO. With the recent Triffid issue,Genetic ID has stood to reap significant financial benefits through testing revenues (I should qualify this ; - ; the company is ;presumed; to have gained financially). Updated network diagram. Connections between Genetic ID and other organisations involved in anti-GMO activity or related food industry activities. Diagram by Cami Ryan, click for larger image. Please note, Jeffrey Smith of ;Seeds of Deception; fame is at the centre of this network. Also, the Maharashi (Transcendental Meditation ;TM; yogi) and his affiliated interests and institutions are also central. Most of the organizations and several of the individuals are from Fairfield, Iowa where the Maharashi University is centred. The Maharashi is a proponent of Vedic Science (look it up, weird stuff) and established the Natural Law Party whose platform revolves around the Vedic Science and TM. The Natural Law Party has branches in the US and in New Zealand. This work is 







Document Number: 5940
the phone. The series is called Student Veterans Come Marching Home . He wrote two articles: Their Return to Studies and A New GI Bill for Scientists . The interviews are in the first, while the second discusses the ;21st Century GI Bill;. Beryl Benderly wrote Taken for Granted: Over Here , an article that suggests that science careers might be appropriate for veterans. The article and companion podcast do a good job of explaining how difficult the transition to student from service can be. I;m pleased with the article and especially tickled that Mr. Kotok included a link to Genetic Maize. I am bashful to have been quoted on quite a few subjects, including the closing statement. I;ve posted the text of the article below the cut, but you may want to visit the website to view pictures of the veterans. Student-Veterans Come Marching Home: Their Return to Studies Alan Kotok United States 6 June 2008 F ive years ago, Sgt. Sarah Neyer was serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq. In the fall, she;ll start a Ph.D. program in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Neyer is one of many veterans of the current 







Document Number: 731
to use them. On the other hand, he has a small but growing group of organic farmers who claim that biotech crops will ;destroy their ability to farm organically;. He;s looking for coexistence between both types of farmers. At this time, coexistence between organic and conventional farms is worked out individually by neighbors. On a national scale, organic groups have initiated multiple lawsuits against the USDA in what some say are blatant attempts to prevent biotech crops from being grown at all ( sugar beets , alfalfa ). In an effort to solve the problem, a creative potential solution has been devised ; partial deregulation of biotech alfalfa. This would ;include isolation standards from other crops, set geographic restrictions on where the crop is grown, spell out harvest periods and regulate equipment use,; writes Charles Abbott on Check Biotech . One problem with this plan is that the USDA might be overstepping its regulatory authority . The USDA is charged with determining the potential pest status of any biotech crops submitted for deregulation, but doesn;t have requirements or authority to say what farmers can and can not do with a crop once it is deregulated. Today, this issue is being 







Document Number: 7797
weather hasn;t been much friendlier elsewhere. Farms in places as diverse as Australia and the Philippines aren;t off to a good start. The most sobering quote from the article: Last year, the rice crop in Arkansas yielded a record 160 bushels an acre. This year, experts there say, 150 bushels will be an achievement. Theres no doubt about it, were not going to have the rice to export, said Carl Frein of Farmers Marketing Service in Brinkley, Ark. Poor countries like Haiti, I dont know what theyre going to do. Randy Kron (photo from NY Times ) is an Indiana corn and soy farmer who won;t be able to plant this year. The article follows his story of fields that are too wet to plant. He concludes I dont know if this is the worst year weve ever had, but its moving up the list pretty quick.; A lot of the comments on the post are typical: too many people don;t research or think before typing. One, though, had a different perspective. I really like reading what real farmers think, especially because they tend to be more optimistic and solution oriented than the doom and gloom Malthusians. One commenter who 







Document Number: 5478
and the summer is just beginning. After all this rain, late summer droughts are predicted (just when the grain and beans will be maturing). A lot of farmers planted late or still haven;t planted. By the time the corn is silking, corn rootworm beetles will be ready to eat the silks, decreasing pollination and thus yield (in good years, silking is already in progress when rootworm reaches adulthood). The crops could be hit by toxin-producing fungus, rendering the grain poisonous even for feed (perhaps it could still be used for biofuels?). This is a big problem for me personally, since I have 7000 corn seeds that still need to be hand planted. It was too cold and now it;s too wet. We;re in the process of making contingency plans for the growing season, knowing that we;ll have a lot of pests to deal with. If I loose these plants, my experiments could be set back multiple years. Other graduate students here haven;t been able to get to their fields to take measurements or samples for a variety of experiments. The complaints of graduate students are small compared to those of farmers. I can;t even imagine what it must feel like 







Document Number: 4360
from 10 am-12 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time (-5 GMT), which will be 9-11 am in the U.S. Central time zone where I am. Here are the panelists that will be appearing in the webcast: Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff; Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the Administrator of USAID Rajiv Shah. Author of ; Mendel In The Kitchen ; Bio here . Dr. Robert Paarlberg , Wellesley College. He is the Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Author of: Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out Of Africa . Bio here . Dr. Calestous Juma , Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Professor of the Practice of International Development. Director, Science, Technology, Globalization Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Bio here . Mark Cantley , former Advisory in the Directorate for Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food, of the Directorate-General for Research of the European Commission, and formerly head of the OECD;s Biotechnology Unit. Bio here . Frank Sesno, moderator, Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, 







Document Number: 1022
these changes will affect their lives. Scientific discoveries such as the electron, genetics, the age of the Earth, and technologies from the steam engine to the hand-held computer have changed and improved our lives and where we see ourselves in the Universe. But as scientist continue to shine light into the dark corners of the world in search of basic truths and their application to our lives, they are sometimes met with resistance. And as research accelerates and discoveries are made at a rapid pace, it can seem like an insurmountable deluge of information. Change is an important part of this process. New ideas, approaches, and discoveries change the way we look at things. New technologies change the way we do things. And fear of change is often a major reason why the culture pushes back against science and its achievements. But there are many more factors involved, such as perceived benefits, whether these changes require altering deep-seated emotional or philosophical factors, and campaigns to support or oppose them. But one final important factor is knowledge ; it is easy to fear something if you do not understand it. There are many contentious areas of science today, some are more 







Document Number: 8923
products, as a way to increase sales to consumers fearful of the genetic engineering process. The problem is that the term GMO is misused and misunderstood. Take, for example, a recent story on Voice of America about a new rice variety my laboratory and collaborators recently developed that is tolerant of flooding. The producer made a valiant effort to explain how we generated the new variety: The new strain is genetically improved, but not genetically modified, so is not subject to tight controls on genetically modified foods. Does anyone know what is he talking about? I do, so please let me explain. Breeders have a 8000 year history of genetic modification (also called genetic improvement or conventional breeding)- that is, they have modified the genome of crop species in a number of ways. Such conventional breeding methods include hybridization (transfer of pollen from one plant variety to another to generate new seed with genes from both parents), mutagenesis (in which chemicals or irradiation are used to induce random mutations in DNA) and embryo rescue (where plant or animal embryos produced from interspecies gene transfer are placed in a tissue culture environment to complete development). Today, everything we eat has been 







Document Number: 1014
2010. ISBN 10: 0 13 700610 1 ISBN 13: 978 0 13 700610 6 Patrick Westhoff is an experienced agricultural economist who has provided a reasonable book about the complex topic of food economics. It makes a change from heated discussions of food politics and the often one-sided discussion in many books about genetically manipulated food. Most of the book will be of interest to readers of GM Pundit. It covers topics such as the 2008 biofuel boom, the links between water availability and grain prices, and financial&nbsp; speculation on food commodity prices. Taken together with another book ; Food Politics by Robert Paarlberg ; we now have a reasonable accessible scholarly discussion of the whole context surrounding the debate about genetically manipulated foods. A brief quote below shows the style of the Patrick Westhoff text and it;s accessibility: The 2005-2009 Experience The growth in biofuel production between 2005 and the middle of 2008 was nothing short of amazing. In the United States, for example, ethanol production more than doubled in less than three years (Figure 1.1). A rapidly increasing share of the U.S. corn crop was devoted to ethanol production, and this limited the amount of grain available to 







Document Number: 3297
that you attend the department seminars for the donuts and/or pizza no matter what the topic is. I have to say, though, that the seminars from this lab made the donuts and pizza a little less appealing. One of the students of the lab defended his thesis work during this time frame. He was a terrific speaker who made us understand the medical and economic burdens of these parasites on the impoverished communities he studied. Somehow he managed to make the story of sample collection amusing. And the details of the discovery of his own infection (after a very hot curry meal) made that defense one of the most memorable during my career in science (Figure 1, right. Speaker and his infectious agent) . But I still remember the scientific point: these infections have real impacts on the humans and the agricultural animals that live in close proximity to them in the developing world. And that there appear to have been separate and distinct infections in humans and in pigs in the studies they performed . Until recently I hadnt thought much about the roundworms. But this week when this paper came across my desk, I was glad to see 







Document Number: 7776
to move past it. Let me know what you think. Agricultural biotechnology could encourage so-called factory farming, with its attendant use of chemicals and monoculture, destroying nature beyond the point of recovery. Or, agricultural biotechnology could help lessen the environmental impacts of farming, helping us to feed, fuel, and clothe a growing population while maintaining or even improving the natural world. These opposing scenarios, with their attending cries of horror and exclamations of success, have been the basis for the debate over agricultural biotechnology. The opponents and proponents of agricultural biotechnology are both right, this issue is of grave importance for humanity. Both sides of the debate can agree that food security is going to be one of the most important issues in the twenty first century. Global population is expected to reach seven billion in 2012, with more than one third of that in the developing world. These areas already see overwhelming hunger and malnutrition, and increasing population will only exacerbate the problem. Allowing this to continue is ethically unacceptable to most people. In the past, improvements in agriculture, such as the Green Revolution, have increased crop yields enough to keep pace with population, but that may no longer 







Document Number: 1529
corporations, fear of science, and fear of the unknown are wielded as weapons to scare the public into rejecting the use of this technology for crop improvement. One of the most recognizable terms used to instill fear is the label ;Frankenfood.; Images crop up of a monster that;s not supposed to exist, a mad science experiment gone wrong with parts taken from dead bodies, an abnormal brain, lightning, and the cackling of human hubris echoing in a castle. It lurks in your corn chips, and the pumpkins you use to make your homemade pies. Once humble grains and vegetables, wrested from the Laws of Nature will haunt your supermarket and terrorize your neighborhood! It sounds heinous. It sounds disgusting. It sounds sensationally inaccurate, in fact one could write a whole book on how mythical this label is when it comes to describing genetic engineering. Actually, one has ! Splicing together DNA and inserting it into a plant to achieve a desired trait is nothing akin to reanimating a dead person during an electrical storm. Nevertheless, the word continues to be used merely because it conjures reviling images of human eyeball sandwiches, and carnivorous killer tomatoes on the loose. (It also 







Document Number: 5162
as being one of very few perennial crops, which means it can be left in the field to grow year after year and keep being harvested. It;s roots can grow quite deep so it can be very drought tolerant. It produces a high quality forage for animals, and is especially great for dairy cows. One problem with alfalfa is that, as it is left to grow for multiple years, weeds can accumulate and the alfalfa stand will need to be plowed under. Weeds can be controlled to some degree with harvesting at just the right time (before the weeds make seeds) but at some point that isn;t enough. Enter Roundup Ready alfalfa which can be sprayed with the herbicide glyphosate to control weeds while leaving the alfalfa healthy. It allows farmers to leave their alfalfa stands standing longer. The sky is falling; ok, not really Groups like Food Democracy Now are urging people to sign petitions against the deregulation of RR alfalfa, claiming it will ; fundamentally undermine the entire organic industry overnight ; (emphasis theirs). These petitions are being promoted by some pretty heavy hitters, including Michael Pollan . He tweeted: Time to weigh in: the USDA is about 







Document Number: 7093
Hopefully, this small change will lead them to fight for larger changes, but if they aren;t fighting for the changes that actually affect the health of their children, do all their efforts do any good? ;The half-pint of nonfat chocolate milk with sucrose served to students at lunch will have 150 calories and 27 grams of sugar ; the same caloric and sugar content as the old formula,; according to Schools switch sugars in chocolate milk in the San Fransisco Chronicle. From the same article: Switching from high-fructose corn syrup to sucrose in the chocolate milk is nonsense, said Dr. Robert Lustig , a pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF. It;s not how the sugar is made that;s the problem, he said ; it;s that Americans, and especially kids, are eating too much sugar, period. ;The difference between high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose, molecule for molecule or ounce for ounce, isn;t worth discussing. They are both equally dangerous,; Lustig said. If you choose not to believe Dr. Lustig, check out Rule # 4 from Michael Pollan;s recent Food Rules, or more importantly, check out the text explaining the rule (emphasis added): Avoid products that contain high-fructose corn syrup. Not because high-fructose corn 







Document Number: 3387
in 2005. Renee Dufault, the lead author, described how she obtained samples of high fructose corn syrup and tested them for mercury. When she went back for more samples, her employer (the FDA) asked her to switch to a different project, so no more tests have been conducted. We can only hope that increased funding for the FDA will result from the recent elections and in response to the many recent threats, particularly peanut butter ! Renee has offered to discuss her experiment, her interactions with the FDA, and her reaction to the IATP report. I heartily agree with her call for more testing, but extend the call beyond mercury to include other contaminants, chemical and biological. I also agree that removing mercury from our environment should be top priority, but still feel that mercury exposure from coal-burning power plants is far more dangerous due to quantity than mercury from chlor-alkali plants. However, it certainly couldn;t hurt to switch chlor-alkali plants over to newer (non-mercury) technology! To answer your question, ;Why couldn;t one of them, or one of their grad students, continue the work?; The samples collected under my direction at the FDA were collected by an FDA field investigator 







Document Number: 7941
has leveled off. According to a new study, that;s because breeders and researchers have reached the limit of how much grain the wheat plant can produce. ;In the 50 years of breeding history, we;ve essentially almost doubled our genetic potential for yield,; says wheat geneticist Bob Graybosch with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the lead author of the new study in the journal Crop Science . Unfortunately, Graybosch says, ;There;s got to be an upper limit on how much they can do, and it maybe looks like we;re approaching that upper limit.; ;The farmers that are growing dry-land wheat may see the same yields from now on,; he says. ;They may not see increases in yield under dry-land conditions because we simply are shuffling the same genetic deck out there.; Robert A. Graybosch and C. James Peterson Genetic Improvement in Winter Wheat Yields in the Great Plains of North America, 1959-2008 doi:10.2135/cropsci2009.11.0685 Crop Science 2010 50:1882-1890 Abstract: Data from USDA-coordinated winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) regional performance nurseries collected over the time period 1959 to 2008 were used to estimate genetic gain (loss) in grain yield, grain volume weight, days to heading, and plant height in winter wheats adapted 







Document Number: 5648
and ready to greet the world. Then I check my twitter feed (as all plants should). This morning I was in for a bit of a shock ; and I don;t mean from the cold morning air. Andrew Kimbrell, the dude who runs the Center For Food Safety, just typed up some opinions about genetically engineered crops like me. In The GMO Reality Check , and it was published in Organic Connections Magazine. I must say that I was quite shocked at some of the things he said, especially about genetics: Faulty Science Theres a very good reason we havent seen these promises come about, Kimbrell explained. The theory behind genetic engineering, which is the understanding of what a gene is and what a gene is not, has changed dramatically over the last decade. The idea that DNAand particularly the part of DNA that we call a gene, which is a little above 1.5 percent of DNAsomehow controls traits is now not scientifically valid. Today most major scientists realize that DNA is not an actor, but is acted upon . There are millions of what are called epigenetic markersvarious proteins and chemicalsthat control how DNA is expressed in the cell. 







Document Number: 3646
on my head, a laptop with an exhausted battery and the television running an infomercial led me to the conclusion that I closed my eyes for a minute while eating dinner and drifted off to sleep. Fumbling with the remote, I clicked through a few middle-of-the-night stations. Theres a vibrating weight to firm womens arms. Click. A guy with a tie on a news station says that climate change is a hoax. Click. A woman on the next channel lost fifty pounds in a month eating just cookies. Click. A former playboy playmate says that vaccines are dangerous. Another channel has a person claiming evidence that the terrorist attack on 9-11 was an inside job. I turn off the television, put on my jammies and head off to bed, my dog Stinkie following behind. The claims of kooks go in one ear, rattle around for a moment and then leave out the other. We are bombarded with junk science, all the time, every day. I dont get mad, I consider the source and let it go. They have an agenda, they have to appeal to viewers, and if subscribing to anti-science or abject untruth is their method then so be 







Document Number: 1889
With the US Census showing more than 308 million people, there is curiosity about how many people there are in the world. The current estimate of 7.5 billion is forecast to grow to nine billion by the middle of the century. They will be hungry and will need to be fed with food that very few of them can produce for themselves. Somewhere, global food production will have to increase 70% to 100% in the next 40 years. You may not have to worry about that but the younger generation on today;s farm;s will be involved with the care and feeding of nine billion hungry people. How are they going to do that? The number of people expected in the global community is irrelevant, but what is a serious question is how will food production double in the next 40 years, given the challenges to food production that we have today? You are trying to grow corn for livestock, fuel, and export. It is the same for soybeans, and other grains. The challenge that today;s young farmers will have revolves around water, land use, yield increases, environmental regulations, and a myriad of other significant policy issues. Where is the starting 







Document Number: 9730
to understand why normal weeds (the Jimmy Olsens and Lois Lanes of the plant world) die. &lt;; last superhero reference of this post I promise. Plants are not like people. The list of differences goes on and on, but today the difference we;re concerned about is where amino acids come from. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, the same way Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Guanine (G) and Cytosine (C) are the building blocks of DNA. Both our bodies and plants (and almost every other living thing) use the same twenty amino acids to build proteins. Our bodies can make ~12 of the twenty animo acids for themselves, but there are at least eight amino acids that the human body cannot produce (called essential amino acids). Our only source of these amino acids is from protein in our food. It;s all well and good for us to get amino acids from our food, but plants don;t eat. They;re made of pretty much nothing more than water, sunlight and air. And trust me, none of those things are a good source of protein. Unlike us, plants have to be able to make all twenty amino acids from scratch. That means 







Document Number: 1390
in this area. Reuters has just published a list of the big six, for your perusal: Monsanto Co ( MON.N ) ; Based in St. Louis, the company posted record net sales of $11.7 billion and net income of $2.1 billion for fiscal 2009. Among its key products are corn, soybeans and cotton that tolerate weed-killing treatments and resist pests. Pioneer Hi-Bred ; Subsidiary of DuPont ( DD.N ) based in Johnston, Iowa. Produces, markets and sells hybrid seed in nearly 70 countries worldwide and is the closest rival to Monsanto for market share in U.S. biotech corn seed market. Revenue totaled $4 billion in 2008. Syngenta AG ( SYNN.VX ) ; The Basel, Switzerland-based company operates in 90 countries and generated 2008 sales of $11.6 billion. Collaborating with International Rice Research Institute to improve rice. Dow AgroSciences ; Subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co ( DOW.N ) based in Indianapolis, Indiana. With global sales of $4.5 billion, company offers insect-protected corn and cotton, among other seed products, and is expanding its research into wheat. BASF ( BASF.DE ) ; Based in Ludwigshafen, Germany, this leading global chemical company is increasingly focusing its health and nutrition division on plant biotechnology to 







Document Number: 2846
is usually shiny. The opposite of things that are natural or organic, technology is entirely human-derived and artificial-looking. Of course, what this obscures is what a technology really is, and that is applied knowledge . According to Wikipedia , Technology is a broad concept that deals with an animal species; usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species; ability to control and adapt to its environment. Certainly GE crops are a form of technology. But some other things in agriculture that count as technologies include: Organic growing methods, biologically-derived pesticides, manure, and using animals to plow fields. Heck, the horse-drawn plow itself was a technological breakthrough for its time! Our lives are interwoven with technology ; and I;m not just talking about people who can;t go anywhere without their iPods. People are born, live, eat, drink, breathe, and cheat death for years because of technology. Without it, there would be very few people on this planet. And although many, including myself, like to take vacations away from most of our technology to relax, very few want to actually be stranded in the wilderness for the rest of their lives without it. And if we 







Document Number: 3640
all sorts of farmland and not much visible biodiversity outside of that. If you live in certain areas of the south, it;s really actually very similar. There are lots of rowcrops; peanuts and soybeans instead of corn and soybeans but still a similar concept. Lots of crops. Everything;s green and pretty without a whole lot of biodiversity. There;s one other major difference, though;lots of areas look like this: Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons The green curtain draped over everything? Kudzu. Kudzu was a vine originally planted to control erosion which grew out of control. It grows quickly, is hard to kill and covers everything with a green blanket and crowds everything out by keeping sunlight from reaching the plants. The trees under that green carpet are all dead. So; how can things get worse? Simple, really; just introduce something which lives on kudzu. In 2009, a graduate student at the University of Georgia;s department of entomology found a very odd insect which resembled a beetle, but wasn;t. It had sucking mouthparts and a bunch of other features which landed it in a group of insects called the Heteroptera. The problem is that the insect wasn;t able to be identified with 







Document Number: 5145
journal, of a report thoroughly debunking the 1998 paper that began the vaccine-autism scare. says Michael Willrich, a professor of history at Brandeis University in todays NYT Similarly, according to Dr Oz, the TV host, papaya genetically engineered with a snippet of a mild strain of a virus to make it disease free, causes infertility. This in face of overwhelming evidence from peer-reviewed studies that the papayas, which have been consumed for 15 years and have been embraced by farmers as the most appropriate method to control the deadly papaya ringspot virus, are safe to eat. In contrast, to GE papaya that carry trace amounts of a mild strain of the virus, conventional or organic papaya are chalkfull of the virus. How should such papaya be labeled? It is the same story for GE cotton, a cotton engineered with a certified organic insect control agent called BT. The GE cotton is thriving with half the amount of insecticide, yet many still view it with suspicion. And vitamin A fortified rice has yet to reach the poor who need it because of concerns that the fortification was added with genes rather than synthetic chemicals that has been the norm for many 







Document Number: 3678
read the news a few weeks ago I was at first puzzled, and then inspired. Jim Riddle, Organic Outreach Coordinator for the University of Minnesota, wrote an article for the Rodale Institute outlining 10 reasons why genetic engineering is incompatible with organic agriculture . This is one of the issues that we tackle quite often here at Biofortified. So here are his ten reasons: 1. Basic science. Humans have a complex digestive system, populated with flora, fauna, and enzymes that have evolved over millennia to recognize and break down foods found in nature to make nutrients available to feed the human body. GMO crops and foods are comprised of novel genetic constructs which have never before been part of the human diet and may not be recognized by the intestinal system as digestible food, leading to the possible relationship between genetic engineering and a dramatic increase in food allergies, obesity, diabetes, and other food-related diseases, which have all dramatically increased correlated to the introduction of GMO crops and foods. 2. Ecological impact. Organic agriculture is based on the fundamental principle of building and maintaining healthy soil, aquatic, and terrestrial ecosystems. Since the introduction of GMOs, there has been a dramatic 







Document Number: 9535
of trade imbalances and currency wars, but nothing about Nigerian palm oil. That;s a shame, because the bank;s loans for plantation agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions some $132 million of which have gone to palm oil cultivation have been humanitarian and economic triumphs. Yet now, under misguided pressure from environmental groups, the bank is turning its back on the program. Palm oil, which is extracted from the pulp of the oil palm, is an essential food in sub-Saharan Africa and other poor regions. Accounting for almost 40 percent of the world;s vegetable oils, it is an indispensable source of vitamins and calories. The developing world is heavily reliant on palm as a source of nutrition because the plant thrives in tropical climates and yields significantly more fats and calories than other options. It gives the developing world where hundreds of millions of men and women still live on a few dollars a day the most caloric bang for the buck; But the bank;s legacy of success is now in serious jeopardy. Under the leadership of Robert Zoellick, a former United States trade representative, the bank has wavered from its poverty-reduction mission and is increasingly focusing on achieving 







Document Number: 9959
with record attendance for this annual event, about 500 students, faculty, and community members. Tonight;s lecture is part of a week long series of events celebrating the legacy of Norm Borlaug and looking to what we can do to solve hunger in the US and across the world. Many World Food Prize Laureates have been scientists, and scientists are undoubtedly important in developing new crop varieties and new methods that can produce more food with fewer inputs, particularly for small famers. This year;s Laureates have a new message to share. As David Beckmann pointed out during his talk, great scientists are important, but it also takes groups like Bread for the World and Heifer International to organize and mobilize people to help. This year;s Laureates share a message of hope and inspiration. David Beckmann David Beckmann is the President of Bread for the World and President of The Alliance to End Hunger . He starts his talk with a positive note: there have been stunning changes for the better, including large reductions in child mortality due to hunger. Countries with reduced poverty include diverse countries like Brazil, Bangladesh, and Great Britain. Their successes show that it is possible to reduce 







Document Number: 1677
apple slices, but they certainly don;t look nice, which discourages some people from eating as many apples as they should. Apples are a healthy snack and anything that gets people to eat more fruit could be considered beneficial. Like it or not, sliced apples that don;t brown are in demand. Many children and some adults have hard time biting into whole apples. In addition, there is much convenience in being able to eat one slice at a time, no matter where you are. Some companies are producing sliced apples treated with a chemical solution to keep them from browning, and you can find them in some schools and in places like McDonald;s and Subway restaurants, but that has its own complications , including what some say is an off-taste and additional plastic waste. A Canadian company has developed apples that won;t turn brown, which has the potential to solve this problem and get more people eating an apple a day. In this post, I;ll discuss the chemistry behind browning and the science behind non-browning fruits and vegetables. The enzymatic reaction that turns apples brown within minutes is a major problem for home cooks and professional chefs alike. Just Google how 







Document Number: 7930
Smith MULTIPLYING the world;s population by its consumption of food does not equal a healthy planet ; the multiplication result is not balanceable or sustainable, according to Dr. Jason Clay, senior vice president at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). ;We need to use less to produce more ; to restore the planet,; he said in remarks to the Cattle Industry Summer Conference last month in Denver, Colo. He was one of three speakers who addressed beef production;s environmental footprint (Feedstuffs, Aug. 9). Clay laid out a scenario in which the world;s increasing population forces more and more habitable land into agricultural/food production every year and said this ;has to be changed, and we can do that by intensification.; He noted that in 40 years, the world;s population will increase 33% ; from almost 7 billion people today to more than 9 billion ; incomes will triple and food consumption will double. Clay said 70% of the world;s population will live in cities, and ;we need to address this; because the ;impacts; people and food production/consumption have on the land and water ;that are acceptable today with 6.8 billion people will not be acceptable with 9.1 billion people.; ;We will have 







Document Number: 3209
Shiva endorses criminal arson as direct action against scientific laboratories she disproves (explicit video interview). Now Greenpeace — by their own self-acknowledged vandalism — are following Vandana Shiva (Sydney Peace [sic] Prize recipient) into the cesspool of criminality. . Greenpeace destroys GM wheat Jessica Nairn, ABC Radio 666 Canberra Updated July 14, 2011 11:08:36 Greenpeace protesters have broken into a CSIRO experimental farm in Canberra to destroy a crop of genetically modified wheat. In the early hours of this morning a group of Greenpeace protesters scaled the fence of the CSIRO experimental station at Ginninderra in the capital’s north. Greenpeace says activists were wearing Hazmat protective clothing and were equipped with weed string trimmers. They say the entire crop of genetically modified wheat has been destroyed. About half a hectare of GM wheat is being grown on the site, as part of Australia’s first outdoor trials. No genetically modified wheat strain had ever been approved for cropping in Australia before. Last month the CSIRO received permission to conduct Australia’s first trial in which humans will eat GM wheat. The wheat’s genes have been modified to lower the glycemic index and increase fibre to create a product which will improve bowel 







Document Number: 3402
at last some gold. Fishy smelling gold. A new paper has been kindly unearthed in the comments by (a commenter): Genetically modified plants as fish feed ingredients by Nini Hedberg Sissener, Monica Sanden, Åshild Krogdahl, Anne-Marie Bakke, Lene Elisabeth Johannessen, and Gro-Ingunn Hemre (2011). Abstract: Genetically modified (GM) plants were first grown commercially more than 20 years ago, but their use is still controversial in some parts of the world. Many GM plant varieties are produced in large quantities globally and are approved for use in fish feeds both in Norway and the European Union. European consumers, however, are skeptical to fish produced by means of GM feed ingredients. Concerns have been raised regarding the safety of GM plants, including potential toxicity and (or) allergenicity of the novel protein, potential unintended effects, and risk of horizontal gene transfer to other species. This review will present the current state of knowledge regarding GM plants as fish feed ingredients, focusing on fish performance and health as well as the fate of the GM DNA fragments in the fish, identifying limitations of the current work and areas where further research is needed. And then commentator Allan goes to town interpretating this paper. Many 







Document Number: 7172
coli contaminated fenugreek seeds originating in Egypt which have been implicated in several different outbreaks of severe pathogenic E. coli infections occurring these last weeks in Germany, France, and Sweden (see several other recent GMO Pundit Posts). To quote from the European food safety authority’s website: A trace back investigation is the method used to determine and document the distribution and production chain, and the source(s) of a product that has been implicated in a food-borne illness investigation. A trace forward investigation aims to find the distribution of the suspected food products along the food chain from the origin in the direction of the consumer. Using this approach for this investigation, at each step of the delivery/production chain identified in the trace back, further investigation was initiated to try and account for all seeds in any suspect lots. The objective was to identify critical lots and their current location. To this end, detailed information on each lot of seeds was established for each step of the delivery/production chain back to the importation into the EU. The comparison of the back tracing information from the French and German outbreaks leads to the conclusion that lot # 48088 of fenugreek seeds imported 







Document Number: 8077
Dr. Oz, Jeffrey Smith, and the AAEM. Here is an example of the claims made in the piece. Between the U.S. and European countries, which has more instances of food allergies? Which has more instances of asthma or autism? Which has more instances of cancer and heart disease? Yes, I understand many factors play a role in these distinctions. However, I think it would be unwise to ignore the relation between the introduction of GM foods and higher instances of food-related allergies. Do you honestly believe major corporations care more about the health and safety of the public over their ability to make a profit? His words only got a brief mention, and his response is a model for how scientists should respond to these kinds of claims. We have received permission to republish his spot-on commentary. (He has asked that I obscure the name of the young reporter who wrote the column so that it is about the information and not the person. So only the name has been edited.) Enjoy! Column regarding genetically modified foods was one-sided and misinformed This author’s column on Genetically Modified (GM) foods is a thinly-veiled hatchet job, repeating a mixture of half-truths, lies 







Document Number: 3622
opposition to nuclear power and GM products globally. Focus instead on the conditions where these technologies become acceptable: safe, economic, free of patent control by a few companies, and effectively regulated. (Charles Secrett, ex FOE, 2011). In the Pundit’s experience, and sincere opinion, many members of Friends of the Earth (FOE) are often the most principled and honest of the opponents of genetic technology. In short, they are wonderful human beings and a pleasure to meet. This open letter reproduced below is a welcome example from Charles Secrett of what FOE is truly capable of. Charles Secrett now joins my list of outstanding and courageous honest environmentalist heroes, up with Stewart Brand, Mark Lynas and Patrick Moore. He is yet another ecopragmatic turq (see tags below for the meaning of these adjectives). Enlace: ‘Amigos de la Tierra’ se queda sin liderazgo real … pero aún les hace falta *** An open letter to the green movement Charles Secrett guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 June 2011 13.51 BST Last week, Charles Secrett argued that 40 years after the birth of the modern environment movement, it has turned into an unwieldy behemoth and its tactics have stalled. This prompted criticism that he is out 







Document Number: 2779
look to some like a conspiracy, but we also realized that it would be far too expensive to track the great rivers of grain well enough to be able to label everything accurately. Practicality won the day and GMO foods were never labeled. 15 years later this decision is still being needlessly debated. Why You Can’t Really Track All Grain It does not normally make sense for a farmer to have his/her own harvesting equipment. There are “custom, contract harvesters” who move from South to North during the harvest season. There are always some grains left in the harvester as it moves from field to field. The grain is then hauled to local “elevators” which are used to store grain. They only have a few silos which end up containing grain from dozens to hundreds of fields. Segregating the GMO portion of the crop is not possible at this stage. To ask this system to segregate and track GMO is absurd. It is much more practical to “identity preserve” the small amount of non-GMO crop. That also usually involves paying a price premium. A “May Contain” Label Might Have Been A Better Choice I actually supported the idea of a 







Document Number: 3165
need to empower the very people whose lives are most affected by food shortages. Three-quarters of the world’s poorest people get their food and income by farming small plots of land. The potential of small farmers for getting us out of this and future food crises cannot be overstated. Today, we find that millions of lives depend upon the extent to which agricultural science can keep pace with the growing global population, changing climate, and shrinking environmental resources — and the extent to which this science is available to millions of the world’s poorest farmers. Few people will argue with the idea that we need to grow more food. World economic and agricultural leaders have projected that the human population will surpass 9 billion by 2050, and 10 billion by the turn of the century. And they have forecast that we must double or even triple food production to meet demand. Yet, already 40 percent of the earth is farmed (an area the size of South America). The amount of arable land is limited and what is left is being lost to urbanization, water shortages, erosion, and environmental degradation. Farmers are so pressed for space in many parts of the 







Document Number: 617
to El Bosco We live in a world where whole organisations make comfortable incomes by demonising technology. These self-styled “technology critics” early successes included active blocking of the use of irradiation to make food safe or years. This largely unused technology is based on using electrons or radioactively generated gamma rays to kill germs. Eleven years ago the German government vetoed the use of such radiation based technology to make food safe to eat in the EU. Odd that they should do this given that it’s a widely used and successful tool to avoid deadly infections during modern surgical operations. It could have prevented the ghastly current E. coli sproutbreak in Germany that has killed 44 and has condemned near 900 people to coping with the vile aftermath of HUS — which include kidney transplants or a lifetime of being hooked to dialysis machines. [It could also have prevented a second outbreak of sprout promoted lethal disease from the same E. coli strain now taking place in France.] The next “success” of technology-critics was delaying and stymieing introduction of beneficial GMO foods. In this case the damage is felt mainly in developing countries. Damaging consequences of this include hundreds of 







Document Number: 4094
emerging from the frantic work of the DNA sequencing teams and the crowdsourced intense detective work by bioinformatics experts (all mentioned in several previous posts at this site) to assemble a broad picture of how the German outbreak germ has evolved in recent years in terms of changes to its overall chromosome structure. The bottom line is this: the strain is roughly 75% conservative genes and 25% radical genes. It’s the newly arrived radicals that do the damage. Kat Holt has presented in very visual terms her analysis of all the DNA decoding made public by several life-science workers and various corporations in Germany, USA, China, France and Britain. She has just made this available at backpathgenomics blog. Her latest work summarises DNA decoding data obtained on four different bacterial strains. It is similar to the picture sketched out by the BGI sequencing group when they released their fully analysed DNA data recently — but much easier for most people to understand because of the colourful graphics. One of her graphics is displayed above, but there are more detailed larger scale pixs of the individual chromosomes at her blog. The set of compared germs include two strains analysed in Germany, 







Document Number: 9574
Aspergillus genus contains a number of species that are beneficial and harmful to humans. (Creative Commons licensed Image via Özgür Bayram and Gerhard Braus) GMO Pundit just been highlighting gene movements occurring naturally among bacterial species – the so called horizontal gene movements (HGT). But with the extensive decoding of the DNA of numerous organisms that has taken place this last 5 years or so, many more instances of gene movement between species are turning up. Fungi turn out to be no exception when it comes to such movements. Vanderbilt University Jumping Gene webpage published earlier this year has a dramatically colourful news story about gene movement in fungi: Since the days of Darwin, the “tree of life” has been the preeminent metaphor for the process of evolution, reflecting the gradual branching and changing of individual species. The discovery that a large cluster of genes appears to have jumped directly from one species of fungus to another, however, significantly strengthens the argument that a different metaphor, such as a mosaic, may be more appropriate. “The fungi are telling us something important about evolution … something we didn’t know,” said Antonis Rokas, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt. He and 







Document Number: 4868
eating GM bread that has never been proven safe, according to Greenpeace. Greenpeace have lately been rattling the can about CSIRO’s proposed trials of GM wheat that have altered starch characteristics. Part of the proposal to the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator was for possible human feeding trials, which they especially didn’t like. As part of what Greenpeace say is just the beginning of a concerted push to oust any GM wheat from Australia and elsewhere in the world – research trial or otherwise, they yesterday released a report, “Australia’s wheat scandal: the takeover of our daily bread”. They certainly didn’t pull any punches in their criticism of CSIRO and other research organisations such as the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics. Is the criticism justified? I thought I had better check it out. In trying to get a handle on the actual CSIRO research, I have spoken to CSIRO’s Dr Matthew Morell, Theme Leader, Future Grains, Food Futures Flagship, who headed the research into the GM wheat with altered starch characteristics. I go into more detail about this wheat as we go and at the end. First the Greenpeace report. If I was to go through every part 







Document Number: 1050
us feel ill and can be tough to beat. HIV, H1N1, Papaya Ringspot Virus ; it;s hard to find anything good to say about the little pseudo-living things. So it comes as no surprise that when people hear that scientists sometimes use DNA from viruses to genetically engineer crops, they get scared. Viral DNA in food? How nefarious! Well, not really. The most common piece of viral DNA in GE crops is the 35S promoter from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus. Promoters are like ;on switches; that tell the cell when and how strongly to express or ;turn on; a gene. The 35S CaMV promoter is a very well-described one that tells the cell to always leave the light on. Though part of those inserted genes came from a virus, it doesn;t make viruses of any kind. Another way you might find viral DNA involved in genetic engineering is in developing virus resistance. A protein that coats the Papaya Ringspot Virus was engineered into Papayas to block where the virus attaches to the cell and prevent infection. Later on, as we started to understand more about some really cool aspects of genetics, it was discovered that the viral gene that was 







Document Number: 7085
much as those produced by conventional methods, and people are shelling out their hard-earned cash for what they believe are the best foods available. So Wilcox looks at organics four most common myths and includes scientific cites for her claims: Myth #1: Organic Farms Dont Use Pesticides Organic farming, just like other forms of agriculture, still uses pesticides and fungicides. There are over 20 chemicals commonly used in the growing and processing of organic crops that are approved by the U.S. Organic Standards. Organic pesticides are those that are derived from natural sources and processed lightly if at all before use. Organic pesticides are not all safe. In fact, some might actually be worse than the ones used by the conventional agriculture industry. Myth #2: Organic Foods are Healthier Some people believe that by not using manufactured chemicals or genetically modified organisms, organic farming produces more nutritious food. However, science simply cannot find any evidence that organic foods are in any way healthier than non-organic ones  and scientists have been comparing the two for over 50 years. Myth #3: Organic Farming Is Better for the Environment People seem to believe theyre doing the world a favor by eating organic. 







Document Number: 5313
time, the worlds agricultural system will be increasingly challenged by water scarcity and climate change, raising the risk of production shortfalls in a world where over 800 million people are already undernourished. A challenge like this can be met through biotechnology, innovation, and appropriate agricultural development and trade policies. At the State Department, we are working to encourage countries to think proactively about the role technology can play in addressing food security and climate change and about its strong potential as an engine of economic growth. Unfortunately, the lack of science-based regulations in many countries discourages innovation and adaptation and creates barriers to trade. Assistant Secretary of State Fernandez at the Gordon Institute of Business Science Biotechnology has created an array of tools to improve agricultural productivity, efficiency and nutrition over the last decade, from tissue culture to marker-assisted selection to genetic engineering, and concurrently reduced agricultures environmental footprint. It offers great potential to help developing countries reduce crop losses due to pests and disease, increase the nutrient content of crops and mitigate the effects of climate change. This is particularly relevant in Sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture models have indicated that by 2050, average rice, wheat, and maize yields will 







Document Number: 9760
growers in 29 countries), people need to be better informed about food production, so they can form opinions based on facts, not fear. Producing Safe Food for Nearly Two Decades The safety of biotech-derived food products has been thoroughly addressed by the international scientific community. The worlds top scientific authorities  such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences, the American Medical Association and the American Dietetic Association and the regulatory authorities for each of the products have concluded that foods with biotech-derived ingredients pose no more risk to people than any other food. In fact, a National Academies of Science study concludes: Genetic engineering is one of the newer technologies available to produce desirable traits in plants and animals used for food, but it poses no unique health risks that cannot also arise from conventional breeding and other genetic alteration methods. Biotech crops have been cultivated for more than 15 years, and foods derived from agricultural biotechnology have been eaten by billions of people without any significant health problems. Government Regulation Under the Coordinated Framework Biotechnology products in the United States are regulated more 







Document Number: 7771
too busy planting crops here in Iowa. Commoners have to work for a living, after all. But I did find the time to read the text of his remarks. As I made my way through his address, the Prince of Wales turned me into the prince of wailsI wanted to howl in anguish over this mans bizarre views of agriculture. The prince loves organic food, which is fine. But hes wrong to think it can save the world because its so inefficient. A recent study by Steve Savage points out that if all farming in the United States went organic, we would need to add an amount of new cropland almost equal to the size of Spain to make up for the lower yields. This is the very definition of unsustainable. Who is this guy to lecture anybody on sustainability? Prince Charles flew to the United States on a private jet and traveled around Washington, D.C. with an armada-sized motorcade. As a reporter for the Washington Post noted puckishly, the engine of his SUV was left running while he was inside Georgetowns Healy Hall. Prince Charles was of course fresh from the lavish wedding of his son Prince William to 







Document Number: 3841
tool that holds great promise for alleviating hunger and poverty. However recent concerns about genetically modified crops may curtail their widespread use. Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture, a new white paper issued by a working group of seven national science academies, including five from the developing world, examines the potential for genetically modified crops to assist developing countries, and the issues that need to be addressed. [News release] Biotechnology at Work Farmers have been battling pests for centuries, using everything from conventional plant-breeding techniques to chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. But because of environmental and health concerns, the development of new chemical treatments has declined in recent years. Now scientists are using the tools of advanced molecular biology to endow plants with genes that help them resist pests. Although breeding practices have been used for years to develop crops with desirable traits, scientists can now pinpoint genes from similar species -- or even from completely unrelated organisms -- and transfer those protective genes into crops. What are genetically modified foods? How prevalent are they? How are they regulated? The U.S. Department of Agriculture answers frequently asked questions. The University of Wisconsin provides a glossary of terms. Like most significant 







Document Number: 1127
labels. 1. Is biotechnology less safe than other plant breeding techniques? No. Biotechnology is safe. It is a refinement of breeding techniques that have been used to improve plants for thousands of years. Biotechnology is simply a more precise science, so scientists are able to isolate a specific gene to make exact changes to a crop (for example, to make a corn plant resistant to the corn borer insect.) Scientists around the world agree that the risks associated with crop plants developed using biotechnology are the same as those for similar varieties developed using traditional breeding methods. 2. Are foods derived from biotechnology as safe to eat as foods produced using conventional crops? Yes. Federal regulatory agencies ensure the safety of biotechnology foods, and biotech plants and foods are among the most tested in history. The ultimate scientific authorities recognized in this country, such as the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, the American Dietetic Association2, the American Medical Association, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization5 have concluded that foods with biotech-derived ingredients pose no more risk to people than any other foods. Biotech crops have been cultivated for more than 







Document Number: 7831
this science to grow plants that yield more per acre with reduced production costs while being resistant to disease and pests and also beneficial to the environment. In the near future, we’ll see crops that will be resistant to environmental stresses like drought, and crops that use soil nutrients more efficiently, boosting productivity in areas of the world with inadequate rainfall or poor soil. Scientists are also looking to use biotechnology to fortify some food plants with higher nutritional content and to produce pharmaceuticals in plants affordably and efficiently. Contributing to Sustainable Agriculture Farmers are enthusiastically embracing this technology, especially corn, cotton and soybean varieties, according to USDA. This growing trend is expected to continue, especially at a time when the United States and the world are looking for science-based solutions to rising food and fuel prices. Agricultural biotechnology can help farmers feed the world's growing population, while minimizing impacts on the global environment. In 2007, 12 million farmers in 23 countries – 12 developing and 11 industrialized – planted biotech crops, primarily soybeans, corn, cotton and canola. Eleven million of these farmers worked small, resource-poor farms in developing countries. Biotech crops – most of which are currently disease-resistant, pest-resistant 







Document Number: 5800
Management Practices (BMPs) the state adopted in lieu of passing legislation that would ban or place other restrictions on agricultural biotechnology. Although BIO generally agrees with the BMPs, the organization points out the need to dispel myths about biotechnology crops as well as ensure that the BMPs are science-driven, realistic and potentially serve as a set of principles other states can emulate. BIO recommended that state officials take a closer look at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s guidelines for biotechnology, rules that could settle some thorny issues, such as farmer certification and a 300-foot buffer for certain crops. “BIO applauds the legislature and the department’s vision in establishing BMPs to help increase comfort levels among growers in the state who may use different production practices,” O’Connor said. “We are glad that the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources is clearly embracing this concept through the well-developed BMP effort,” he said. “We agree that BMPs are a much more useful way to ensure that agricultural producers communicate more with their peers, rather than onerous and business-inhibiting regulation.” BIO’s testimony addresses two major points. First, the BMPs must contain references to the USDA’s National Organic Program’s rules for certification. The 







Document Number: 1182
to use more herbicides because weeds have developed resistance to glyphosates, and that makes farmers wary, according to the Rhode Island-based center, a nonprofit organization that promotes organic products. Real-world farm statistics counter the report, says Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, executive vice president for food and agriculture at BIO. U.S. farmers have adopted many genetically engineered crops — such as soybeans, cotton and corn — deploying them widely since their introduction in 1996 because of the value they bring. Biotechnology allows farmers to boost crop yields and agricultural productivity. “There’s no doubt that farmers continue to embrace biotechnology because of the benefits these products deliver, specifically crops that yield more per acre with lower production costs while using farming practices that better protect the land and environment,” she says. Driving Up Productivity According to research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the first decade of genetically engineered crops in the United States, the productivity gains can result in higher income for farmers. As found in the USDA report, The First Decade of Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States, herbicide-tolerant cotton and corn were associated with higher economic returns, as were insect-resistant cotton and corn when pest infestations were more 







Document Number: 9101
tool that holds great promise for alleviating hunger and poverty. However recent concerns about genetically modified crops may curtail their widespread use. Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture, a new white paper issued by a working group of seven national science academies, including five from the developing world, examines the potential for genetically modified crops to assist developing countries, and the issues that need to be addressed. [News release] Biotechnology at Work Farmers have been battling pests for centuries, using everything from conventional plant-breeding techniques to chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. But because of environmental and health concerns, the development of new chemical treatments has declined in recent years. Now scientists are using the tools of advanced molecular biology to endow plants with genes that help them resist pests. Although breeding practices have been used for years to develop crops with desirable traits, scientists can now pinpoint genes from similar species -- or even from completely unrelated organisms -- and transfer those protective genes into crops. What are genetically modified foods? How prevalent are they? How are they regulated? The U.S. Department of Agriculture answers frequently asked questions. The University of Wisconsin provides a glossary of terms. Like most significant 







Document Number: 173
labels. 1. Is biotechnology less safe than other plant breeding techniques? No. Biotechnology is safe. It is a refinement of breeding techniques that have been used to improve plants for thousands of years. Biotechnology is simply a more precise science, so scientists are able to isolate a specific gene to make exact changes to a crop (for example, to make a corn plant resistant to the corn borer insect.) Scientists around the world agree that the risks associated with crop plants developed using biotechnology are the same as those for similar varieties developed using traditional breeding methods. 2. Are foods derived from biotechnology as safe to eat as foods produced using conventional crops? Yes. Federal regulatory agencies ensure the safety of biotechnology foods, and biotech plants and foods are among the most tested in history. The ultimate scientific authorities recognized in this country, such as the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, the American Dietetic Association2, the American Medical Association, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization5 have concluded that foods with biotech-derived ingredients pose no more risk to people than any other foods. Biotech crops have been cultivated for more than 







Document Number: 7867
this science to grow plants that yield more per acre with reduced production costs while being resistant to disease and pests and also beneficial to the environment. In the near future, we’ll see crops that will be resistant to environmental stresses like drought, and crops that use soil nutrients more efficiently, boosting productivity in areas of the world with inadequate rainfall or poor soil. Scientists are also looking to use biotechnology to fortify some food plants with higher nutritional content and to produce pharmaceuticals in plants affordably and efficiently. Contributing to Sustainable Agriculture Farmers are enthusiastically embracing this technology, especially corn, cotton and soybean varieties, according to USDA. This growing trend is expected to continue, especially at a time when the United States and the world are looking for science-based solutions to rising food and fuel prices. Agricultural biotechnology can help farmers feed the world's growing population, while minimizing impacts on the global environment. In 2007, 12 million farmers in 23 countries – 12 developing and 11 industrialized – planted biotech crops, primarily soybeans, corn, cotton and canola. Eleven million of these farmers worked small, resource-poor farms in developing countries. Biotech crops – most of which are currently disease-resistant, pest-resistant 







Document Number: 1323
Management Practices (BMPs) the state adopted in lieu of passing legislation that would ban or place other restrictions on agricultural biotechnology. Although BIO generally agrees with the BMPs, the organization points out the need to dispel myths about biotechnology crops as well as ensure that the BMPs are science-driven, realistic and potentially serve as a set of principles other states can emulate. BIO recommended that state officials take a closer look at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s guidelines for biotechnology, rules that could settle some thorny issues, such as farmer certification and a 300-foot buffer for certain crops. “BIO applauds the legislature and the department’s vision in establishing BMPs to help increase comfort levels among growers in the state who may use different production practices,” O’Connor said. “We are glad that the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources is clearly embracing this concept through the well-developed BMP effort,” he said. “We agree that BMPs are a much more useful way to ensure that agricultural producers communicate more with their peers, rather than onerous and business-inhibiting regulation.” BIO’s testimony addresses two major points. First, the BMPs must contain references to the USDA’s National Organic Program’s rules for certification. The 







Document Number: 7515
to use more herbicides because weeds have developed resistance to glyphosates, and that makes farmers wary, according to the Rhode Island-based center, a nonprofit organization that promotes organic products. Real-world farm statistics counter the report, says Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, executive vice president for food and agriculture at BIO. U.S. farmers have adopted many genetically engineered crops — such as soybeans, cotton and corn — deploying them widely since their introduction in 1996 because of the value they bring. Biotechnology allows farmers to boost crop yields and agricultural productivity. “There’s no doubt that farmers continue to embrace biotechnology because of the benefits these products deliver, specifically crops that yield more per acre with lower production costs while using farming practices that better protect the land and environment,” she says. Driving Up Productivity According to research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the first decade of genetically engineered crops in the United States, the productivity gains can result in higher income for farmers. As found in the USDA report, The First Decade of Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States, herbicide-tolerant cotton and corn were associated with higher economic returns, as were insect-resistant cotton and corn when pest infestations were more 







Document Number: 1222
food production by 70 percent. That number jumps to 100 percent in developing countries, where farmers are more adversely affected by climate change. The need for biotechnology to help offset climate change came to light in December at the climate talks in Copenhagen, when U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a report entitled The Effects of Climate Change on U.S. Ecosystems. The USDA report identifies the following trends: Grain and oilseed crops will mature more rapidly, but increasing temperatures up the risk of crop failures, particularly where precipitation decreases or becomes more variable. Horticultural crops such as tomatoes, onions and fruit respond to climate change to a greater degree than grains and oilseed crops because of the high sensitivity of their quality and appearance to climate factors. Livestock mortality will decrease with warmer winters. However, this will be greatly offset by higher mortality in hotter summers. Hotter temperatures will also result in reduced productivity of livestock and dairy animals because of changes in consumption and lower reproduction pregnancy rates. Weeds will grow more rapidly under elevated atmospheric CO2, extend their range northward and be less sensitive to herbicide applications. Disease and pest prevalence will escalate as a result of shorter, 







Document Number: 4369
Stewardship with 100 international scientists and government officials in the audience of the 7th Transgenic Animal Conference, Tahoe, Calif. Why is a stewardship program important to those working in research and development with GE animals? Stewardship is the initiative and processes undertaken by product developers in industry, academia and other groups, to increase their control over and responsibility for the conduct of practices. Today’s landscape for GE animal technology includes many issues that drive public confidence and acceptance. These include the continuing “GMO” debates, the animal welfare concerns about GE technology, and concerns on ethics, social, religious issues. But the landscape also includes cutting edge science, strong regulatory processes, and best of all, the promise of compelling benefits of GE animals including advancing human health, enhancing food quality and safety, softer environmental footprint, enhanced animal health and welfare, and improving industrial products. By adopting a stewardship approach, we may minimize the negative issues and optimize the positive issues. The mission of BIO’s Stewardship Initiative is to institute and promote guidelines for the development and use of GE animals, which promote good animal welfare and comply with current regulatory requirements. BIO Guidance is meant to be valuable to all who are 







Document Number: 2595
must neither rest on past accomplishments nor retreat from new challenges. At last year’s BIO International Convention, I sketched a bold vision of what I believed the industry must achieve: Greater access to our innovative medicines, at lower prices. Improvements in drug safety, ultimately at lower cost. The continued advancement of the agricultural revolution. The growth of renewable energy with low or near-zero carbon footprints. And a cleaner environment. The industry—and BIO—witnessed major strides toward achieving these lofty goals over the past year and are today on a trajectory to make even greater advancements in the year to come. And there is still much to do. Thanks in no small part to BIO’s world-class advocacy team, major FDA legislation passed that provides resources to strengthen post-market safety. We made the case against raising Medicaid rebates and hastily enacting poorlyreasoned comparative effectiveness legislation, and we pressed for major energy legislation that tripled the mandate for renewable biofuels. Our tenacity on the regulatory front was rewarded by FDA’s long-awaited risk assessment fi nding that food derived from cloned animals is safe—a major step forward for this technology. The coming year will bring even more opportunities for BIO to showcase the importance of 







Document Number: 7153
or animals; or develop microorganisms for specific agricultural uses. Modern biotechnology today includes the tools of genetic engineering. Allergen: A substance, usually a protein, that can cause an allergy or allergic reaction in the body. Allergy: A reaction by the body's immune system after exposure to a particular substance, often a protein. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt): A soil bacterium that produces toxins that are deadly to some pests. The ability to produce Bt toxins has been engineered into some crops. See Bt crops. Biopharming: The production of pharmaceuticals such as edible vaccines and antibodies in plants or domestic animals. Bt crops: Crops that are genetically engineered to carry a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The bacterium produces proteins that are toxic to some pests but non-toxic to humans and other mammals. Crops containing the Bt gene are able to produce this toxin, thereby providing protection for the plant. Bt corn and Bt cotton are examples of commercially available Bt crops. Chromosome: The self-replicating genetic structure of cells, containing genes, which determines inheritance of traits. Chemically, each chromosome is composed of proteins and a long molecule of DNA. Clone: A genetic replica of an organism created without sexual reproduction. 







Document Number: 1242
trade problems with the European Union (EU), China and Korea, and to multilateral discussions in the Codex and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The House Biotechnology Caucus recently invited United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Robert Zoellick to meet with them to discuss trade problems with the EU. USTR has raised the possibility of initiating WTO dispute settlement proceedings against the EU regarding new product approvals. For a long time, BIO has been calling attention to the need for a comprehensive, long-term strategy for dealing with biotech trade issues. The Administration has now recognized the need for such a strategy; a USTR strategy paper was recently distributed to interested agencies for consideration. The USTR approach is reportedly consistent with BIO's recommendations in most respects. The paper lays out an aggressive strategy that should bring coherence to U.S. policy and allow the U.S. to make much better use of available tools for addressing issues. One potential problem: food company representatives are concerned by reports that USTR may be recommending compromises with the EU on labeling. Essential elements of an effective trade strategy are as follows: Lifting the EU moratorium on new product approvals. The EU has maintained for nearly four years 







Document Number: 5550
too busy planting crops here in Iowa. Commoners have to work for a living, after all. But I did find the time to read the text of his remarks. As I made my way through his address, the Prince of Wales turned me into the prince of wails--I wanted to howl in anguish over this man’s bizarre views of agriculture. The prince loves organic food, which is fine. But he’s wrong to think it can save the world because it’s so inefficient. A recent study by Steve Savage points out that if all farming in the United States went organic, we would need to add an amount of new cropland almost equal to the size of Spain to make up for the lower yields. This is the very definition of “unsustainable”. Who is this guy to lecture anybody on sustainability? Prince Charles flew to the United States on a private jet and traveled around Washington, D.C. with an armada-sized motorcade. As a reporter for the Washington Post noted puckishly, the engine of his SUV was left running while he was inside Georgetown’s Healy Hall. Prince Charles was of course fresh from the lavish wedding of his son Prince William to 







Document Number: 7362
the report, Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2010, details the ongoing proliferation of biotech crops as the agricultural community continues to realize the benefits. Perhaps most encouraging: Developing countries are among the leaders when it comes to adopting biotech agriculture. In 2010, according to the report, biotech crop area grew 10 percent. That figure represents 34.6 million acres of farmland, bringing total acreage worldwide for GM crops to 366 million acres. The nonprofit ISAAA shares knowledge about crop biotechnology to educate the global community about the attributes and potential of new agricultural technologies. They have tracked global biotech crop trends since the first uses of these crops in 1996. “The 2010 ISAAA report proves once again that the global adoption of biotech crops — especially corn, soybeans and cotton — is on the rise as more and more farmers gain access to this beneficial technology,” says Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, BIO’s executive vice president for food and agriculture. “Agricultural biotechnology provides solutions for today’s growers in the form of plants that are more environmentally friendly while yielding more per acre, resisting diseases and insect pests, and reducing farmers’ production costs.” In the Developing World Moreover, in the past year, biotech 







Document Number: 317
George Washington Carver Award for innovation in industrial biotechnology. A panel selected the Royal DSM CEO for leading his company's efforts to promote bio-based products over those relying on fossil-fuel resources. Sijbesma will receive the award and deliver a keynote address during a May 9 plenary lunch session at the BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology & Bioprocessing. The conference is being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. "I am truly honored to receive the 2011 George Washington Carver Award for contributing to the progress and innovation of the industrial applications of biotechnology," Sijbesma said. "I am convinced that in the coming decades biotechnology will have an enormous contribution in addressing the worldwide issues around health, nutrition and environment." The award is named after Carver, one of the founding fathers of the chemurgy movement, a branch of applied chemistry focused on preparing industrial products from raw agricultural materials. Biotechnology is the modern-day equivalent, and the award honors individuals for carrying on Carver’s legacy. "The field has developed in ways that Carver may never have imagined, but the work of industrial biotech companies remains true to the goal of a sustainable bio-economy," says Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO's 







Document Number: 8073
United States, you may have concerns and questions regarding these crops. Here are some short answers to some FAQs. If you wish to learn more, click on the links on the left to explore Bt. FAQ What is Bt? Does Bt harm monarch butterflies? Is Bt safe in my food? Why use Bt? Is Bt safe for the environment? What is a crystal protein? How is use of Bt regulated? What are some Bt concerns? Where is Bt used? What is the future of Bt? What are Bt proteins? Bt stands for the naturally occurring bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Bt lives in the soil and is found all over the world. Some types of Bt produce a protein crystal that is toxic to insects. These protein crystals have been used in organic farming for over 50 years to control insects. The genes producing these proteins are now engineered so that plants can make the protein in their cells. Learn more about Bt What is a protein crystal Are Bt proteins safe in my food? Bt has been found to be safe to all mammals, birds, and fish. Bt is very selective and is only toxic to specific insects. Resources: EPA Bacillus 







Document Number: 4078
the Warangal District. Three or four farmers we met have abandoned their non-Bt crop in the face of very severe pest infestation, though this was a low-pest pressure year. Rain fed crop allows only two pickings while the irrigated crop provides for at least three pickings. The acreage of each farmer varied from one to five, though a few cultivate 10 acres or more. Not being properly guided and not being sure of what to choose, in the face of several Bt varieties, the farmers planted a different variety on each acre, in the hope of choosing the best for the next year. Almost no one planted a refugium. Three pesticide sprays being the norm, one did not spray any pesticide at all, while one sprayed eight times in an anxiety to provide greater protection to the crop. Untimely rain damaged the crop in several places in the District. There were problems of germination, some varieties were susceptible to virus disease or the grey mildew and there was a higher incidence of jassid and white fly in some areas. They expect an income of Rs. 6,000 (rain fed) to 10,000 (irrigated) per acre and seemed satisfied with it. Some farmers 







Document Number: 8179
Ranga Agricultural University of AP., the Officers at the District Office of the Government Department of Agriculture, Warangal and the dealers of Seeds and Pesticides, Warangal. 1. Andhra Pradesh State Seed Certification Agency, Hyderabad The Seed Certification Agency of the Government of AP is totally out of the picture as Bt cotton seed was not officially notified. Certification of any seed is voluntary and no one applied for certification of Bt cotton seed. While there are facilities with the Agency for testing genetic purity including the Bt event, most of the time seed certification is confined to seed viability and germination studies. Only six to eight parental lines, some imported from Russia and Cambodia, seem to be involved in the production of over 200 cotton hybrids in the country. With no information on the pedigree of most of these varieties, there appears to be some confusion in understanding and distinguishing varieties and hybrids. 2. Scientific Officers of the Agricultural Research Station, of the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University of AP, at Warangal The Scientific Officers of the Agricultural Research Station, ANGRAU at Warangal, informed us that public institutions did not go all out to recommend Bt cotton, nor spoke against 







Document Number: 938
going bad in the cultivation of Bt cotton. Reports of phenomenal failure of Bt cotton, farmer distress, death of sheep, death of cattle and alleged farmer suicides have show cased the Warangal District as an example of all that could go wrong with modern agriculture. Anti-tech activism has extrapolated all this to the other parts, in and out of AP, such as Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. A rational and scientific assessment does not support such an intensely negative outcome from Bt cotton cultivation. To assess the ground realities first hand, Professor Ronald Herring, Cornell University, Ithaca, Dr S Shantharam, Biologistics International, of USA, and I, have visited the Warangal District for about a week in the middle of December 2006. Before going to Warangal, we visited the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), Hyderabad/ Secunderabad and the Andhra Pradesh State Seed Certification Agency, Hyderabad, for a first hand assessment of opinions and reports. Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) The CSA are the main anti-Bt cotton activists in AP. The two functionaries of CSA we met raised the following issues against Bt cotton: a) Economical and technical features not up to the mark: What is the mark and whose mark? There is 







Document Number: 4739
the Telegraph, last week, Prince Charles sensationally accused gigantic corporations of meddling with nature and urged them to spare the world the cataclysmic repercussions that might arise from genetic modification of crops. Prince Charles rantings against GM crops, however, have come under harsh criticism from government officials, politicians, the media and scientists for their ludicrous tinge. British Environment Minister Phil Woolas has challenged Prince Charles to provide evidence to the effect that genetically modified crops are a disaster. Woolas, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, affirmed that the government had a moral responsibility to investigate whether GM crops could help alleviate hunger in the developing world. And the minister warned the Prince of Wales not to politicize the issue of GM crops. Alison Smith, Professor of Plant Biochemistry at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, accused Prince Charles of inflating fears instead of contributing to reasoned debate. He (Prince) seems to be ranting about GM crops, urbanisation, globalisation and even hybrid plants. He is inflating fears instead of contributing to reasoned debate. The Times, in an editorial, said Prince Charles views on genetically modified crops were ill-informed, alarmist and anti-science. his apocalyptic predictions of the effect of genetically modified 







Document Number: 5010
susceptibility to disease) and mortality worldwide. These deficiencies affect particularly children, impairing their immune systems and normal development, causing disease and ultimately death. The best way to avoid micronutrient deficiencies is by way of a varied diet, rich in vegetables, fruits and animal products. The second best approach, especially for those who cannot afford a varied diet, is by way of nutrient-dense staple crops. Sweet potatoes, for example, are available as varieties that are either rich or poor in provitamin A. Those producing and accumulating provitamin A (orange-fleshed sweet potatoes) are called biofortified*, as opposed to the white-fleshed sweet potatoes, which do not accumulate provitamin A. In this case, what needs to be done is to introduce the biofortified varieties to people used to the white-fleshed varieties. Unfortunately, there are no natural provitamin A-containing rice varieties. Rice plants produce β-carotene (provitamin A) in green tissues but not in the endosperm (the edible part of the seed). The outer coat of the dehusked grains—the so-called aleurone layer—contains a number of valuable nutrients, e.g. vitamin B and nutritious fats, but no provitamin A. These nutrients are lost with the bran fraction in the process of milling and polishing. While it would be 







Document Number: 9873
Biofortification—the creation of plants that make or accumulate micronutrients—has the potential to reduce the number of deaths significantly. The aim of biofortification is to improve the primary food source of hundreds of millions of people by increasing the nutritional quality of staple crops. Golden Rice is a good example of a biofortified crop. In this specific case biofortification was obtained by genetic modification of the rice plant to produce and accumulate provitamin A in the grain, a trait not found in nature. This feat was accomplished by Ingo Potrykus, professor emeritus of the Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland, and Professor Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg, Germany, in the late 1990s and has been in development ever since. In developing countries 500,000 people, mainly children, become blind every year, 50 percent of which die within a year of becoming blind. Nearly nine million children die of malnutrion every year. VAD severely affects the immune system, hence it is involved in many of these children's deaths in the guise of a multiplicity of diseases. Recently, malaria deaths in children under five years of age has been linked with deficiencies in intake of protein, vitamin A and zinc (Caulfield et al., 







Document Number: 7373
of the project, matters of biosafety, and regulatory hurdles. «Golden Rice» growing in the field and looking like … rice. For general information about rice visit IRRI's Rice Knowledge Bank. Golden Rice Q&A Golden Rice and Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) Golden Rice is rice that has been genetically engineered to contain beta-carotene and other carotenoids in the endosperm (the edible part of the grain). This gives the grains a golden colour, as opposed to regular white rice, which is practically devoid of carotenoids. When the rice is consumed, some carotenoids are converted in the body into vitamin A. Carotenoids (including beta-carotene) are natural plant pigments and are widely found in coloured fruits, carrots, and green vegetables. Plants do not contain Vitamin A, but only its precursor, provitamin A (beta-carotene). Animals, including man, synthesise Vitamin A from carotenoids eaten in the diet. Hence, animal meat products contain Vitamin A. People living on a poor diet are at risk of becoming vitamin A deficient, which can lead to life-threatening illnesses. Who invented Golden Rice and how did the project start? The inventors of Golden Rice are Ingo Potrykus, Professor emeritus of the Institute for Plant Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH, 







Document Number: 4914
been to supply pre-school children with 6-monthly oral doses of high levels of vitamin A in solution. Such programs reach only a fraction of the children in need and are not always continued, as the cost, need for education, medical staff and distribution infrastructure present significant logistic problems. Annual costs for a country the size of Nepal or Ghana are in the range of two million dollars (MOST 2004). The real challenges to solve malnutrition in the developing world are poverty, poor infrastructure, lack of education and awareness, and not the lack of existing technology. All these issues are important too, and should continue to be addressed, as they have been for many years. However, solutions to these problems appear to be as far away as ever, and the situation is deteriorating in many places. Golden Rice, in combination with other efficient approaches, could lead to a highly effective, cheap, and simple contribution to the relief of a major health problem. The combination of approaches will depend on the particularities of the region. MOST, USAID Micronutrient Program (2004) Cost analysis of the national vitamin A supplementation programs in Ghana, Nepal, and Zambia: A synthesis of three studies. Why not eat 







Document Number: 7868
needed it most. Syngenta was the inventors’ preferred partner given the company’s expertise in the field of carotenoids, their long standing involvement in joint EU-funded research programs, a track record of donation of such technologies to the developing world, and its long experience in regulatory affairs, licensing and intellectual property. What has Syngenta donated? Syngenta has produced many Golden Rice transgenic events and has identified and selected for donation those with high carotenoid levels and good agronomic characteristics. Seed from these plants and performance data were donated to the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board. In the summer of 2004 Syngenta also conducted field trials of the first three selected Golden Rice events together with two other events generated in the public sector (published by Dr Hoa and co-workers, from the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute in Vietnam). The field trials, which were conducted at Louisiana State University, were undertaken as a contribution to the Humanitarian Board and the Golden Rice Project. The donation is therefore a combination of technology, a full technical dossier, licences to enabling patents, and the best transgenic lines, and reflects the work done by Syngenta and its legacy companies on behalf of their humanitarian interests over 







Document Number: 4341
a public-private partnership created by the inventors in 2000 to assist in the development and deployment of Golden Rice. The humanitarian project is sponsored by HarvestPlus (which in turn is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank), the Swiss Development and Collaboration Agency, USAID, and the Syngenta Foundation, together with local research institutes and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including the Rockefeller Foundation and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The Golden Rice Humanitarian Board is responsible for the global development, introduction and free distribution of Golden Rice to target countries. The novel trait will be bred into locally adapted rice varieties for regional use. It is intended to introduce it into publicly owned rice varieties via national and international public-sector research institutions. It will then be made available locally, free of charge to resource-poor farmers. These farmers will be able to grow, save, consume, replant and locally sell Golden Rice. Who are the members of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board? The Humanitarian Board is an honorary body that benefits from the expertise of international authorities, including Prof Ingo Potrykus (co-inventor of Golden Rice), professor emeritus from ETH Zurich, Chairman (public relations and information); Prof Peter 







Document Number: 5976
Syngenta licensed back to the inventors the combined package of enabling intellectual property and agreed to support them administratively in their endeavour to make the technology available to resource-poor farmers in developing countries, free of charge. Terms of use include royalty-free local production by farmers who earn less than US$10,000 annually, which applies so to say to 99% of those farmers. The inventors were also granted the rights to grant sub-licences for the same purpose. Golden Rice is expected to become widely distributed through the farmers’ own supply and exchange networks. The contractual arrangements will guarantee free access for farmers to the technology. Farmers can keep the seeds for future sowing. This will reinforce seed distribution in a virtuous circle. Have any restrictions been added to the agreement? Instead of a new contract being introduced, a side letter was added to the original agreement. This letter contains certain new conditions that had become necessary, because of the substantial costs of regulation and licensing. Because of the immense costs involved, the Humanitarian Board needs to make sure that just one transformation event makes it through the regulatory process. The selected and approved event can then be cross-bred with any locally preferred 







Document Number: 7586
in 1999 (Ye et al. 2000). In the first field trials conducted in 2004, rice grains from GR1 had carotenoid levels between 4 to 8 micrograms per gram total carotenoid, GR2 went even further, producing up to 23 times more total carotenoid than in the 1999 prototype (Paine et al. 2005). Ye X, Al-Babili S, Klöti A, Zhang J, Lucca P, Beyer P, Potrykus I (2000) Engineering the provitamin A (beta-carotene) biosynthetic pathway into (carotenoid-free) rice endosperm. Science 287:303-305. Paine JA, Shipton CA, Chaggar S, Howells RM, Kennedy MJ, Vernon G, Wright SY, Hinchliffe E, Adams JL, Silverstone AL, Drake R (2005) A new version of Golden Rice with increased pro-vitamin A content. Nature Biotechnology 23:482-487. How much Golden Rice is needed to combat VAD? Most people affected by VAD have a so-called sub-clinical vitamin deficiency level. As would be expected, these people ingest some provitamin or vitamin A with their foods, but blood vitamin levels are not high enough to sustain a healthy status. What is needed is a top-up of provitamin A to a healthy level. A GR2 line has been selected with provitamin A levels somewhere between the best GR1 and the best GR2 carotenoid levels obtained. 







Document Number: 6274
investigate aspects of bioavailability and bioefficacy; carotenoid retention trials in rice food preparation (i.e. how much beta- carotene is left after processing, storage and cooking) with various forms of cooking; and tasting trials with trained rice tasters. What could be the economic impact of Golden Rice in Asia? Recent studies suggest significant net economic benefits to countries from the adoption of Golden Rice. These benefits stem from the expected reduction in disease and mortality incidences from VAD, and would by far surpass any adverse economic effects from barriers to exports into countries currently unwilling to import transgenic crops. The economic benefits result from better public health as measured by DALY’s (Disability Adjusted Life Years; see Zimmerman and Qaim, 2004) as well as from increased worker productivity (Anderson et al. 2004). The value of health improvements to the Philippine economy are estimated at US$16 – 88 million per year (Zimmerman and Qaim 2004). Annual net gains in Asia are estimated at US$6.3 billion (China), $2.3 bn (India), and $4.1 bn for the rest of South and South East Asia. Anderson K, Jackson LA, Pohl Nielsen C (2004) Genetically modified rice adoption: Implications for welfare and poverty alleviation. Centre for International Economic 







Document Number: 7680
2006. No adverse effect to humans, animals or the environment have resulted from the growing or consuming of these crops. On the contrary, official reports from Australia, for example, show that pesticide use has been reduced almost 90 percent in the country since the introduction of insect-resistant Bt cotton. It is most desirable that people who are seriously concerned about the risks of transgenic crops express their fears using concrete and solid arguments, in their own interest, because otherwise they might be missing great opportunities without a reason. Factual argumention can be dealt with, either by addressing the perceived problem and making adjustments to the techniques used, or by providing solid data countering those arguments. Very often objections are based on assertions presented as scientific data, even though the underlying experiments have not passed rigorous scrutiny by peers. These preudo-scientific reports are then cited in a circular fashion, and sadly, they spread very quickly and become credo, based purely on them being repeated in numerous fora. This negative attitude has been condemned even by people who once were ardent fighters on that front, like Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace. While Mr Moore and we still fight for 







Document Number: 2108
rice grains devoid of the nutrients contained in the outer layers but not susceptible to changes in colour, odour and taste. From bottom left, anti-clockwise: freshly harvested Golden Rice grains; dehusked rice grains; polished rice grains. Parboiled rice Parboiling is a process applied to rice to preserve some of the nutrients contained in the outer grain layers, which are normally lost during polishing (the bran and aleurone layers). After a short hot steam treatment part of the nutrients diffuse into the starchy endosperm, thus enhancing the nutritive qualities of the rice. The treatment results in rice that is slightly yellow, hence some parboiled rices carry the name "Golden Rice", which must not be confused with the one produced by genetic modification, as in the project described on this web site. Because of its golden hue, parboiled rice is called "Golden Rice" in some countries, like the Colombian rice on the picture. While this rice has good nutritional characteristics, mainly due to the presence of soluble vitamins from the B complex, it is different from rice engineered to produce beta-carotene in the endosperm. Clinical Significance of Vitamin A Deficiency Vitamin A is stored in the liver and deficiency of the vitamin 







Document Number: 5306
else. One main reason is that being dependent on a small plot to sustain the livelihood of a whole family the year over, necessarily leads to rice, the same way as it may lead to other starchy, storable crops in other parts of the world. Rice provides the necessary calories to cover the daily energy needs. It is also part of a millenarian culture, it is well adapted to the climate and soil conditions, and it is easily prepared in many ways. Sadly, while rice grains contain other important nutrients, they do not contain provitamin A, not even the unpolished grains. Plants produce provitamin A, which is a precursor of vitamin A, as well as other related compounds, called carotenoids. Hence, dependence on rice as the predominant food source unavaoidably leads to vitamin A deficiency, most severely affecting children and pregnant women. A major goal of the Golden Rice Project is to be capable of supplying the recommended daily intake of vitamin A to people living in rice-based societies. The tools necessary to achieve this goal are available since the development of an advanced version of Golden Rice known as GR2.The picture above shows the pleasant orange, translucent colour of 







Document Number: 4724
(psy) and phytoene desaturase (crt I), the pathway is reconstituted and β-carotene is consequently accumulated in the endosperm, ie the edible part of the grain. Carotenoids and their derivatives include a vast number of molecules and accordingly a great number of enzymes and cofactors. Compounds derived from this important pathway include plant hormones, like abcisic acid and gibberellins, vitamin E, part of the chlorophyll molecule, and many natural pigments. A small number of carotenoids have provitamin A activity. The underlying science in more detail All plant tissues that accumulate high levels of carotenoid have a mechanism for carotenoid sequestration including crystallisation, oil deposition, membrane proliferation or protein-lipid sequestration. The non-carotenogenic starchy rice endosperm is very low in lipid and apparently lacks any such means for carotenoid deposition. Another restriction in Golden Rice could have been precursor supply. Also, many people believed that the whole carotenoid biosynthetic pathway—composed of many steps—was completely absent in the endosperm. For these reasons the generation of Golden Rice went through a long lag phase, until enough scientific data had been accumulated, which encouraged Peter Beyer and Ingo Potrykus to work together and try to engage in this seeminlgy unattainable endeavour. Their breakthrough showed that only 







Document Number: 7317
one having an acceptable standard of safety provides an important element of safety assessment (WHO, 1991). In 1993 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) further elaborated this concept and advocated the approach to safety assessment based on substantial equivalence as being the most practical approach to addressing the safety of foods and food components derived through modern biotechnology (as well as other methods of modifying a host genome including tissue culture methods and chemical or radiation induced mutation). In 2000 the Task Force concluded in its report to the G8 that the concept of substantial equivalence will need to be kept under review (OECD, 2000). The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on Foods Derived from Biotechnology in 2000 concluded that the safety assessment of genetically modified foods requires an integrated and stepwise, case-by-case approach, which can be aided by a structured series of questions. A comparative approach focusing on the determination of similarities and differences between the genetically modified food and its conventional counterpart aids in the identification of potential safety and nutritional issues and is considered the most appropriate strategy for the safety and nutritional assessment of genetically modified foods. The concept of substantial equivalence was developed as 







Document Number: 7280
on Biosafety . Name and identity of the GMO (event number, OECD unique identifier etc), including domestic classification, if any, of the Biosafety level of the GMO in the exporting country. Events numbered 146, 309 and 652. Risk assessment classification: Class 1 Information on the recipient or parental organism a. Taxonomic status: Family name: Poacae Genus: Oryzae Species: Oryza sativa Subspecies: indica, japonica Cultivar/breeding line: Cocodrie b. Common name: Rice c. Centres of origin and centres of genetic diversity: Rice is grown worldwide and is a staple food for about half of the world’s population. The centre of diversity is thought to include the stretch from Assam in India and Bangledesh to Myanmar and Northern Thailand through to theYunan Province in China. This zone has both topographical and hydrological heterogeneity. d. Point of acquisition or collection: Cocodrie is a variety that is registered by Lousiana State University, USA. e. Characteristics related to biosafety, ie reproducibility, survivability (incl information on habitats where the parental organism is known to persist or proliferate), toxicity, allergenicity: Rice is an autogamous self-pollinating crop, replicating sexually through seeds and vegetatively through tillers in favourable temperature and water conditions. The life (viability) span of the pollen is 







Document Number: 2438
tetraploids (2n=4x=48), and ten different genome types: AA, BB, CC, BBCC, CCDD, EE, FF, GG, JJHH, and JJKK (Vaughan 1994; Ge et al 1999). The genus Oryza is distributed in Asia (eg O. rufipogon and O. nivara, both AA genomes), Africa (eg O. barthii, and O. longistaminata, both AA genomes), Australia (eg O. meridionalis, AA genome), tropical America (O. glumaepatula, AA genome, and O. grandiglumis, O. alta, and O. latifolia, all CCDD genomes) (Akimoto 1998; Sano and Sano 1990; Vaughan 1994). Asian cultivated rice (O. sativa) has the diploid AA genome. Wild progenitors of African cultivated rice (O. glaberrima, AA genome) are grasses endemic to West Africa. 2. Environmental Safety Considerations Outcrossing and Weediness Potential Cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) is primarily an autogamous, self-pollinating plant, although gene introgression into other cultivated rice is possible. Cultivated rice is an annual, it does not shatter or disperse its seed, and has not acquired extended dormancy. Reported outcrossing rates are less than one percent and are limited by the biological characteristics of rice (Messeguer et al 2001). Factors including flower morphology, inability of pollen to remain viable longer than a few minutes, and a lack of insect vectors for pollen spread contribute 







Document Number: 7175
introduce genes into rice. It took another nine years—from 1990 to 1999—to introduce the genes that reconstitute the pathway for provitamin A biosynthesis into the seed. That was the Golden Rice prototype obtained by Ingo Potrykus at the ETH in Zurich. After that, scientists in Freiburg and at Syngenta worked together to generate improved versions, which we now know as Golden Rice 1 and 2, respectively. The latter was announced to the public in 2004. It will take at least until 2011 before the first Golden Rice obtains final regulatory approval and can finally reach the first group of small holders in a target country. Considering the enormous humanitarian potential of Golden Rice in reducing blindness (500,000 children per year) and children's deaths (2-3 million per year), it is hardly understandable that lobby groups and the authorities are not learning from the accumulated experience and making the regulatory process more science and experience based. During the last 20 years a vast knowledge base regarding the production and commercialisation of transgenic plantshas been accumulated . While the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board understands that every new transgenic event must comply with regulations to guarantee the safety of a product derived from it, 







Document Number: 8087
combined with poor bioavailability of some micronutrients. Thus, a rice-based diet is the primary cause of micronutrient malnutrition throughout much of the developing world. Iron, zinc, and vitamin A deficiencies are common in rice-consuming regions. These deficiencies account for decreased work productivity, reduced mental capacity, stunting, blindness, increased child mortality, and other effects. Table 1. Composition and dietary contributions from white, long-grain, non-enriched rice (USDA Nutrient Database, 2001). Percent RDAs are derived from data from the Institute of Medicine/Food and Nutrition Board (2001); daily rice intake assumed to be 200 g DW/adult. DW, dry weight; RDA, recommended daily allowance. Nutrient µg/g DW % RDA (pregnant women) Iron 9 7 Zinc 12.3 31 Vitamin C 0 0 Vitamin A 0 0 Vitamin E 1.3 2 Rice is the major energy source of more than half the world population, yet it lacks many life-supporting nutrients. People who cannot afford a varied diet suffer from multiple micronutrient deficiencies. Some important nutrients are lost during polishing, but unpolished rice cannot be stored, because the outer layer containing those nutrients is rich in lipids (fat) and is thus susceptible to oxidation processes that make the rice rancid and hence untasty. Amelioration of micronutrient deficiencies can 







Document Number: 7986
This is combined with poor bioavailability of some micronutrients. Thus, a rice-based diet is the primary cause of micronutrient malnutrition throughout much of the developing world. Iron, zinc, and vitamin A deficiencies are common in rice-consuming regions. These deficiencies account for decreased work productivity, reduced mental capacity, stunting, blindness, increased child mortality, and other effects. Table 1. Composition and dietary contributions from white, long-grain, non-enriched rice (USDA Nutrient Database, 2001). Percent RDAs are derived from data from the Institute of Medicine/Food and Nutrition Board (2001); daily rice intake assumed to be 200 g DW/adult. DW, dry weight; RDA, recommended daily allowance. Nutrient µg/g DW % RDA (pregnant women) Iron 9 7 Zinc 12.3 31 Vitamin C 0 0 Vitamin A 0 0 Vitamin E 1.3 2 Rice is the major energy source of more than half the world population, yet it lacks many life-supporting nutrients. People who cannot afford a varied diet suffer from multiple micronutrient deficiencies. Some important nutrients are lost during polishing, but unpolished rice cannot be stored, because the outer layer containing those nutrients is rich in lipids (fat) and is thus susceptible to oxidation processes that make the rice rancid and hence untasty. Amelioration of micronutrient 







Document Number: 6472
in 2003 to encourage scientists to find the solutions that will revolutionize prevention and treatment of disease in developing countries. The initiative seeks to put to good use the extraordinary advances made by science in recent decades. This goal will be achieved by bringing together the world’s best minds in science and technology to find solutions to the problems that stand in the way of important advances against disease. Guided by an international board of scientists and with US$450 million in funding, the initiative focuses on achieving breakthroughs in a set of 14 Grand Challenges in Global Health distributed in the following areas : Improving existing childhood vaccines so they are easier and less expensive to use in developing countries Creating effective new vaccines Controlling insects that transmit disease Improving nutrition to promote health (corresponds to Grand Challenge #9) Discovering ways to prevent drug resistance Curing latent and chronic infections Measuring disease and health status in developing countries accurately Four projects are being funded within Grand Challenge #9. They all are concerned with improving the micronutrients content of important staple crops. You may obtain information on the three other projects by following the links below: BioCassava Plus African Biofortified Sorghum 







Document Number: 716
a concrete fear there is of course no target to look for. Detailed molecular analyses have failed to find new allergens showing up as a consequence of having introduced a new gene into a plant, and determination of the expression levels of ten-thousands of genes have also shown that the only changes encountered are related to the introduced genes and those involved in related metabolic pathways. Gene expression levels vary probably less after the introduction of a foreign gene than after the traditional crossing of two varieties, where thousands of regulatory factors and pathways interact in unexpected ways. Genetically modified plants destined for field release are some of the most in detail examined organisms worldwide, and this is not different for Golden Rice, in fact it is one of the reasons why it has not reached the people who need it yet. Many tests have been performed on Golden Rice and many are yet to be performed. A number of tests require kilogram amounts of seed; these tests have been unnecessarily delayed by the difficulties in being able to carry out field trials with Golden Rice, not enough seed can be produced when grown in the glasshouse. Does it taste 







Document Number: 8352
can decide to whom to license and under what conditions. Notwithstanding the fact that a number of patented technologies were involved in the production of Golden Rice (Kryder et al. 2000), Syngenta Seeds AG was able to negotiate access to all pieces of the puzzle actively necessary for the intended humanitarian purposes, providing the Golden RiceHumanitarian Board with the right to sublicense breeding institutions in developing countries free of charge. The patented key technology for Golden Rice production, invented by Prof emeritus Ingo Potrykus, of ETH-Zurich and Prof Peter Beyer, of the Univ of Freiburg, provided access to a package of ancillary technologies required to engineer the trait into rice. A license to those technologies was obtained from Syngenta. The package contained proprietary technologies belonging not only to Syngenta but also to Bayer AG, Monsanto Co, Orynova BV, and Zeneca Mogen BV.These companies provided access to the required technologies free of charge, for humanitarian purposes. Eliminating reach-through rights and technologies that don't show up in the most recently developed Golden Rice versions leaves us with only a few patented technologies, all of which have been made available for humanitarian purposes free of charge. The licensing process was quick and simple, 







Document Number: 8113
retailers can help the U.S. wheat industry gain acceptance for biotech products. In 2007, for the first time, the U.S. baking industry became concerned about the high cost and tight supplies of wheat. This is due in large measure to the fact that wheat producers are converting their acreage to more profitable crops. Biotechnology would help increase yields and grower profitability, creating a win-win for the industry and the grower. Question: Will consumers ever accept bread and other products made with biotech ingredients? Answer: Many wheat-based food products sold today already utilize biotech ingredients. For instance, in a loaf of bread there is usually biotech soy flour or oil. It may also contain sugar from biotech sugar beets. In fact, biotech yeast has been used in making bread in Europe, Japan, U.S. and many other countries for well over a decade. These products have been approved by regulatory authorities as being safe for human consumption, the same standard that biotech wheat will eventually achieve. Given biotechnology is already thoroughly incorporated into the food products we have been safely consuming for more than a decade, we see no reason to discriminate against wheat producers who need the benefits that biotechnology can 







Document Number: 9187
development and acceptance of agricultural biotechnology through public policy outreach. Jones' extensive farming background, coupled with two decades in the Idaho Legislature, made him a good fit as executive director, members of the group said. "He brings a good perspective to an organization like ours that has a focus on broad policy issues," said Barry Bushue, a member of the organization's board of directors. For farmers, influencing public policy "is what it's all about these days," said Bushue, who is also president of the Oregon Farm Bureau. "Doug brings an understanding of that process." Jones and Celia Gould, now director of the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, served together on the House Agricultural Affairs Committee. Jones was the chairman for 10 years. "Doug was always very active in agricultural issues in the Legislature," Gould said. "That was the primary focus for him." He was instrumental in pushing through legislation that strengthened Idaho's commodity warehouse indemnity law, Gould said. The measure helped protect growers from the financial fallout when warehouse operators fail. "That legislation was very innovative at the time and still serves us well today," she said. Jones owned and operated an irrigated row crop farm for 35 years near 







Document Number: 874
see farm fields that are almost free of weeds, giving little if any thought to how the fields became so clean. Without herbicides or frequent cultivation, the fields would be overrun with weeds. If left uncontrolled, these weeds could reduce soybean yields by 50 to 90 percent. In fact, some farmers in the Northern Plains stopped growing soybeans prior to the advent of herbicide tolerant soybeans (Roundup Ready) because of weed pressure. For nearly five decades, growers have used herbicides, along with various types of tillage or cultivation, to control weeds. Before the advent of Roundup Ready soybeans, farmers had to use multiple herbicides to control the full spectrum of weeds in our fields. We would need one type of herbicide for grassy weeds and another type for broadleaf weeds. Depending on the species present, we might have to use more than one broadleaf herbicide or grass herbicide, because not all species are equally susceptible. Some soybean fields were treated with as many as four different herbicides. Even then, some weeds escaped and had to be controlled later with cultivation. We had some perennial noxious weed problems that we simply could not control in soybeans, because any herbicide that would 







Document Number: 3931
from crops and interfere with harvesting equipment. Weed control in corn provides special challenges. Corn is planted in wider rows and grows straight up. It takes several weeks for corn to provide a shade canopy that retards the growth of weeds. Soybeans, which are planted in narrower rows, are broadleaf plants and spread out to more quickly provide a shade canopy. In both crops, however, it is important to provide weed control early in the growing season. With soybeans, the weed control can come post-emergence (after the weeds and crop have emerged) because the developing canopy will help prevent a second flush of weeds. With corn, however, it is important to prevent weeds from emerging to compete with the corn seedlings. Corn growers traditionally use pre-emergence herbicides to prevent weeds from sprouting at planting. A few weeks later, a post-emergence application is required to control later-emerging weeds. Also, historically, one to two cultivations during the growing season were necessary to keep the corn field clean of weeds. Before the development of herbicide-tolerant corn (Liberty Link or Roundup Ready), growers typically applied a pre-emergence mixture of two herbicides  one to control grasses (most often acetochlor or metolachlor) and one for 







Document Number: 6092
biotech corn. The result is that farmers do not have to spray for corn borers or spread soil-applied insecticides to kill rootworms. We see higher yields and cleaner grain, and we save on fuel because we do not have to pass through our fields with tractors and application equipment. Wildlife benefits as well, because the biotech corn contains a naturally occurring bacterial protein that is fatal to the targeted pest but harmless to beneficial insects, birds and mammals. Before the biotech corn was developed, farmers used a mixture of chemical insecticides that were harmful to nearly every insect as well as to birds and mammals that might be present during application. Farmers also needed special safety equipment to protect themselves from effects of these chemicals. The corn borer was very difficult to control before the advent of biotech corn. The borer is the caterpillar or larval form of a moth. The moths lay their eggs in the whorls of corn plants, and within a week, the eggs hatch and the larvae bore into the stalk of the plant. Once inside the plant, no chemical insecticide could control them. This meant that farmers had to carefully scout their fields and immediately 







Document Number: 179
weeds or grass. And, of course, farmers who sell hay get more for high quality hay than they can expect from hay contaminated with weeds. Producing a pure stand of alfalfa is a tough prospect for growers, but it would be greatly simplified if we were able to plant Roundup Ready Alfalfa, which has been approved by federal regulators but is now held up by an activist groups lawsuit. Alfalfa is a perennial crop. A stand typically lasts three to five years before it is destroyed and re-established. Weeds pose different challenges at different phases of a stands life. Weed control is especially critical and challenging during stand establishment. Alfalfa seedlings are poor competitors against weeds due to their small seed size and limited energy reserve. Its not at all unusual for the first cutting to have 50 to 75 percent weed content if weeds are not properly controlled during this critical stage. The big problem we have right now is that currently available herbicides can also damage the seedlings, further restricting their ability to establish themselves. Many times a poorly established stand may never fully recover. In cases like that, farmers either plow under the alfalfa or intentionally plant 







Document Number: 8438
article, we provide a scientific perspective on these concerns that we hope will inform. Concern 1. Once you release this gene  you cant call it back. Over 300,000 acres of RR alfalfa have been planted for hay over the past 2 to 3 years, with a limited amount planted for seed. The real question is whether you can continue to plant conventional alfalfa seed and the answer is a resounding yes  all of the seed currently for sale is conventional  and you only need to test it (or ask the seed company to test it) with inexpensive test strips to make sure it does not contain the gene if you dont want it. Conventional alfalfa seed will continue to be available after Roundup Ready alfalfa is released. Concern 2. Wont contamination from neighboring fields result in all seed being Roundup Ready, eventually? No. Seed production methods and isolation distances currently recommended by seed companies should keep adventitious presence at a very low level for seed. A gene will increase in a population only if the new gene gives the plant an advantage over other plants and the conditions creating the advantage are consistently present. Conversely, if plants 







Document Number: 8740
very strongly today, that fiber development and pesticides was no longer a viable business opportunity. From an environmental point of view, it didn't really make sense, either. So we stopped all chemical investment, and really redirected our energy towards biotech. That was the first main thread. He is chief operating officer for Monsanto. In this interview Grant addresses the issues of gene migration and pest resistance with GM crops, the refuge strategy, the U.S. public's perception of biotech products, the lessons of StarLink (the animal feed GM corn, which hadn't been approved for human consumption, that was found in taco shells), and the issue of labelling GM food products. (Interview conducted December 2000.) The second thread, the one that really drove our company to make the biotech investment, was a future view on food requirements. The answer that we developed was that we believe that the world needs about 35 percent to 40 percent more food produced on every acre. Chemicals weren't the answer to that next increment of production. It was in genetics. It was in better seed. So, really, that's been driving us for more than ten years now. . . . You're not selling the seed; you're 







Document Number: 3539
a boy, and there was sort of a reaction to it. And then--you never do this today--but he challenged the kid with authentic smallpox. And the boy did not get smallpox, so he made the correlation. President emeritus of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, is working on making safer vaccines for viruses which kill millions in the developing world. He discusses his work developing edible vaccines (inside GM bananas, tomatoes, or potatoes). He also talks about Europe's opposition to GM foods and science's hopes for applying GM techniques to future foods, medicines, and environmental cleanup. (Interview conducted September 2000.) That was the first model of a vaccine where you used, in that case, a related virus. Today we call them attenuated viruses, because they're like the real pathogen--a thing that causes disease--but they're either weakened, sometimes killed, chemically inactivated--or there are relatives. So it could be a virus that attacks cattle but not people, but it still triggers an immune response. So for 200 years, most vaccines have been built around this concept of using a relative of what causes disease in us, or an inactivated form. Then along came molecular biology in the mid- 







Document Number: 3262
is director of the Biotechnology and Life Sciences Informatics Program at the University of California, Davis. offers an overview of crossbreeding techniques over the centuries, how it compares with new GM technology, and explains how much of human genes already are shared with plants. She also addresses Europe's GM food fight, U.S. food safety and regulatory performance, and multinational companies' intellectual property rights on GM seeds. (Interview conducted August 2000.) Yes. They discovered shards of pottery outside Edinburgh that had the remains of Neolithic beer. . . . That pottery dated back to 6500 B.C. We've also been modifying plants and animals literally for thousands of years, through selective breeding and culling of animals, for example, that didn't have the traits we want. Why have we been modifying nature? If we just took what was there, what would we find? If you took what was available in the wild, the population of the world would be much smaller than it is. The capability of generating sufficient food to feed individuals from wild produce is very low. You literally would still be a hunter-gatherer society. We wouldn't be settled; we definitely wouldn't have cultivated agriculture; and we wouldn't have any of 







Document Number: 6468
in the United States and pervading the food system here. What we're most concerned about, obviously, is the environmental risk. . . . Nobody knows what the consequences are going to be, and the untoward side effects will be irreversible. . . . As a campaign, it's been astonishingly successful, first in Europe. What's the state of play over there? A genetic engineering specialist with Greenpeace, criticizes U.S. regulatory agencies' performance in monitoring GM foods, explains why GM technology deserves special scrutiny, points out the developing world is not unanimous in accepting biotech food, and outlines why Greenpeace's main concern with GM crops is the environmental risk. (Interview conducted October 2000.) In Europe five years ago, genetic engineering was virtually unknown. When the first genetically engineered soybeans went from the United States into the European food supply, consumers in Europe first became aware that this new technology was entering their food system, and they had a lot of questions about it. . . . The most interesting thing about Europe is how quickly food companies responded. . . . Today, virtually every major food company in Europe and every major supermarket in Europe has a policy of excluding the use 







Document Number: 6309
the experiment. The position I took at the time was that we hadn't really examined any of the potential environmental consequences of introducing genetically modified organisms. President of The Foundation on Economic Trends, he is a longtime opponent of biotechnology. outlines why GM food is radically different from classical breeding and discusses how there are better ways to apply bioengineering to agricultural products. He also counters the argument that GM food is a solution in helping to feed a hungry world and talks about the threat of life science companies like Monsanto employing antitrust tactics in their patenting of gene technology. (Interview conducted August 2000.) We were making the first step out of the age of chemistry and physics, and into the age of biology. All of our regulations had been set up in an era in which physics and chemistry ruled. It seemed to me that we needed to have a thorough and thoughtful global discussion on the potential environmental implications of reseeding the earth with genetically modified organisms. At that time, the only discussion that had been held was a 20- to 25-minute meeting in a congressional committee that was overseeing this particularly genetically modified organism for release. 







Document Number: 7967
a boy, and there was sort of a reaction to it. And then--you never do this today--but he challenged the kid with authentic smallpox. And the boy did not get smallpox, so he made the correlation. President emeritus of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, is working on making safer vaccines for viruses which kill millions in the developing world. He discusses his work developing edible vaccines (inside GM bananas, tomatoes, or potatoes). He also talks about Europe's opposition to GM foods and science's hopes for applying GM techniques to future foods, medicines, and environmental cleanup. (Interview conducted September 2000.) That was the first model of a vaccine where you used, in that case, a related virus. Today we call them attenuated viruses, because they're like the real pathogen--a thing that causes disease--but they're either weakened, sometimes killed, chemically inactivated--or there are relatives. So it could be a virus that attacks cattle but not people, but it still triggers an immune response. So for 200 years, most vaccines have been built around this concept of using a relative of what causes disease in us, or an inactivated form. Then along came molecular biology in the mid- 







Document Number: 450
is director of the Biotechnology and Life Sciences Informatics Program at the University of California, Davis. offers an overview of crossbreeding techniques over the centuries, how it compares with new GM technology, and explains how much of human genes already are shared with plants. She also addresses Europe's GM food fight, U.S. food safety and regulatory performance, and multinational companies' intellectual property rights on GM seeds. (Interview conducted August 2000.) Yes. They discovered shards of pottery outside Edinburgh that had the remains of Neolithic beer. . . . That pottery dated back to 6500 B.C. We've also been modifying plants and animals literally for thousands of years, through selective breeding and culling of animals, for example, that didn't have the traits we want. Why have we been modifying nature? If we just took what was there, what would we find? If you took what was available in the wild, the population of the world would be much smaller than it is. The capability of generating sufficient food to feed individuals from wild produce is very low. You literally would still be a hunter-gatherer society. We wouldn't be settled; we definitely wouldn't have cultivated agriculture; and we wouldn't have any of 







Document Number: 1300
sustainable agriculture. Moreover, because they may present risks, they should be carefully regulated. That, then, leads us to do a considerable amount of work urging the three agencies involved--the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency--to improve their regulatory schemes. A senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, she talks about why bioengineered plants present a new kind of uncertainty in crossbreeding and the lack of substantive testing to date. also discusses why U.S. regulatory agencies seem satisfied with this new technology and the difference between genetic engineering for medicines vs. for food.(Interview conducted October 2000.) But you're not saying that GM crops are inherently more dangerous than traditional crops? No. We're not opposed to genetically engineered crops across the board. We do see this as a powerful new technology. This is where we part company with a lot of agricultural scientists, who see this as nothing more than an extension of traditional breeding. . . . With traditional crossbreeding, you also introduce genes and have uncertainties as to how those genes will act. You have a different sort of uncertainty with genetically engineered crops--at least that's what I'm told by ecological 







Document Number: 1934
in the United States and pervading the food system here. What we're most concerned about, obviously, is the environmental risk. . . . Nobody knows what the consequences are going to be, and the untoward side effects will be irreversible. . . . As a campaign, it's been astonishingly successful, first in Europe. What's the state of play over there? A genetic engineering specialist with Greenpeace, criticizes U.S. regulatory agencies' performance in monitoring GM foods, explains why GM technology deserves special scrutiny, points out the developing world is not unanimous in accepting biotech food, and outlines why Greenpeace's main concern with GM crops is the environmental risk. (Interview conducted October 2000.) In Europe five years ago, genetic engineering was virtually unknown. When the first genetically engineered soybeans went from the United States into the European food supply, consumers in Europe first became aware that this new technology was entering their food system, and they had a lot of questions about it. . . . The most interesting thing about Europe is how quickly food companies responded. . . . Today, virtually every major food company in Europe and every major supermarket in Europe has a policy of excluding the use 







Document Number: 6204
in the works benefiting our waistlines (low-calorie sugar beets and oils with lower saturated fat content, for example) and others bearing higher nutritional content (high-fiber corn and high-starch potatoes). And they will be safer to eat. GM corn has lower fungal toxin content than non-GM corn, and farmers typically produce GM crops using fewer pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. GM foods will have even greater benefits for the world's poor, supporters state. In developing countries, malnutrition is a grave problem, because people often have to rely on a single staple, such as rice, that on its own doesn't supply sufficient nutrients. Food scientists hope to genetically modify crops to add vitamins and minerals. One of the most promising is "golden rice," which can stimulate our bodies to generate vitamin A. In the developing world, vitamin-A deficiency kills two million children each year, and another 500,000 become permanently blind. Eventually GM plants will serve as environmentally friendly 'factories' that mass-produce useful substances such as pharmaceuticals. Scientists are hard at work, for instance, trying to genetically add vaccines to tomatoes or bananas. Traditional vaccines are costly to manufacture and require specialized storage not always available in developing countries. "Eatable vaccines," developers say, will 







Document Number: 880
avoid such losses and bring their produce to market at less cost. By the same token, weeds rob crops of vital nutrients. To do away with them, farmers often have to spray large amounts of weed killers, a time-consuming and expensive process. With, say, GM soybeans that are resistant to a single broad-spectrum herbicide, farmers only need to use a single weed killer rather than multiple kinds, and they may have to make only a single application rather than several. Using a single broad-spectrum herbicide can also help reduce land degradation, advocates say, by enabling farmers to optimize their use of "no-till" agriculture. Leaving dead plants where they lie rather than plowing them into the ground can reduce soil erosion by 70 percent, industry officials claim. Soil erosion is a serious global problem, with farmers losing an estimated 25 billion tons of topsoil through runoff and wind every year. Scientists are developing GM technologies to help farmers battle other scourges as well. To reduce losses from sudden frosts, which can kill young plants, geneticists have experimented with putting an antifreeze gene into tomato plants. To help crops cope with disease, researchers are trying to genetically confer disease resistance to food 







Document Number: 7155
primarily driven by research and innovation. Their argument is straightforward: Innovation is the only way to meet the world's burgeoning needs for food and medicines in a rapidly shrinking and increasingly scarred natural environment. Innovation requires costly and time-consuming research and testing, which will only happen if it's paid for. The best way to ensure it's paid for is through intellectual property protection. Patents should operate worldwide, they maintain, because markets are increasingly global in nature. The result of this innovation will be GM crops that will offer our best chance to adequately address the challenge of feeding the estimated six billion people who, in as few as 50 years by some estimates, will join the six billion of us already here. GM crop farming holds out greater promise than conventional farming of boosting production on the same amount of ground, adherents say, and of raising crops where none could grow before, such as on salt-laden land. In increasing yields and making marginal lands productive, GM promoters insist, lie our only means of staving off widespread famine in developing countries in the coming decades. "The possibility that (biotech) crops could make a substantial contribution to providing sufficient food for an 






