25/March/21

 

Tomorrow (Friday 26 March), Sustainable Food Trust CEO Patrick Holden will lead an online discussion about gene editing. He'll be joined by Defra Chief Scientist Gideon Henderson, Founder of Beyond GM and Co-founder of Whole Health Agriculture Lawrence Woodward OBE, Founder of Riverford Organic Guy Singh-Watson, and King's College London's Reader in Molecular Genetics Dr Michael Antoniou. Together, they will address some of the biggest concerns and how they relate to the future of agriculture. Is there a place for gene editing in a sustainable system? Or is it simply treating the symptoms rather than the cause of industrial food production? Tickets are free – find yours here. Date and Time: Friday, 26 March 2021 16:00 - 17:30 GMT. Online. Sustainable Food Trust

 

 

In an effort supposedly aimed at reducing cocaine production, Colombia is set to return to a massive aerial campaign of spraying Monsanto’s glyphosate across the country. Defense minister Diego Molano confirmed that the highly contentious practice of fumigation — shelved since 2015 — will resume in April. “The constitutional order is clear: the Colombian military must develop operations all over the country to ensure the safety of Colombians,” Molano announced. “That’s why we’re using every tool at our disposal to protect the entire population.” How spraying a known carcinogen across a nation nearly twice the size of Texas would protect citizens, he did not explain. In his own words, US President Joe Biden is “the guy who put together Plan Colombia… straighten[ing] that government out for a long while.” Mint Press News

 

 

A demonstration took place in Ariège, France in support of 21 protesters on trial for defacing glyphosate containers. The charges arise from protests in which the accused took over stores and garden centres and covered cans of glyphosate in paint to make them unsellable. France3 (French language article)

 

 

Internal corporate documents obtained by a US law firm detail how the need for a safer formulation of Syngenta’s popular Gramoxone paraquat-based product has been the subject of in-depth company discussions for decades. Years of analysis and debate over the issue are laid out in the records, as are arguments about the accuracy of data presented to regulators, and strategies to avoid regulatory bans. The documents, which date back to 1968, show that Syngenta and its predecessor corporate entities rejected or resisted many different options for changes to the formulations of Gramoxone, due, at least in part, to a desire to protect profits. Financial concerns were cited repeatedly in the discussions about formulation changes as company officials pushed to keep Gramoxone on the market despite mounting concerns about fatalities from poisonings. The Guardian

 

 

A scientist with one of the world’s largest chemical firms took the difficult decision to speak out publicly when “a new generation” of managers rejected concerns about a mass produced weedkiller that he had been expressing for decades. Going public has been a “relief”, says toxicologist Jon Heylings. He worked for 28 years for Syngenta, formerly ICI, where his efforts focused on developing safer formulations of the herbicide paraquat. But in 1990 he began consistently raising internal concerns about the handling of what was one of the company’s bestselling products. The Guardian

 

 

In the US, trees of many species, stretching from North Dakota, across Indiana and Kansas, as far south as Arkansas are dying. 90 percent of them show signs of dicamba poisoning. Dicamba herbicide is sprayed on GM dicamba-tolerant cotton and soy, but drifts off-target and kills or damages other crops. Here & There with Dave Marsh