02/September/21

 

In summer 2020, a federal court ruled the EPA showed too much deference to Bayer when it approved the company’s dicamba herbicide. This invalidated the approval. But, weeks later, Bayer began working the EPA again, according to newly obtained emails. These documents show the extent to which Bayer and other industry registrants influenced the re-approval of dicamba. Investigate Midwest

 

 

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) annual hunger report, the world experienced a nearly unprecedented one-year rise in severe hunger from 2019 to 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa saw as many as 44 million more people suffer severe undernourishment. But you wouldn’t know it to listen to the Gates-funded Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which released its 2020 Annual Report the same day the FAO sounded its alarms. The report gushes about the “evidence of improved productivity, better crop quality, higher incomes, and more months of food from [farmers’] surplus". AGRA seems to be living in a different world from poor, rural Africans, oblivious to the documented shortcomings of its technology-focused approach to agricultural development. AGRA leaders and donors seem unaware that the number of severely undernourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa has risen nearly 50% since AGRA was founded in 2006. IPS News

 

 

The GM Bt cotton crop in several districts of Haryana and Punjab, India has been hit by pink bollworm, one of the most destructive pests, this season. The infestation has left farmers in distress and fearing they may have to suffer attacks every year. Bt cotton was supposed to be resistant to the pink bollworm. Millennium Post

 

 

The US EPA has announced the opening of a 30-day open public comment period in the US Federal Register for an Experimental Use Permit (EUP) application to release Oxitec's GM mosquitoes in California. [GMW: Natural biocontrol alternatives show more promise.] Oxitec