17/September/21

 

Over the last 15 years in the US, total pesticide use has been increasing by about 5 million lbs/year on corn and 7 million lbs/year on soy (the two main GM crops), according to USDA data. Dr Nathan Donley of the Center for Biodiversity explained on Twitter, "Increases are driven solely by herbicides and fungicides. *Maybe* pesticide use on corn is plateauing, but the drop in insecticide use that happened in the early aughts [2000s] is reversing. Insecticide use [is] up 30% in last 8 yrs. Pesticide use on soy is aiming straight for the moon." Commenting, the Non-GMO Report tweeted, "So much for the claim that GMO crops reduce pesticide use. The science is clear. They don't and that myth should be gone forever." Nathan Donley on Twitter; Non-GMO Report on Twitter

 

 

Rules on GMO farming, medical devices and vehicle standards will be top of a bonfire of laws inherited from the EU as the government seeks to change legislation automatically transferred to the UK after Brexit. Brexit minister David Frost promised a “review of the inherited approach to genetically modified organisms”, which include insects and soil bacteria used in farming. The Guardian

 

 

The UK's new science minister is George Freeman MP, a one-time biotech venture capital fund manager. Freeman has a long record of hyping GMOs and lobbying for them to be grown commercially in Britain and put back on supermarket shelves. GMWatch on Twitter

 

 

A startup, Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences, has announced a plan to create a “cold-resistant elephant with all of the core biological traits of the woolly mammoth". The scientists behind the initiative (including Harvard's George Church) claim their work could help reserve the effects of climate change and advance genetic engineering. But Christopher Preston, a professor of environmental ethics and philosophy at the University of Montana, questioned Colossal’s focus on climate change, given that it would take decades to raise a herd of woolly mammoths large enough to have environmental impacts and there are tried-and-true conservation tactics that need funding. Washington Post