21/October/21

 

In a real-life David versus Goliath moment, a small group of Mexican activists just won a major battle in a longstanding legal dispute with big farming monolith Bayer-Monsanto and other chemical and seed companies. Mexico's Supreme Court just rejected appeals by companies including Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, and Corteva, and voted to ratify an injunction that restricts the cultivation of genetically modified corn. VICE

 

 

The discovery of 500 tonnes of GM rice by the European Commission and subsequent withdrawal of the rice flour from the markets has rung alarm bells among farm activists who noted that the GM paddy cultivation was not allowed in India except for confined field trials. The news comes in the wake of a private company seeking to carry out field trials for Bt cotton and maize in Karnataka, a proposal that has already seen much opposition. Deccan Herald

 

 

The UK government has announced its intention to remove key regulations from gene-edited crops after much delay and a 10-week consultation provoked thousands of concerned responses from the public. The Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched the public consultation on its plans to deregulate agricultural crops produced using a genetic engineering process called gene editing earlier this year. But serious questions remain about the government’s divergence from both science and public opinion. The Ecologist

 

 

Our DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee. Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now found a previously overlooked part of our DNA, so-called non-coding DNA, that appears to contribute to a difference which, despite all our similarities, may explain why our brains work differently. The new findings thus indicate that the differences appear to lie outside the protein-coding genes in what has been labelled as "junk DNA", which was once thought to have no function and which constitutes the majority of our DNA. Johan Jakobsson, professor of neuroscience at Lund University, who led the study, describes this as "a surprising finding". ScienceDaily

 

 

Tell the EU Commission to apply current EU GMO safety regulations to all GMOs, including New GMOs! This action is quick and easy and you can take part from inside and outside the EU. The deadline for comments is Friday 22 Oct at 12 midnight Brussels time. GMWatch has submitted detailed comments to the Commission's consultation. If you'd prefer to submit a more formal comment through the Commission's website, you can do so here, though you will need to register first. GMWatch

 

 

Jeffrey Smith, Tim LaSalle and Elaine Ingham will lead an expert briefing at the National Press Club on 26 October at 2 pm EST. They’ll discuss how regenerative agriculture can stabilise the climate, rebuild our soil, enrich our food, and foster healthier ecosystems. Register here. IRT