Impossible Foods' GMO "fake meat" ingredient, soy leghemoglobin (SLH for short), is currently being considered for approval for food use in the EU and the UK. This summer, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) asked the company to provide more information that was missing from its application, including details on possible toxicity and allergenicity. Katia Merten-Lentz, a partner at regulatory law specialists Keller and Heckman LLP in Brussels, said that due to EU consumers' hostility to eating GM foods, it may make more sense for Impossible Foods to use a non-GM ingredient in the EU. GMWatch

 

 

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has signed off a review that will allow people in the US to buy seeds and grow Cathie Martin's GM purple tomato, developed by Norfolk Plant Sciences (NPS), which is based at the John Innes Centre. The GM tomato was given the go-ahead after regulators found that it did not pose an increased plant pest risk compared to its standard red tomato cousins. [GMW: The USDA has a narrow regulatory remit whereby it focuses its review on whether the GMO is likely to pose a plant pest risk or become a noxious weed. It doesn't look at food safety or environmental safety. There's more about the purple tomato here.] IFL Science

 

 

In June Senegal authorised the use of GM seeds for the first time. But critics are concerned about the impacts on seed saving and the genetic integrity of well adapted plants that could cross-pollinate with GM plants. And farmer and agricultural educator Rahim Ba said: “In the long term (GMO agriculture) is not sustainable. The answer is agroecology, which allows us to be sovereign, autonomous, and have food security.” France 24

 

 

An article for AP News shows the shallowness of Bill Gates's thinking. He actually calls GMO crops "magic seeds" and compares alternatives to "singing kumbaya". It's laughable, but this is a good article that quotes some incisive criticisms of Gates's approach. For example, critics in Ghana ask what would happen if instead of funding GMO crops, so far to little effect after nearly a decade, those resources went to the national research centres in Ghana, to building roads, to building storage, to building silos or helping to build markets. @GMWatch on Twitter

 

 

As the planet warms, five drought-tolerant and highly nutritious crops offer hope for greater resiliency. These are amaranth, fonio (a kind of millet), cowpeas, taro, and kernza (a cereal crop developed from a wheat-like grass). [GMW: None of them rely on GM for their drought tolerance and nutritional value. Examples of non-GM drought tolerant crops are here.] Pocket

 

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