| GMWatch is running a reduced service at the moment while our editor is on holiday. Normal service will be resumed next week. GMO deregulation delayed – where are we at, where might we be going? On 31 March, the EU Commission's DG SANTE confirmed that the Commission’s proposal on GMO deregulation, as well as the proposal on seed marketing, will be postponed. Originally scheduled for 7 June, it will not be presented before the second half of June or later in July. The Regulatory Scrutiny Board, whose role is to ensure the quality of the Commission’s impact assessments, sent the proposal and accompanying Impact Assessment back to the drafting stage. Reasons mentioned are insufficient assessment of the impact on consumer trust, the organic sector, environment and health. The pressure is increasing on the Commission as, on 16 March, several environment ministers (Germany, Hungary, Luxemburg, Slovenia, Slovakia and Cyprus) stated their support for the position of the Austrian environment minister to maintain the application of scientific risk assessment and mandatory labelling for NGTs. Recently, the German agricultural minister also came out against deregulation of GMOs. Arc2020 Not just green: Natural farming in India yielded more produce than conventional methods, shows study Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) in Andhra Pradesh has led to significantly higher crop yield compared to organic or conventional (synthetic fertilisers and pesticides) farming, a new study of the state’s natural farming programme has found. The southern state has been pushing 100 per cent chemical-free agriculture under the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) programme it launched in 2016. In the last six years, it has worked on natural farming with 0.63 million farmers out of a total estimated six million farmers in the state. Researchers from the University of Reading, UK and Rythu Sadikara Samstha, a non-profit set up by the Indian government in 2014, observed that when compared to the conventional treatment, yields were maintained in the case of organic farming and increased in ZBNF. The yield for the conventional treatment reduced from the first to the third season, whereas the organic and ZBNF mean yield increased slightly through the three seasons. The yield of groundnut kernels was around 30-40 per cent higher in the ZBNF treatment, an important finding as groundnut is a crucial oilseed crop in India and covers 537,000 hectares (ha) in Andhra Pradesh alone. DownToEarth Spotlight on glyphosate in Brussels As a new vote looms this year on whether to keep glyphosate authorised in the EU, a new award-winning documentary film called Into the Weeds was screened in Brussels to a packed house. In attendance at the screening and at an associated event at the European Parliament was Carey Gillam, author of the books Whitewash and The Monsanto Papers, which deal with the regulatory corruption that has kept glyphosate on the market. Also there was Dewayne "Lee" Johnson, the California groundskeeper who sprayed large quantities of RangerPro, a highly concentrated version of the herbicide Roundup, and who became the first plaintiff to win a court case alleging the glyphosate-based products cause cancer. Speakers at the Brussels events included scientists Prof Chris Portier, former director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who participated as an expert during the World’s Health Organization’s cancer agency review of glyphosate in 2015 that classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans, and Dr Daniele Mandrioli, coordinator of research on glyphosate at the Ramazzini Institute of Bologna, Italy. UnSpun Glyphosate disrupts animal and human reproductive functions A new literature review highlights the mechanisms by which glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides disrupt male and female fertility. The review finds that plasma concentrations of most hormones regulating reproductive function — or expression of their receptors — are altered at the levels of the entire reproductive system — the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, ovaries, testicles, placenta, and uterus — by exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides. Intergenerational impacts, such as obesity, diseases of the kidney and testes, polycystic ovary syndrome, and difficulties of childbirth, are also reported. The authors comment that glyphosate-based herbicides are more toxic than glyphosate alone due to the presence of co-formulants. Cells Why did Peter Daszak change his mind? Peter Daszak spent years hunting down bat viruses with Chinese scientists, helped fund their research in Wuhan, and then vociferously led opposition to any suggestions that the pandemic might have been linked to a laboratory in the city. The British zoologist would pop up regularly in the media to fiercely dismiss “conspiracy theories”, playing a key role in efforts to stifle debate over the origins of COVID-19. So how strange to discover that this same man had previously warned that risky research was “intensifying” threats from “lab-enhanced viruses”. In a newly uncovered slide presentation, Daszak warned that “gain-of-function” research — which boosts the transmissibility of viruses — was “elevating the risk” that “deadly novel biological agents” could be released through accident or design. The presentation, demanding the urgent development of counter-measures, put such risk at the same level as natural spillover from the wild. It even focused on the specific threat from coronaviruses. The full slide presentation was found by Gilles Demaneuf, a data scientist and member of the Drastic group which challenged the science establishment’s narrative that COVID almost certainly spilled over naturally from animals.“When Daszak needed to protect his back,” says Demaneuf, “anybody who dares say exactly what he wrote in these slides was called a conspiracy theorist — or worse.” Unherd We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible by readers’ donations. Please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. 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