The Philippines Supreme Court has announced that it has issued a writ of kalikasan (a legal remedy under Philippine law that provides protection of one's constitutional right to a healthy environment) against the Department of Agriculture and other government agencies, as well as the Philippine Rice Institute and University of the Philippines-Los Banos, to stop the release of GMO golden rice and Bt eggplant. The decision was reached in a High Court session during which the respondents were required to file a verified response within 10 days. Petitioners led by the farmer-scientist organisation Masipag filed before the court a petition for the issuance of a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) against the propagation of golden rice and Bt eggplant over safety concerns and lack of compliance with legal requirements. Masipag has urged the court to also issue a TEPO for the immediate stoppage of the project, and declare as null and void the commercialisation approval. MindaNews

 

 

An intense lobbying battle is being waged by industry to try to make EU GMO rules on environment, health and freedom of choice obsolete. Dutch TV Zembla's recently broadcast programme "Tinkering with Seed" (13 April 2023) assesses the reality behind the wild promises attributed to a new GMO technique, Crispr-Cas, by the biotech industry. It also exposes the corporate interests promoted by a small group of biotechnology researchers, fulfilling multiple contradictory roles. The broadcast used more than a thousand pages of internal documents, emails and reports obtained by Corporate Europe Observatory from the Dutch government. These documents show that Dutch government officials are constantly informed and lobbied by biotech lobby organisations HollandBio and Plantum, and by a small group of biotechnology researchers from Wageningen University. They even held a retreat together in a luxury inn! GMWatch

 

 

The Rathenau Institute, a technology assessment organisation in the Netherlands that is a member of the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment, has published a report about the perception of Dutch citizens on new GM techniques (NGTs), as revealed in a survey it conducted. In general, citizens' views converged towards reservation and hesitation about the use of NGTs and genetic modification in crops. Citizens raised doubts mainly about the plausibility that these crops will contribute meaningfully to the solving of our current societal challenges in the food system, and whether they are indeed the right approach for dealing with these challenges. They wondered if alternative solutions may be better, and how these may come with less unforeseen, long-term risks for human health and ecosystems. They also want regulation and labelling of new GM products. GMWatch

 

 

With global birth rates in free fall, Silicon Valley’s "pronatalists" aim to halt the decline by telling people to have as many babies as possible, reports The Telegraph. Pronatalism, or pro-birth, holds that our future depends on having enough children, and yet life in developed countries has become hostile to this basic biological imperative. Linked to the subcultures of rationalism and "effective altruism" (EA), and bolstered by declining birth rates globally, it has been gaining currency in Silicon Valley and the wider tech industry – especially its more conservative corners. GMWatch comments that this trend should officially mark the death of the lie that "we need GMOs and pesticides to feed the booming population of 10 billion by 2050". However, it's very likely to be replaced by another lie – that "we need GMOs and pesticides to enable farming without farmers", on the claimed grounds that there will be too few people to grow the food we need. In reality, of course, just as previous centuries and decades have seen mass migration into cities, there's no reason at all why there shouldn't be an equivalent migration back to the land. GMWatch comment on article in The Telegraph

 

 

New GM foods are being allowed and promoted at Natural Products Expo West, the largest organic trade show in the US, according to a report by Organic Insider. New Hope Network, the organiser of Natural Products Expo West, recently put out a report justifying its inclusion of new GM technologies, in particular "precision fermentation" using GMOs, at its shows, despite the fact that 92% of Natural Product Expo buyers do not believe that precision fermentation/new GM ("GMO 2.0") technologies are “enabling positive product innovations that should be part of the natural products industry". New Hope's encouragement for these new GM technologies has resulted in contentious interactions at its “Natural” Products Expo and resentment among attendees is accelerating, to the point that there was chatter at Expo West, including from some of the most respected figures in the industry, that a separate organic and Non-GMO trade show is needed. Meanwhile Mark Squire, co-founder of Good Earth Natural Foods, has started a petition for New Hope to ban ingredients made via genetic engineering. Organic Insider

 

 

The term "conspiracy theories" is often used to try to discredit unconventional ideas. But there is a running debate among philosophers, psychologists, and social/political scientists about its proper and improper uses, writes the science journalist Michael Balter. We know there are real conspiracies, and sometimes the theories to explain them are well supported. And some “conspiracy theories” have turned out to be true. For example, Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, conspired with other scientists to hide the fact that he personally wrote and organised a letter in The Lancet declaring that the lab origin hypothesis for Covid-19 was a “conspiracy theory.” Michael Balter's Substack

 

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