The pro-GMO lobby were never going to respond well to a court in the Philippines stopping the cultivation of GMO Golden Rice on the grounds that there is a lack of scientific consensus on its safety. But their histrionics failed to catch much attention until The Observer’s science editor Robin McKie published an inflammatory article accusing Greenpeace of causing “a catastrophe” through its role in the court case. This triggered other media pieces that repeated McKie’s claims that Greenpeace had blocked the planting of “lifesaving” Golden Rice, that “tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling”, and that this GM rice, despite its ability to prevent blindness and death, had now been obstructed for three decades by “the green movement’s vociferous opposition”. These claims have been roundly debunked by experts. If this leaves you wondering how such a misleading piece of reporting popped up in The Observer, then it’s worth noting that this is far from McKie’s first rodeo. He and The Observer have been systematically misreporting on Golden Rice for over a decade. GMWatch

 

 

The Sonthanga (meaning "On its Own" in Telugu) collection takes centre stage in an exhibition with 67 self-designs on kora, the raw, unbleached off-white fabric which turned weavers into designers for the first time. The collection is on display at Malkha Commons in CCT (Crafts Council of Telangana) Spaces in Hyderabad. The 67 designs created by 18 weavers from the district of Telangana are made of organic kora cotton of a variety locally sourced from regenerative agricultural practices. Durga Manikanta has been spinning for the past 12 years. “Spinners used to get skin allergies with Bt cotton but not with the organic cotton used in Sonthanga. We only have to save the fabric from rats,” he said with a laugh. The Hindu

 

 

PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) joins civil society and Indigenous Peoples organisations in welcoming the end of a three-year controversial partnership agreement between the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and CropLife International, an association of the world’s largest agrochemical corporations. Led by PAN International, 11 organisations issued a statement saying that they have received confirmation of a decision by the FAO to not renew its Letter of Intent (LoI) with CropLife. The LoI, entered by both parties on October 2020, triggered calls by civil society, IPs, academics, philanthropists and a UN expert for the FAO to rescind an agreement that directly ties the agency to the world’s largest manufacturers of the most deadly pesticides such as Bayer, Syngenta and Corteva. The groups called the decision to end the LoI a “victory for farmers, farmworkers, and rural communities most affected by pesticide harms.” PAN Asia Pacific

 

 

The Entomological Society of America is the largest organisation in the world dedicated to the scientific study of insects. Its conference is the Super Bowl of insect science. But something was missing from last year’s event. Scholarly papers from one of the most controversial scientific topics in the field had all but vanished: research on the impact of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees that are crucial to our food system. Out of 2,000 presentations at the conference, and nearly 100 on bee science, only four papers dealt specifically with the role of neonics in the declining health of bees. All of those were presented by students, not by scholars. And something else was clearly on display at the conference: corporate sponsorship. Corteva (formerly DowDupont) purchased a sponsorship package that included a pervasive ad featuring a man that conference attendees dubbed the "Corteva guy". Other gold-level sponsors at the $50,000 level were Bayer and Syngenta. US Right to Know

 

 

Have you ever wondered what drives agricultural GMO enthusiasts to want to genetically alter our food supply? Our experience is that the simplistic answers offered by some – money and power – don't always give the whole picture and sometimes don't apply at all. What is clear, however, is that those who oppose GM foods and crops often have very different world views to those who advocate them. But what are those world views? If you live in the UK and are 18 or over, you can contribute to research that hopes to answer these questions and more. The research is taking place in the context of the passage of the Genetic Technology Act last year, which removes a whole class of GMOs from safety checks and labelling. GMWatch

 

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