GM cowpea has cleared the first of the three regulatory hurdles in the way of commercialisation in Ghana. If it is commercialised, it will be the first GM crop grown in the country. A number of factors will inform whether farmers choose to purchase and grow the seed, writes Joeva Rock, Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. An obvious but key factor is the seed’s performance. In field trials, GM cowpea suffered less damage from the Maruca pod-borer than non-GM cowpea. But there are a multitude of other diseases and pests that cowpea farmers in Ghana, and elsewhere in West Africa, must contend with. Different varieties of cowpea contain varying resistance to different pests, which farmers consider when deciding which variety of cowpea to grow. Take Songotra, the cowpea variety which has been genetically modified. Non-GM Songotra was first introduced in the Ghanaian market in 2008. In certain regions in Ghana, Songotra is susceptible to other pests, especially aphids and thrips, which has led to its low adoption rate: around 10%. [GMW: This GM cowpea contains Bt insecticidal toxins. Other pests have evolved resistance to these toxins after a few years of deployment of the GM crops expressing them. See, for example, this.] The Conversation

 

 

Britain has approved the sale of lab-grown meat for pet food, becoming the first European nation to give its blessing to a process that has prompted opposition in other countries. The move is a victory for the biotech industry, which the British government hopes to build into a superpower. The landmark approval went to Meatly, a British company that grows meat from chicken cells for pet food. Britain has also recently stepped up a push to expand its biotech sector, which includes lab-grown meat. Italy banned the sale of cell-cultivated meat last year in an effort to protect the country's farmers and food heritage. France is trying to police the language around lab-grown meat, banning what it calls “foodstuffs containing vegetable proteins” from being labeled “filet” or “steak,” among others; Austria and Hungary are holding similar debates. New York Times

 

 

A store in Singapore started selling lab-grown meat directly to the general public in May. Visitors to the store, Huber’s Butchery, watched as a chef sautéed filets — 3 percent of which were generated from chicken cells and the rest from plant proteins — and served them in taco shells. Andre Huber, the executive director of Huber’s, has been selling the cultivated meat, but he hasn’t in recent months been serving it in his restaurant because Eat Just's subsidiary Good Meat has stopped supplying it to his kitchen. The company said this is part of its normal cycle in Singapore where it has always “produced and paused” production. Good Meat, which is embroiled in a legal dispute with a supplier, has yet to follow up on plans to open Asia’s largest cultivated meat facility last year in Singapore. Josh Tetrick, the co-founder of Eat Just, said, “There are enormous scaling challenges between where we are and where we need to get to, and those scaling challenges are not guaranteed to be solved.” New York Times

 

 

Chinese scientist Jiankui He, who genetically modified children using CRISPR, will speak in Roundtables organised by MIT Technology Review. Biologist Stuart Newman isn't impressed, commenting that the Review is "Normalizing human genetic engineering by giving a platform to someone who took a potshot at prenatally modifying three children." Stuart Newman on X @sanewman1

 

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