| | 29/January/25
| | New Zealand: Don't rush GMO deregulation bill, don't shut farmers out Two New Zealand farmers are telling the government that they should not rush through the GMO deregulation bill and shut the farmers out. They write that the new Gene Technology Bill will mean more paperwork and more compliance costs for farmers just to stand still — with the added risk of trading away their GMO-free competitive advantage. They add that the government wants to fully deregulate some new GMOs. This means GM seed firms won’t need to account for where their GMOs are and where they shouldn’t be, let alone assess their risks. It’ll be up to non-GMO producers to figure out how to keep them out of fields and the supply chain. On the compliance-cost front, the government makes no bones about the fact that proceeding with its plan will mean “additional costs” for farmers who supply non-GMO market demand. This is a sizeable chunk of the farming community. It even acknowledges that these costs will be “high impact”. Otago Daily Times Mexico's president wants to write GMO-free maize cultivation into the constitution The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has sent a constitutional reform initiative to Congress, declaring maize a cornerstone of Mexican national identity, stating that its cultivation has to be free from GMOs, and prioritising its agroecological management. And she's made a little video about it (in Spanish). Watch her video here. GMWatch on Bluesky The US is dumping more than tariffs on Mexico President Donald Trump arrives in office threatening to slap 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico. If he carries through, it will amount to more than just a blatant violation of the free trade agreement he renegotiated with Mexico and Canada in 2018, but also complete a neoliberal hat trick of unfair trade policies by Washington, write Tim Wise and Stewart A.L. James. In December, the US won its challenge to Mexico’s right to restrict the importation of GM corn for its tortillas. Meanwhile, the US has resumed exporting that corn at punishingly low prices. According to recent data, the US is currently exporting corn to Mexico at prices 14% lower than what it costs to produce and transport it. That is an unfair trade practice known as “agricultural dumping” and it severely undermines local farmers’ ability to earn a living from their corn. Truthdig Gene-edited mice with two dads have been created using CRISPR – but lots went wrong GM gene-edited mice with two fathers have been born—and have survived to adulthood — following a complex set of experiments by a team in China. The scientists used CRISPR to create the mice, using a novel approach to target genes that normally need to be inherited from both male and female parents. The team transferred 164 gene-edited embryos, but only 7 live pups were born. And those that were born weren’t entirely normal, either. They grew to be bigger than untreated mice and their organs appeared enlarged. They didn’t live as long as normal mice, and they were infertile. MIT Technology Review We hope you’ve found this newsletter interesting. Please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. Thank you! __________________________________________________________ Website: http://www.gmwatch.org
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