03/February/20

 

The US EPA has released its decision on glyphosate for the renewal of the registration of the herbicide. The EPA says it "continues to find that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label". The EPA also says that glyphosate is "unlikely to be a human carcinogen". Dr Charles Benbrook, project coordinator of the Heartland Study on the effects of herbicide spraying on birth outcomes and children's health, commented: "I am flabbergasted at this decision. There is NOTHING - ZERO - in the EPA decision to reduce worker exposures and risks." GMWatch

 

 

Despite multiple provincial grants and loans, the company AquaBounty is now offering $10 million in common stock to help cover its costs of growing the first batches of genetically engineered salmon in Prince Edward Island (P.E.I), Canada. “The costs of raising genetically modified salmon just keep increasing but Islanders have already paid a lot through provincial grants and loans. Its hard to make money from a product that no one wants to buy,” said Leo Broderick of the P.E.I. Chapter of the Council of Canadians. “We should never have given out one single penny of public funds to support this risky venture.” GMWatch

 

 

A showdown is under way in the US Midwest as a large Missouri peach farmer seeks to hold the former Monsanto accountable for millions of dollars in damage to his crops—losses the farmer claims resulted from a corporate strategy to induce other farmers to buy high-priced specialty seeds and chemicals. The trial got underway January 27 in US District Court in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Farmer Bill Bader, who has grown peaches in Missouri’s “Bootheel” region for 40 years, is seeking more than $20 million. The lawsuit alleges that Bader Farms lost more than 30,000 trees due to Monsanto’s actions, in collaboration with German chemical giant BASF, to profit from a new cropping system involving genetically engineered seeds designed to tolerate dousing with the herbicide dicamba. Sierra Club

 

 

Vandana Shiva, a pioneer of organic farming in India, is incensed by the 2019 draft law to compulsorily register all seeds used by farmers. She describes farmers' shifts towards organic practices and away from high-input "green revolution" methods and expensive GM Bt cotton seeds. Shiva describes organic farming as "a movement that must grow because there is no other way to farm". She also clarifies the link between farmer suicides and Bt cotton – it is crippling debt. thethirdpole.net