01/October/20

 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded another $10 million last week to the controversial Cornell Alliance for Science, a communications campaign housed at Cornell that trains fellows in Africa and elsewhere to promote and defend genetically engineered foods, crops and agrichemicals. The PR investment comes at a time when the Gates Foundation is under fire for spending billions of dollars on agricultural development schemes in Africa that critics say are entrenching farming methods that benefit corporations over people. On September 10, faith leaders in Africa posted an open letter to the Gates Foundation asking it to reassess its grant-making strategies for Africa and to support agroecological schemes. US Right to Know

 

 

Bt cotton is the only genetically modified (GM) crop that has been officially approved in India. It has been cultivated (illegally, then legally) in the country for more than 20 years. Although GM mustard has been approved for commercial cultivation by India’s apex regulatory body for GM crops (the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, GEAC), a public interest litigation led by Aruna Rodrigues is before the Supreme Court challenging that decision and commercialisation of the crop is on hold. Colin Todhunter interviewed Aruna to discuss the current situation. She calls the Bt cotton model for GM crops in India a "monumental catastrophe". GMWatch

 

 

In a letter to the president of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Testbiotech has raised some serious questions in relation to a virtual conference held today by Leopoldina and the German Research Foundation (DFG). The organisers presented a "Statement" on new genetic engineering techniques (New GE, also called genome editing). The authors claimed that there are no specific risks associated with the application of genetic engineering in plant breeding and demanded changes to EU GMO regulation. As a consequence, most GMOs would no longer undergo mandatory risk assessment and approval process as required by current EU regulation. Testbiotech has criticised this Statement as being severely biased. Several of the experts involved are filing patent applications in the field of genetic engineering. Some are also cooperating with companies such as Bayer. Testbiotech called the conference a platform for biotech lobbyists. Testbiotech