18/December/20

 

On Thursday 17 December, the European Parliament voted to adopt five objections against authorisations of GM crops for use as food and feed in the EU. These objections, which are not binding on the European Commission, will bring the overall number of objections to 51 since December 2015. So far, the Commission has ignored all objections and adopted the GM crop authorisations regardless (except for three cultivation authorisations). This is despite the fact that political support for these authorisations has been shrinking over the last years. GMWatch

 

 

Prolonged exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of the weedkiller Roundup causes significant harm to keystone species, according to new research. The researchers used waterfleas, or Daphnia, to test the effects prolonged exposure to concentrations of Roundup deemed safe by regulatory agencies. They found that even at approved regulatory levels, the weedkiller causes embryonic development failure, significant DNA damage, and also interferes with the animals’ metabolism and gut function. GMWatch

 

 

Soybean farmers whose fields were injured by off-target dicamba movement in the past six years could file claims for compensation as early as late December, after the details of a $300 million settlement with Monsanto (now a subsidiary of Bayer) were finalized Wednesday. The settlement is part of Bayer's efforts to settle ongoing lawsuits involving its herbicides, including multi-district litigation pending in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri over dicamba injury claims. Dicamba is used on GM dicamba-tolerant crops but drifts off-target, damaging other crops and wild plants. DTN Progressive Farmer

 

 

Bayer’s CEO Werner Baumann, who engineered the troubled takeover of Monsanto, will not seek any corporate board seats after his current term expires in 2024, he told German monthly Manager Magazin. Baumann, 58, plans to “all but retire from corporate public life” afterwards, he was quoted as saying. Reuters