Chinese GMO Cows Churn Out ‘Human Breast Milk’

See also:

The Chinese Food-Safety Mess: Mercury In Baby Formula, Cabbages Sprayed With Formaldehyde, Soy Sauce Made From Hair Clippings, Cooking Oil Scooped Out Of Gutters For Recycling, Artificial Green Peas, Grilled Kebabs From Cat Meat, …

Flashback:

In China, What You Eat Tells Who You Are … And Organic Food Is Only For The Power Elite

I ate Hu Jintao’s dinner; China’s president, and the rest of the politburo eat only organic food


Cows churn out “human breast milk” (Reuters, June 16, 2012):

Moo-ove over, Mum.

Chinese scientists have produced a herd of genetically modified cows that make milk that could substitute for human breast milk — a possible alternative to formula in a nation rocked by tainted milk powder scandals.

Researchers at the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology of the China Agricultural University introduced human genetic coding into the DNA of Holstein dairy cow embryos, then transferred the embryos into cow surrogates.

Read moreChinese GMO Cows Churn Out ‘Human Breast Milk’

Australia: GMO Mosquitoes Released Into The Wild

Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes released into the wild (Updated News, June 24, 2012):

Australian research scientists have developed a strategy for fighting Dengue fever, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes that affects more than 50 million people annually and causes fever and crippling joint and muscle pain—and in some cases even death.

Dengue kills FAR more people worldwide than influenza, yet it is rarely even mentioned by Western media.

A bacterium named Wolbachiapipientis naturally infects many insect species and has the ability to interfere with its host’s reproductive ability in such a way that entire populations become infected within just a few generationsi. When Wolbachia infects mosquitoes, the mosquitoes’ ability to transmit Dengue virus is almost completely blocked.

Researchers are encouraged that these bacterially infected mosquitoes are safe to humans and, once set loose, are capable of spreading on their own and overtaking the wild mosquito populations that transmit disease to humans.

In two northern Australian towns, between 10,000 and 20,000 of these infected mozzies were released (“mozzie” is Australian for mosquito), and wild mosquito infection rates neared 100 percent—meaning, mosquitoes that can infect humans were almost completely replaced by the ones that can’t.

Read moreAustralia: GMO Mosquitoes Released Into The Wild

Busted: Biotech Leader ‘Syngenta’ Charged Over Covering Up Animal Deaths From GM Corn

Busted: Biotech Leader ‘Syngenta’ Charged Over Covering Up Animal Deaths from GM Corn (Natural Society, June 15, 2012):

In a riveting victory against genetically modified creations, a major biotech company known as Syngenta has been criminally charged for denying knowledge that its GM Bt corn actually kills livestock. What’s more is not only did the company deny this fact, but they did so in a civil court case that ended back in 2007. The charges were finally issued after a long legal struggle against the mega corp initiated by a German farmer named Gottfried Gloeckner whose dairy cattle died after eating the Bt toxin and coming down with a ‘mysterious’ illness.

Grown on his own farm from 1997 to 2002, the cows on the farm were all being fed exclusively on Syngenta’s Bt 176 corn by the year 2000. It was around this time that the mysterious illnesses began to emerge among the cattle population. Syngenta paid Gloeckner 40,000 euros in an effort to silence the farmer, however a civil lawsuit was brought upon the company. Amazingly, 2 cows ate genetically modified maize (now banned in Poland over serious concerns) and died. During the civil lawsuit, however, Syngenta refused to admit that its GM corn was responsible. In fact, they went as far as to claim having no knowledge whatsoever of harm.

Read moreBusted: Biotech Leader ‘Syngenta’ Charged Over Covering Up Animal Deaths From GM Corn

U2, Bono? Celeb Partners With Monsanto, G8, To Biowreck African Farms With GMOs


Not ignorant, just evil.

U2, Bono? Celeb partners with Monsanto, G8, to biowreck African farms with GMOs (Activist Post, May 29, 2012):

At the G8 Summit held two weeks ago at Camp David, President Obama met with private industry and African heads of state to launch the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a euphemism for monocultured, genetically modified crops and toxic agrochemicals aimed at making poor farmers debt slaves to corporations, while destroying the ecosphere for profit.

And Bono, of the rock group U2, is out shilling for Monsanto on this one.

It’s phase 2 of the Green Revolution. Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia are the first to fall for the deception, with Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and other African nations lining up for the “Grow Africa Partnership,” under Obama’s “Global Agricultural Development” plan.

In Obama Pitches India Model of GM Genocide to Africa, Scott Creighton writes:

But African civil society wants no part of this latest Monsanto aligned ‘public private partnership.’ Whatever will the progressives do now that their flawless hero has teamed up with their most hated nemesis to exploit an entire continent like they did to India not that long ago?

With a commitment of $3 billion, Obama plans to ‘partner up’ with mega-multinationals like Monsanto, Diageo, Dupont, Cargill, Vodafone, Walmart, Pepsico, Prudential, Syngenta International, and Swiss Re because, as one USAID representative says ‘There are things that only companies can do, like building silos for storage and developing seeds and fertilizers.’

Of course, that’s an outrageous lie. Private citizens have been building their own silos for centuries. But it’s true that only the biowreck engineers will foist patented seeds and toxic chemicals on Africa.Creighton continues:

Read moreU2, Bono? Celeb Partners With Monsanto, G8, To Biowreck African Farms With GMOs

Monsanto Partners With USAID To Push GM Corn In Nepal

Monsanto partners with USAID to push GM corn in Nepal (Natural News, Nov. 20, 2011):

The southeast Asian country of Nepal is once again having to fight against foreign interests that are trying to take over its agricultural system. Biotechnology giant Monsanto apparently has its sights set on bringing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) to this sliver of a country just north of India, and it is allegedly working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a so-called humanitarian group, and officials in Nepal to make it happen.

USAID issued a statement on Sept. 13, 2011, saying that it had partnered with Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoACs) and Monsanto to “promote hybrid maize (corn) seeds among 20,000 farmers of Chitwan, Nawalparasi and Kavre districts and provide training to them.” Media across Nepal quickly picked up on the story, and massive public outcry ensued.

Read moreMonsanto Partners With USAID To Push GM Corn In Nepal

India Files ‘Biopiracy’ Lawsuit Against Monsanto, Says Biotech Giant Is Stealing Nature For Corporate Gain

India vs. Monsanto: seeds of discord (France 24 – Video):
For the first time ever, a country – India – is accusing a multinational company of “bio-piracy”. That means stealing indigenous plants, and then trying to develop genetically modified versions of them, without giving any compensation back to the local people or nation where the plant originally came from. Our reporters travelled to one of the affected areas and spoke to those who say it’s their environment which has been stolen.

Representing one of the most agriculturally bio-diverse nations in the world, India has become a primary target for biotechnology companies like Monsanto and Cargill to spread their genetically-modified (GM) crops into new markets. However, a recent France 24 report explains that the Indian government has decided to take an offensive approach against this attempted agricultural takeover by suing Monsanto for “biopiracy,” accusing the company of stealing India’s indigenous plants in order to re-engineer them into patented varieties.

Brinjal, also known in Western nations as eggplant, is a native Indian crop for which there are roughly 2,500 different unique varieties. Millions of Indian farmers grow brinjal, which is used in a variety of Indian food dishes, and the country grows more than a quarter of the world’s overall supply of the vegetable.

And in an attempt to capitalize on this popular crop, Monsanto has repeatedly tried to commercially market its own GM variety of brinjal called Bt brinjal. But massive public outcry against planned commercial approval of Monsanto’s “frankencrop” variety in 2010 led to the government banning it for an indefinite period of time.

Read moreIndia Files ‘Biopiracy’ Lawsuit Against Monsanto, Says Biotech Giant Is Stealing Nature For Corporate Gain

Scientists Engineered GMO That ‘Makes Diesel Fuel Using Sun, Water And Carbon Dioxide’

Breakthrough? Scientists said they can produce a fuel that runs jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow - sunlight, water and carbon dioxide
Breakthrough? Scientists said they can produce a fuel that runs jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow – sunlight, water and carbon dioxide

Scientists have genetically engineered an organism that secretes diesel fuel wherever there is sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

Biotechnology company Joule Unlimited claims it can produce diesel fuel and ethanol on demand at unprecedented rates.

Researchers at the firm, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said they can produce the fuel that runs jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.

They also claim to be able to make it in facilities both large and small and at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.

Joule’s website describes the breakthrough as ‘energy independence’, although many remain sceptical.

Chief executive Bill Sims said: ‘We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we’ve validated, all of which we’ve shown to investors.

‘If we’re half-right, this revolutionises the world’s largest industry, which is the oil and gas industry.

‘And if we’re right, there’s no reason why this technology can’t change the world.’

Read moreScientists Engineered GMO That ‘Makes Diesel Fuel Using Sun, Water And Carbon Dioxide’

Permanent Biological Contamination Of The Gulf

SYNTHETIC GENES ARE CROSSING SPECIES BARRIERS

While natural viruses and bacteria respect species barriers, the storm of artificial genetics created by synthetic biology engineers – in order to eliminate the flow of crude oil and gasses in the Gulf of Mexico – are actually designed to cross species barriers. This has created new viral and bacterial pathogens never seen before. It is directly responsible for the spreading of drug and antibiotic resistant viral and bacterial outbreaks along the Gulf Coast, a pestilence that I have named The Gulf Blue Plague.

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER

Genetic engineering – synthetic biology – involves designing artificial genes to deliberately cross species barriers by invading their genetic makeup. Simply explained, it improves the direct transfer of genetic material to an unrelated species. This is called Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT), or Lateral Gene Transfer (LGT), and is usually accomplished with the conveyance of genes by infectious viruses named bacteriophages, or simply ‘phages’. LGT or HGT is any process in which an organism transfers genetic material (i.e., DNA) to another cell that is not its offspring. It has been used by genetic engineers to make Transgenic Organisms.

TRANSGENIC ORGANISMS

Engineered genetic modification creates a transgenic organism by inserting DNA into a host organism, such as bacteria, with the assistance of a virus or a plasmid. The mature host organism will then pass on the DNA which has been artificially inserted into its genome.

Transgenic DNA typically contains genetic material from bacteria, viruses and other genetic parasites. This is the cause behind diseases as well as the antibiotic resistant genes that make infectious diseases untreatable. Horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA has the potential to also create new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases and spread drug and antibiotic resistance genes among pathogens.

Genetic material released from both dead and live cells persevere in all environments. Our entire biosphere is being exposed to all kinds of new gene combinations that did not previously exist in nature and would never have come into being without synthetic gene engineering.

TRANSFERING DNA BY INFECTING VIRUSES

Bacteriophages are a class of viruses that infect bacteria. They are simply a “package” of DNA surrounded by a protein “coat”. This coating has special properties that make it stick to bacterial cell walls. Once attached, they inject their DNA into the bacteria. Viral DNA forces the invaded cell to stop its normal activity and, instead, it will reproduce millions of copies of the whole virus.

Read morePermanent Biological Contamination Of The Gulf

WikiLeaks Cables: US Targets EU Over GM Crops

Compare the article from the Guardian to this:

US Conspired to Retaliate Against European Nations If They Resisted GMOs: Wikileaks Cable Reveals

And Europeans better stop resisting eating US junk:

Monsanto Used GM Bacteria to Create Deadly Sweetener Aspartame


US embassy cable recommends drawing up list of countries for ‘retaliation’ over opposition to genetic modification

The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.

“The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices,” said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.

Read moreWikiLeaks Cables: US Targets EU Over GM Crops

USDA GMO Policy

US terrorism:

US Conspired to Retaliate Against European Nations If They Resisted GMOs: Wikileaks Cable Reveals



Added: 24. December 2010

Agenda 21:

Agenda 21 And The Wildlands Project: How They Can Steal Your Land

UN Agenda 21 – Coming to a Neighborhood near You

Agenda 21 Explained

Agenda 21: Elite Plan For Absolute Control

Fluoride, Aspartame and Agenda 21

GM food alters your DNA, changes your brain waves, destroys your immune system, your organs and makes you infertile.

Related information:

US House of Representatives Passes Unconstitutional S.510/HR 2751, The Food Safety Modernization Act (TREASON!!!)

The GMO Orange Scandal

And Now: GMO Oranges As Solution To Insect-Borne Bacterial Disease

Judge Orders Destruction Of Monsanto GMO sugarbeets

Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF And Others Working On GM Wheat

Scientists working to create genetically modified chocolate – to make you healthy (Sure!)

MIT Scientists Develop GMO Plant That Produces Pharmaceutical Drugs

USDA Plans To Allow GM Sugar Beet Planting During Lawsuit

10 Freakiest Things About Frankenfish

GM Flax Contamination Detected in 35 Countries

Study: GM Corn ‘Has Polluted Rivers Across The United States’

FDA Refuses to Require Labeling of GM Salmon

GM Salmon Nears US Approval

RED ALERT: Dr. Rima E. Laibow On The Food Safety Bill (S 510): This Bill Eliminates All Local Farming, Organic Farmers and Garden Farmers

Read moreUSDA GMO Policy

US Conspired to Retaliate Against European Nations If They Resisted GMOs: Wikileaks Cable Reveals

“Retaliate”? “Calibrate a target retaliation list”?

Retaliate because Europeans don’t want American GMO junk and GMO garbage in general?

Now everybody knows who the REAL TERRORISTS are.  Thank you.

This is the New World Order attacking the people on all levels of life and don’t believe for one moment that the elite puppet governments of Europe will defend its citizens against GMO.

The people in Europe are much more aware about GMOs and their detrimental health effects and the people are the resistance, not the European puppet governments.

Will Al-CIAda strike again?

Al Qaeda Doesn’t Exist or How The US Created Al Qaeda (Documentary)



Terrorist Craig Stapleton, the US ambassador to France

(NaturalNews) Wikileaks continues to rock the political world by shedding light on conspiracies, corruption and cover-ups. The latest batch of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveals what can only be characterized as a U.S.-led conspiracy to force GMOs onto European countries by making those countries pay a steep price if they resist.

The cable reveals the words of Craig Stapleton, the US ambassador to France, who was pushing the commercial interests of the biotech industry by attempting to force GMOs into France. In his own words (below), he expresses his frustration with the idea that France might pass environmental laws that would hamper the expansion of GMOs:

“Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission… Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice.”

Got that so far? His own words: Retaliation” as a way to “make [it] clear” that resisting GMOs will have a price.

Stapleton goes on to say something rather incredible:

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory…”

As you read these words again, remember that these are the words of the U.S. ambassador to France who is suggesting the US “calibrate a target retaliation list” in order to “cause some pain across the EU” that must be “sustainable over the long term.”

The global GMO conspiracy is no longer a theory

Need we say anything more? This cable proves, once and for all, that there is a global GMO conspiracy where government operatives work in secret to push Monsanto’s GMO agenda while punishing opponents of GMOs and adding them to a “target retaliation list.”

This cable also proves that NaturalNews has been right all along about the GMO conspiracy, and that GMO opponents such as Jeffrey Smith are battling what can only be called an evil conspiracy to control the world’s food supply. It also proves that when Alex Jones talks about the global conspiracy to control the world food supply, he’s not just ranting. He’s warning about the reality of the world in which we now live.

As Jeffery Smith said today in a Democracy Now interview:

“We’ve been saying for years that the United States government is joined at the hip with Monsanto and pushing GMOs as part of Monsanto’s agenda on the rest of the world. This lays bare the mechanics of that effort. We have Craig Stapleton, the former ambassador to France, specifically asking the U.S. government to retaliate and cause some harm throughout the European Union.” (http://www.democracynow.org/seo/201…)

Military terms

Do you notice something about these words used by the US ambassador to France? “Calibrate a target retaliation list” sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? It’s the kind of language you might find tossed around in a military bombing war exercise.

That’s no coincidence: These government operatives quite literally consider themselves to be at war with the world, and they intend to conquer the world with their genetically modified poisons. They will do anything, it seems, to force-feed their deadly crops to the public.

Read moreUS Conspired to Retaliate Against European Nations If They Resisted GMOs: Wikileaks Cable Reveals

The GMO Orange Scandal

See also:

And Now: GMO Oranges As Solution To Insect-Borne Bacterial Disease


GMO oranges, China, and the loss of another piece of America’s agricultural base


America’s oranges are now in the crosshairs of a genetic modification juggernaut that is sweeping this country and leaving in its wake a swath of destruction so wide and so utterly decimating that recovery seems a distant dream.

The genetic modification of corn and soy has succeeded in infiltrating nearly every processed food in America, with wheat and alfalfa soon to be next. Now it’s oranges. But why?

The orange is the second most profitable fruit crop in America after the grape. Valued at 1.5 billion in 2009, it accounts for 1/6 of all fruit and nut cash receipts. Because it requires a tropical or subtropical climate to flourish, commercial orange production is limited to just four states: Florida, California, Texas and Arizona.

While California does produce the majority of the fresh fruit, Florida dominates the orange juice market. And since orange juice is far more popular than fresh oranges, the Sunshine State rules the orange industry. At last count, more than seventy percent of the oranges grown in America are Florida oranges.

Florida orange juice is the single most profitable and distinctive fruit product in the state. The industry is responsible for over eighty percent of the US supply. As a result, America rarely imports orange juice. (Halegroves.com)

It only makes sense for the biotech industry to go after the largest and most profitable crops. The bigger the crop the better. Why waste time on smaller crops when the larger ones produce more income, and provide more control over production and distribution?

The excuse that is being used for this genetic takeover of the orange industry is a disease called “greening.”

Citrus greening, also known as huanglongbing (HLB) or yellow dragon disease, is one of the most serious citrus diseases in the world. It is a bacterial disease that greatly reduces production, destroys the economic value of fruit, and can kill trees. (APHIS Factsheet PDF )

An insect called a psyllid spreads the disease. This disease was detected in Florida in 2005.

The Asian citrus psyllid, which has been detected in the United States, bears the scientific name Diaphorina citri Kuwayama and is widely distributed in southern Asia and parts of Mexico and Brazil. (APHIS Factsheet)

Since there is no known cure, the best defense is to control the psyllid populations. There are several natural ways to control these pests such as:

  1. Topical applications of insecticidal soaps and neem oils
  2. Natural predators such as lady beetles, lacewings, spiders, and parasitic wasps
  3. Environmental controls such as removing infected branches or trees, creating new hybrids, and planting guava trees among the citrus trees. Infestations seem to be eliminated when the guava trees are used. (Insect Library)

But the USDA is not interested in these natural alternatives.

Read moreThe GMO Orange Scandal

Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Seed Patents May Trump Antitrust Claims

It all began with the ruling that a corporation is legally a ‘person’, which undermined the constitution and was dead wrong.

Then in another case (1980 Diamond v. Chakrabarty) those idiot supreme court judges ruled that it is OK to patent life forms, were before life forms were considered a part of nature and were not patentable.

This ruling lead to corporations patenting the genes of everything they can think of, that could later on bring them profit.


hugh-grant-chief-executive-officer-of-monsanto
Hugh Grant, chief executive officer of Monsanto Co., speaks during an interview in Chicago, Illinois, on Jan. 8, 2010. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg

March 12 (Bloomberg) — Monsanto Co., facing antitrust probes into its genetically modified seeds, may benefit from previous court rulings in which intellectual property rights trumped competition concerns, antitrust lawyers say.

The Department of Justice and seven state attorneys general are investigating whether the world’s largest seed company is using gene licenses to keep competing technologies off the market. At issue is how the St. Louis-based company sells and licenses its patented trait that allows farmers to kill weeds with Roundup herbicide while leaving crops unharmed. The company’s Roundup Ready gene was in 93 percent of U.S. soybeans last year.

“Justice is clearly trying every way it can to see whether Monsanto is exceeding its rights under the patent,” said James Weiss, a Washington-based attorney at K&L Gates LLP who helped defend Microsoft Corp. against a federal antitrust probe. “At the end of the day, they may not be able to do much with it because of the scope of those patents. In almost all the cases, the courts come out on the side of intellectual property.”

Read moreMonsanto’s Genetically Modified Seed Patents May Trump Antitrust Claims

Biotech giants demand a high price for saving the planet

Related Articles:
–  Exposed: the great GM crops myth

The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see

At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile

Companies accused of ‘profiteering’ as they attempt to patent crop genes

Giant biotech companies are privatising the world’s protection against climate change by filing hundreds of monopoly patents on genes that help crops resist it, a new investigation has concluded.

The study – by the authoritative Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), based in Ottawa, Canada – has found that nine firms have filed at least 532 patents around the world on about 55 different genes offering protection against heat, drought and floods. If granted, the companies would be given control of crucial natural raw material needed to maintain food supplies in an increasingly hungry world.

Last week, as world leaders met in Rome to discuss the food crisis, GM companies promoted their technologies as the answer to hunger. On Thursday, Monsanto – the biggest and most controversial firm – announced a “commitment” to increase food production, partly by developing crops that need less water.

“Together we must meet the needs for increased food, fibre and energy, while preserving the environment,” said the company’s head, Hugh Grant. “These commitments represent the beginning of a journey that we will expand on and deepen in the years ahead.”

The ETC Group calls this “an opportunistic public relations strategy”, adding: “Monsanto’s business is selling patented seeds for industrial agriculture – not addressing a humanitarian food crisis.”

The report of its investigation shows that Monsanto and BASF – which last year announced a $1.5bn “collaboration” to develop new GM crops, including “ones more tolerant to adverse environmental conditions such as drought” – have between them filed patents for 27 of the 55 genes. Others had been filed by companies such as Bayer, Syngenta and Dow.

The reports says some of the applications are sweeping. One would cover more than 30 crops from oats to oil palms, triticale to tea, and potatoes to perennial grass – “in other words, virtually all food crops”.

It says the “corporate grab on climate-tolerant genes” means that “a handful of transnational companies are now positioned to determine who gets access to key genetic traits and what price they must pay”.

Small farmers in developing countries will be particularly hard hit by such “climate-change profiteering”. Patenting will make the crops expensive and ensure that poor farmers have to buy them every year, by prohibiting them from saving seeds from one harvest to grow for the next.

According to the report, conventional, non-GM breeding techniques are making remarkable progress in developing crops that can tolerate heat, floods and drought. A new Asian rice, due to go on the market next year, can stand being submerged for two weeks without affecting yields, while a new African one flowers early in the morning, escaping the heat of the day.

But, it says, “the patent grab is sucking up money and resources that could be spent on affordable, farmer-based strategies for survival”.

It concludes: “These patented technologies will ultimately concentrate corporate power, drive up costs, inhibit independent research and further undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds”.

But Croplife, which represents the world’s plant-science industry, retorts; “Patenting is very important. That is how we protect intellectual property and ensure we continue to bring new innovations to the marketplace.” It denies that biotechnology companies are seeking to monopolise world food supplies.

Read moreBiotech giants demand a high price for saving the planet

At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

Related articles:

Exposed: the great GM crops myth
:
“Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.”

BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile

U.S. using food crisis to boost bio-engineered crops

From Seeds of Suicide to Seeds of Hope: Navdanya’s Intervention to Stop Farmers’ Suicides in Vidharbha

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Heather Meek leafs through the seed catalogue she wrote on the family computer, on winter nights after the kids went to bed.

There are Kahnawake Mohawk beans and Painted Mountain corn; Tante Alice cucumber and 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.

Selling seeds is more than just an extra source of income on this organic farm an hour northwest of Montreal.

For Meek and partner Frederic Sauriol, propagating local varieties is part of a David and Goliath struggle by small farmers against big seed companies.

At stake, they believe, is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the harvest and replanted them the following year.

But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds — introduced in 1996 and now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company — have been putting a stop to that practice.

The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they must buy new seeds every year.

Critics charge such contracts confer almost unlimited power over farmers’ lives to multinational companies whose priority is profit. They say GM seeds are sowing a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

But Trish Jordan, a Canadian spokesman for Monsanto, explains that requiring farmers to sign “technology use agreements” allows companies to recoup the cost of developing products.

“Farmers choose these products because of benefits they provide,” Jordan says. “That’s why we’re successful as a company.”

The debate over GM seeds has come into sharp focus as the world faces a food-price crisis that threatens to push millions into starvation.

Read moreAt stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.

U.S. rice farmers want class action against Bayer

KANSAS CITY, Mo., May 23 (Reuters) – Germany’s Bayer AG (BAYG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) is battling to keep thousands of U.S. rice farmers from becoming part of a massive class-action lawsuit over the contamination of commercial rice supplies by a Bayer biotech rice not approved for human consumption.

In hearings this week in federal court in St. Louis, Missouri, lawyers representing rice farmers said about 7,000 long-grain producers in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas should be allowed to seek unspecified damages against Bayer for contamination that was uncovered in August 2006.

Farmers suffered extensive losses, both from a plunge in rice prices, and in a drop in export business as Japan and the European Union moved to restrict U.S. rice from crossing their borders.

Many farmers also were not able to plant a crop the following year because of seed shortages tied to the contamination, and had to undertake costly clean-up efforts, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Bayer is fighting the class-action move, and both sides are now awaiting a ruling from U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry .

Read moreU.S. rice farmers want class action against Bayer

Your Burger on Biotech

Scientists serve up leaner beef, tastier cheddar and healthier ketchup

burger.jpg
The Annotated Hamburger: Photo by Colin Smale; Schnare & Stief/Getty Images; illustration: Mitch Romanowski Design

If the biotech industry has its way, ordering a hamburger might soon sound something like this: “one charbroiled cloned-beef patty, with genetically modified cheese, lab-grown bacon and vitamin-C-fortified lettuce, on a protein-spiked bun.” The burger of the future is delicious, nutritious and contains more engineering than a stealth bomber.

With the Food and Drug Administration ruling in January that meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs, goats and their offspring is safe to eat, the only thing keeping the superburger off your dinner plate is time. It will be a few years yet before cloned meat hits store shelves. Cloning the perfect (and tastiest) cow can cost upward of $15,000, which makes clones themselves too expensive to eat, so we’ll have to wait until they spawn enough offspring (the old-fashioned way) to feed the masses. Meanwhile, researchers are busy formulating all the fixings. Take a look at what science is doing for the burger, from bun to beef and everything in between.

Recipe for Burger 2.0

Vitamin Bun
After isolating a gene in wild wheat that controls protein, zinc and iron content, scientists at the University of California at Davis spliced the gene into domestic wheat, boosting nutrient content by 12 percent.

Cruelty-Free Bacon
Scientists in the Netherlands have grown minced pork in a dish by adding water, glucose and amino acids to pig stem cells. Expect artificial ground meat by 2012 and bacon within the decade.

Better Cheddar
Food engineers are boosting cheddar flavor by adding a bacterial gene that produces an enzyme that eliminates the bitter taste created during ripening.

Leaner Beef
Several companies are cloning the country’s most prized cows to produce leaner, tastier cuts of meat. Ranchers will start breeding the clones this spring, and in five years, the offspring will be ready to grill.

Healthier Ketchup
The ethanol boom is driving up the price of corn syrup, so Heinz is breeding a tomato that is 10 percent sweeter than those grown today. Look for naturally sweeter ketchup by 2010.

High-C Lettuce
By splicing rat genes into lettuce, Virginia Tech scientists figured out how to turn on the vegetable’s latent vitamin-C-producing abilities (rats are natural C-makers). Since rodent-altered lettuce is somewhat unappetizing, the team used the data to identify plant DNA that can do the same thing.

By Rena Marie Pacella Posted 03.17.2008 at 2:55 pm

Source: popsci.com