maize

GM Lags Behind Conventional In Drought-Resistant Maize Breeding Efforts

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– GM Lags Behind Conventional in Drought-Resistant Maize Breeding Efforts (Sustainable Pulse. Sep 17, 2014):

An important article has been published in Nature journal. “Cross-bred crops get fit faster”, by Natasha Gilbert, explains how genetic engineering lags behind conventional breeding in efforts to create drought-resistant maize for Africa.

drought-maize

Source: Comment by Claire Robinson of GMWatch

Gilbert writes, “Old-fashioned breeding techniques seem to be leading genetic modification in a race to develop crops that can withstand drought and poor soils.”

Read moreGM Lags Behind Conventional In Drought-Resistant Maize Breeding Efforts

French Ban Of Monsanto GM Maize Rejected And Overruled By EU

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The EU’s food safety body ruled there is ‘no specific scientific evidence’ that the insect-resistant strain is harmful to health or the environment


Jose Bove and other activists protest genetically modified crops in a field in France. Photograph: Michel Gangne/AFP/Getty– French ban of Monsanto GM maize rejected by EU (Guardian, May 22, 2012): 

France’s attempt to ban the planting of a Monsanto strain of genetically modified maize was rejected by the EU’s food safety body on Monday.

In response to scientific evidence submitted by France backing its bid to ban the GM maize, the European Food Safety Authority ruled that “there is no specific scientific evidence, in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment” to support a ban.

In 2008, France banned the the strain MON 810 following public protests against the GM maize, but this was overturned by a French court in 2011. However, in March the French government reinstated the ban, with the then agricultural minister Bruno Le Maire saying the move was “to protect the environment”.

Read moreFrench Ban Of Monsanto GM Maize Rejected And Overruled By EU

Hungary Destroys All GMO Maize Fields (Around 400 Hectares) – GMO Seeds Are Banned In Hungary BUT Controllers Found Pioneer And Monsanto Products

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See also:

– Peru Approves 10 Year BAN on GM Crops

– Hungary destroys all GMO maize fields (All About Feed, 13 July, 2011):

Some 400 hectares of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said.
The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added. Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary.

Authorities have been checking for GMO crops since the beginning of this year as a new regulation came in force this March which stipulates GMO checks before seeds are introduced to the market.

The checks will continue despite the fact that seed traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.

Compensation unlikely

Controllers have found Pioneer and Monsanto products among the seeds planted. The free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will not investigate how the seeds arrived in Hungary but they will check where the goods can be found, Bognar said.

Read moreHungary Destroys All GMO Maize Fields (Around 400 Hectares) – GMO Seeds Are Banned In Hungary BUT Controllers Found Pioneer And Monsanto Products

US Trade Chief Urges Europe to Open Market to GM Food

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… or else:

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

Enjoy US GM cuisine without fear?

Far more Europeans, than Americans, are aware of the fact that GM food alters the DNA, changes brain waves, destroys the immune system, the organs and makes people infertile.

And when travelling to the US, to enjoy that GM junk cuisine,  Europeans  have the choice to get either radiated or sexually assaulted by the TSA.

At least 80 percent of ‘food’ in the supermarkets is contaminated with GMOs in the US, with no labeling required, although the vast majority of Americans wants it, because this would make Americans insecure, says the US government.

These are all good reasons to pay the land of the free a visit, where the rule of law has no meaning anymore, right?

– Despite a Court Ban USDA Allows Commercial Planting of Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Sugar Beets

Europeans know exactly that the elite plans to turn the EU into one Big Brother, fascist police state, feeding its citizens GM junk, adding mind-control chemicals into the water that make people docile and infertile like in the US, where 70% of the drinking water is fluoridated.

Hitler and Stalin did that in their concentration camps and gulags.

Wake up America and Europe stay awake!

And Mrs. Sapiro …



BRUSSELS – A top US trade official said she will bang down the door of the European Commission Thursday in a bid to break a long-standing impasse blocking the march of genetically-modified foods.

“When Europeans come to the United States, they come and enjoy our cuisine without any fears,” Deputy US Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro told an audience of policymakers in Brussels ahead of talks with European Union trade commissioner Karel De Gucht’s senior officials.

“Why should we have different standards in Europe? That alone is a reason to change position.

“I will be raising that issue today — it is important to address, and to continue to press the commission to go the right way. Decisions on GM foods need to be science-based,” she insisted, underlining her confidence in US safety standards.

A day earlier, a committee of experts from the 27 EU states pushed back a commission proposal to lift import restrictions on animal foodstuffs containing traces of GM crops, up to a certain threshold, due to opposition from France and Poland.

Similarly, intra-EU divisions meant authorisation for growing was not granted for three new strains of GM maize and one of GM cotton, marketed by Syngenta and US giant Dow AgroSciences, although the commission will try again on March 1.

Read moreUS Trade Chief Urges Europe to Open Market to GM Food

Germany bans Monsanto’s GM maize

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Greenpeace has long campaigned against the planting of GM maize

Germany is to ban the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) maize – the only GM crop widely grown in Europe.

The decision, announced on Tuesday by German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner, is a blow to the US biotech firm Monsanto, which markets the maize.

Monsanto’s variety, called MON 810, is resistant to the corn borer, a moth larva which eats the stem.

MON 810 is controversial in the EU. Several countries have banned it, defying the European Commission.

Ms Aigner, a member of the conservative Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU), said she had concluded that “there is a justifiable reason to believe that… MON 810 presents a danger to the environment”.

The variety has been allowed in Germany since 2005. Ms Aigner said the decision to ban it now, based on new data, was purely scientific, not political. She also said it was a specific case, and not a fundamental decision against all GM crops.

In March EU governments resisted European Commission pressure to get bans on MON 810 lifted. The commission wanted Austria and Hungary to allow cultivation of MON 810. The variety is also banned in France and Greece.

Read moreGermany bans Monsanto’s GM maize

Food riots to worsen without global action: U.N.

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ROME (Reuters) – Food riots in developing countries will spread unless world leaders take major steps to reduce prices for the poor, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Friday.

Despite a forecast 2.6 percent hike (This is disinformation.) in global cereal output this year, record prices are unlikely to fall, forcing poorer countries’ food import bills up 56 percent and hungry people on to the streets, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said.

“The reality is that people are dying already in the riots,” Diouf told a news conference.

“They are dying because of their reaction to the situation and if we don’t take the necessary action there is certainly the possibility that they might die of starvation. Naturally people won’t be sitting dying of starvation, they will react.”

The FAO said food riots had broken out in several African countries, Indonesia, the Philippines and Haiti. Thirty-seven countries face food crises, it said in its latest World Food Situation report.

Read moreFood riots to worsen without global action: U.N.