China Proposes GMO Legislation

China’s National People’s Congress, or parliament, is proposing legislation on the management of genetically modified (GMO) food, the official Xinhua news agency said in a report seen Dec. 27. The legislation will cover the import and export of GMO food and production, development and research of GMO grains. China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection is preparing

Monsanto Committed To Canola

Derek Penner was an infant when canola, a healthier derivative of rapeseed, was first developed in 1974 at the University of Manitoba in collaboration with Agriculture Canada. Last week, the youthful president of Monsanto Canada helped open Monsanto’s new $12-million canola-breeding centre at the U of M’s Smartpark. “It embodies Monsanto’s very best in research


Brazil To Produce GMO-Free Soy Seed

World No. 2 soy grower Brazil has launched a program to produce more GMO-free seed as modified varieties marketed by multinational biotech firms are squeezing out the conventional type. The program will focus on Brazil’s top soy state, Mato Grosso, and comes in response to growers’ increasing difficulty in finding sufficient conventional soy seed to

EU Reviews GM Crop Assessment Rules

BRUSSELS/REUTERS The EU’s food-safety watchdog issued new guidelines Nov. 12 for assessing the environmental impacts of genetically modified (GM) plants, as part of a shakeup of the bloc’s GM crop approval system. The guidelines from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) set out new assessment procedures for biotech companies when submitting GM crops for EU


Letters – for Nov. 11, 2010

Ron Doering, former head of CFIA, suggests in the Nov. 4 Manitoba Co-operatorthat the reason that there are almost no Canadian agri-food products in grocery stores in China is simply because we are too timid to grasp this golden opportunity. Solution: more trade missions, more marketing effort in China. His views will go over well

China Quarantine Bureau Rejects U.S. Corn Cargo

China’s quarantine bureau confirmed Nov. 2 that it had discovered traces of an unapproved genetically modified organism (GMO) in a U.S. corn cargo and had refused its entry into China. “A genetically modified element which is not approved by the Agriculture Ministry has been identified in the cargo and according to the relevant State Council


USDA Issues Draft Plan

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a draft proposal to again allow farmers to grow Monsanto Co.’s genetically modified sugar beets. A U.S. district court in California has ruled that the sugar beets cannot be produced until the USDA issues a full environmental impact study, which the department does not expect to complete until

Monsanto Sees “Right Time” For GMO Wheat Varieties

Monsanto Co. could start field testing genetically modified wheat within one to two years, but remains cautious about future commercialization, according to one of the company’s top wheat technology executives. Six years after shelving a biotech wheat product in the face of stiff market resistance, Monsanto still sees a need for circumspection, but believes building


INRA Halts Research On Developing New GMO Varieties

Europe’s top farm researcher has abandoned work on developing new genetically modified crops (GMOs) due to widespread distrust and even hostility by European consumers. “We have no research on GMO innovation anymore, none,” Marion Guillou, president of the National Institute for Agronomical Research (INRA), told Reuters in an interview. INRA, which has more than 1,800

USDA Issues Draft Plan Allowing GM Sugar Beets

The U.S. Depar tment of Agriculture issued a draft proposal on Nov. 2 to again allow farmers to grow Monsanto’s genetically modified sugar beets, which are fiercely opposed by environmentalists. A U.S. district court in California has ruled that the sugar beets cannot be produced until the USDA issues a full environmental impact study, which