Opinion: Attacks against GMOs? Why I take it personally

I’m a farmer who likes to scroll through Twitter. Not long ago, a tweet popped up from a Manitoba farmer criticizing a local cheese maker for pasting Non-GMO Project Verified labels on some products. It started a conversation that I’ve seen a hundred times online: Should companies be able to market whatever and however they

Editorial: Butt out

Recently Manitoba’s Bothwell Cheese announced it had received Project GMO certification for one of its product lines. Boiled down, it means the cheese in question is made from milk that comes from cows fed non-GMO feed. The move came, the company explained at the time, as a result of consumers asking for such a product.


Editorial: Consumer divorce

Talking to farmers these days about their relationship with consumers is like talking to a jilted lover. They can’t understand what’s just happened. In their minds, things were going so well. They’ve done what consumers asked, provided cheap and safe food, produced with the most modern technology. Everything was going along swimmingly, farmers thought. True,

Editorial: The upside of losing

It would appear that agri-industry is losing its two-decade-long battle to prevent labels on foods produced from genetically modified crops. This despite the millions upon millions of dollars poured into aggressive anti-labelling campaigns during state referendums on the issue. It has been a fascinating development to watch. Even as the pro-labellers successfully convinced legislators in

Facts alone are unconvincing when it comes to our food

Facts alone are unconvincing when it comes to our food

Science offers farmers a great many things, but ethical justification isn’t one of them

It gets used to defend GMOs, livestock production and food additives. But when speaking to consumers, experts say it is time to retire the phrase “science based” and focus on shared values instead. “You cannot abandon science, you absolutely have to have that to prove the claims you’re making, but at the end of the


Monsanto versus Schmeiser to play out on Winnipeg stage

Prairie Theatre Exchange will host ‘Seeds’ as part of its latest tour

The tale of the Prairie farmer who fought the good fight for saved seed, or tried and failed to game a multinational agribusiness, or maybe both — or neither, is coming to the Winnipeg stage. Seeds, written by playwright Annabel Soutar, will run for 19 performances at Prairie Theatre Exchange (PTE) in Portage Place from

Farm groups reject anti-GM crop report claims

The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network questions whether yield gains are due to GM technology

A report that claims genetically modified crops are no more productive than conventional ones doesn’t match the reality of what Canadian farmers find in their fields every year, farm groups say. The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, which opposes GM crops, says in a report that yields of GM and conventional crop varieties “have increased at

tomato being injected with a syringe

The cognitive science behind opposition to GMOs

Anti-GMO messages resonate with human intuitions about meddling with nature

A team of Belgian philosophers and plant biotechnologists has turned to cognitive science to explain why opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has become so widespread, despite positive contributions GM crops have made to sustainable agriculture. In a paper published April 10 in Trends in Plant Science, they argue that the human mind is highly