7 October 2019 — GMWatch
British negotiators keen to jettison EU restrictions on GMO foods – a key demand of US trade negotiators
When Boris Johnson used his first three speeches as UK Prime Minister to flag up his desire to “liberate” GMOs as part of Brexit, we warned that this meant his priority was doing a trade deal with Donald Trump at any cost. Johnson, we said, was “simply dancing, puppet-like, to Trump’s tune”.
4 October 2019 — GMWatch
After more than 10 years of battling Monsanto’s “bogus” drought tolerant maize project, the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has welcomed the decision by the Minister of Agriculture, Ms Thoko Didiza, upholding the decision by the Executive Council: GMO Act and the appeal board to reject Monsanto’s application for the commercial cultivation of its triple-stacked “drought-tolerant” GM maize seed.
1 October 2019 — Physics and Astronomy Zone
Its sting hurts a lot, but if they were to disappear, it would hurt much more.
The Earthwatch Institute concluded in the last debate of the Royal Geographical Society of London, that bees are the most important living being on the planet, however, scientists have also made an announcement: Bees have already entered into extinction risk.
4 September 2019 — Common Dreams
“What we need is more humming and buzzing.”
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer
Protesters hold balloons on January 20, 2018 in Berlin during a demonstration under the slogan “We are fed up” against agricultural politics and the use of glyphosate, dumping exports and for sustainable agriculture. (Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images)
The German government announced Wednesday it had agreed on a plan to phase out the use of glyphosate—the key chemical in the weedkiller Roundup—with a total ban set to begin by the end of 2023.
24 August 2019 — Colin Todhunter
In his first speech to parliament as British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said:
Let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.
Johnson reads from a well-rehearsed script. The ‘GM will feed the world mantra’ is pure industry spin. There is already enough food being produced to feed the global population yet around 830 million are classed as hungry. Feeding the world effectively, sustainably and equitably involves addressing the in-built injustices of the global food system.
19 August 2019 — Counter Currents
Many lobbyists talk a lot about critics of genetic engineering technology denying choice to farmers. They say that farmers should have access to a range of tools and technologies to maximise choice and options. At the same time, somewhat ironically, they decry organic agriculture and proven agroecological approaches, presumably because these practices have no need for the proprietary inputs of the global agrochemical/agritech corporations they are in bed with. And presumably because agroecology represents liberation from the tyranny of these profiteering, environment-damaging global conglomerates.
28 July 2019 — Off Guardian
A special report in the Observer newspaper in the UK on 23 June 2019 asked the question: Why is life expectancy faltering? The piece noted that for the first time in 100 years, Britons are dying earlier. The UK now has the worst health trends in Western Europe.
27 July 2019 — Counter Currents
Environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason has just written to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Chemicals Regulation Division (HSE) in the UK claiming that the glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup has poisoned her nature reserve in South Wales and is also poisoning people across the UK (she includes herself here, as she struggles with a neurodegenerative condition). She notes that the widespread spraying of glyphosate went against the advice of directive 2009/128/EC of the European parliament but was carried out at the behest of the agrochemicals industry.
19 July 2019 — Global Research
By EWG
Farmers can keep spraying fruits and vegetables with a pesticide shown to harm a child’s brain even at low levels of exposure, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency said today.
19 July 2019 — Dissident Voice
The first part of this article documenting the development of BSE in Britain was written by Rosemary Mason and is taken from her new report. It is fully referenced and cites sources and evidence in support of her claims. Additional reporting for the second part of the article was provided by Colin Todhunter.
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4 July 2019 — The New Dark Age
Why did the European Food Safety Authority claim that glyphosate was not ecotoxic? This is the question environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason poses in her new 23-page report which can be accessed in full here.
In places, the report reads like a compilation of peer-reviewed studies and official reports that have documented the adverse impacts of chemicals used in modern agriculture.
28 June 2019 — Activist Post
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has gone out of its way, and even ‘fallen all over itself’ in trying to present a somewhat balanced 257-page report regarding the agricultural herbicide glyphosate for the purpose of soliciting consumer public comment by July 8, 2019, the due date.
