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The Nation
C.S. Prakash
12/9/2003
Prakash writes of his dismay to learn that anti-technology groups continue to stand in the way of progress in Thailand by promoting misinformation about the safety and benefits of biotech crops. “Scientific and regulatory authorities across Asia and all over the world have endorsed…scientific information that upholds the safety and benefits of biotech crops and foods,” he says. “The reality is that crops developed through plant biotechnology are among the most well-tested, well-characterized and well-regulated food and fiber products ever developed.”
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The Globe and Mail
Robert Wagner
12/6/2003
Robert Wagner of Malaspina University College argues that since food in Canada is labeled for nutritional content or known allergens, and food produced using biotechnology is extensively tested and is the same as other foods in both of these areas, there is no reason for biotech labels. “There is not a single proven case of harm from more than two trillion meals containing GM ingredients. That is safe food.”
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New Scientist
Andy Coghlan
12/6/2003
Biotech sugar beet has more environmental benefits than conventional varieties, according to a new analysis that is the first to measure the wider impact of biotech crops, including their impacts on global warming, the ozone layer and aquatic life. "Overall, herbicide-resistant GM beet was 15 to 50 per cent better for the environment, depending on what impact was being measured," says Richard Phipps of the School of Agriculture at the University of Reading in Berkshire, UK.
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Associated Press
Paul Geitner
12/5/2003
Adding to pressure on European Union governments to lift their blockade on new biotech crops, the European Food Safety Authority said Thursday that Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn is as safe as conventional corn and "unlikely" to have any negative health effects.
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Council for Biotechnology Information
12/1/2003
"Biotechnology continues to be the most rapidly adopted technology in agricultural history due to the social and economic benefits the crops offer farmers and society, particularly the 5 million resource-poor farmers in developing countries," says Clive James, chairman and founder of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications.
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Scotsman.com
Vic Robertson
12/1/2003
Biotech food will eventually win out over the traditional and organic foods, explains Sean Rickard of Cranfield University in England. This growth will be driven by consumers’ desires for new food experiences and growing pressure on healthcare budgets.
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Council for Biotechnology Information
12/1/2003
Today, some believe that what the fortification of foods did to vastly improve health in the 20th century, biotechnology can do for the 21st century. "Biotechnology can help improve the health-promoting profile of food by increasing levels of desirable substances and decreasing allergens and other factors that increase the risk of disease," says Catherine Woteki, dean of Iowa State University's College of Agriculture.
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Washington Post
Justin Gillis
11/30/2003
When a mob of starving African villagers forced their way into a warehouse containing biotech corn, donated by the United States, but locked up by the Zambian government, a feast ensued. “With that momentary act of defiance, the villagers of Munyama not only restocked their barren larders, they unwittingly became symbols in the long-running fight between Europe and the United States over agricultural biotechnology.”
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CBC News
11/29/2003
Agriculture Canada, a department of the Canadian government, has invested nearly $2.5 million in the development of biotech wheat. Murray Fulton, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan, said the government is involved because "they feel a new technology is coming along, [which] needs to be supported because … there will be some benefits to society."
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USA Today
Elizabeth Weise
11/28/2003
The effort to get trans fat, the "deadliest fat in the American diet," out of the food supply is getting a potential boost from the biotech industry, as Monsanto announces plans to produce soybeans that are trans-fat-free. For the consumer, that means the possibility of a new generation of saturated- and trans-fat-free chips, cakes, cookies and fries full of heart-healthy oils at fast-food outlets and on grocery shelves.
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Food Navigator.com
11/27/2003
While the UN’s annual hunger report warns that hunger is on the rise again, a Danish task force asserts that many organizations are falling short in their responsibility to developing countries if they fail to adopt a position with regards to biotech crops and their use in these countries.
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The News Journal
Seam Hao
11/26/2003
Hawaii's pineapple industry is pushing ahead with efforts to produce a pineapple able to resist the ringspot virus using biotechnology, though a commercial version might be five or six years away.
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AgWeb.com
Dean Kleckner
11/26/2003
Just about every American is having a biotech Thanksgiving this year, considering that about 70 percent of the food in the typical grocery store owes something to biotechnology. That figure will only increase in the years ahead. “There is no scientific evidence suggesting that [biotech foods] are anything but perfectly healthy,” says Truth About Trade and Technology’s Dean Kleckner. “If I had even the slightest doubt about biotech food, I wouldn't eat it myself…And I surely wouldn't feed it to the Kleckner clan on Thanksgiving.”
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The Daily Bruin
Joie Guner
11/25/2003
At a symposium entitled "Foods for the Future,” experts on biotechnology spoke on issues ranging from oral vaccines and eliminating food allergens to the regulation of biotech foods and the benefit of these products to developing countries. "The controversy with respect to genetic engineering and plants will go down as the biggest hoax of the last part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century because there are no valid reasons other than ideology that would prevent any of this stuff from going forward," said UCLA’s Robert Goldberg.
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Reuters
Reese Ewing
11/19/2003
At least 50,400 soy producers in Brazil have registered to plant biotech soybeans in the 2003/2004 crop year, according to the Agriculture Ministry. "Here, people don't have any fear of signing up because they know they are planting a product that is not bad for health or the environment, because they can spray less agrochemicals on the crops," said the mayor of Chapada, a region where almost 98 percent of the growers intend to plant biotech soy.
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The Washington Times
Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko
11/18/2003
The United Nations is supposed to be a watchdog of human rights, but it needs watching itself. With its excessive, unscientific regulation of biotechnology, the U.N. has been denying people, especially the poor, the right to feed themselves, buy from others and use their land as they wish.
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The Independent
Robert Pore
11/14/2003
New research from the University of Nebraska confirms that biotech corn has no effect on livestock performance. According to animal scientist Galen Erickson, "The bottom line for livestock producers is they can expect the same livestock performance whether they feed currently available genetically modified corn or conventional corn."
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BBC News
Pallab Ghosh
11/13/2003
The commercial growing of a “protato,” a biotech potato containing nutrients lacking in the diets of many Indians, is expected to be approved in India within six months. One of India's leading industrialists in biotechnology, Dr Balvinder Singh Khalsi, says, "We see this as a technology for the future, because the real need for India is to feed its growing population.”
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The Detroit News
Jodi Upton
11/11/2003
Michigan State University will lead an international team of researchers in a program called HarvestPlus, which will develop supernutritious staple crops for the malnourished in developing countries, including beans with extra iron and zinc, or maize with extra vitamin A. "This is a very important step in curing hunger," said Brian Halweil a senior researcher at The Worldwatch Institute.
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AGI Online
11/11/2003
There is no scientific evidence to suggest that biotech foods are dangerous, Italy’s Health Minister, Girolamo Sirchia, told a Vatican conference. "We need careful decisions but it isn't acceptable to condemn these products in general because they could be an important tool in the war against famine".
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The Financial Express
11/10/2003
In this interview, Dr Vibha Dhawan of The Energy Research Institute’s Centre of Bioresources and Biotechnology in India talks about the crucial role of biotechnology in accelerating agricultural productivity. He also states, “In my opinion, federal regulatory oversight of agricultural biotechnology should be science-based. Methods to ensure the safety of foods derived from [biotech] crops should continue to be refined and improved.”
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USA Today
Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press
11/10/2003
The Vatican has invited scientists, health experts, U.N. officials and farmers' groups to a two-day symposium on biotech foods which some Vatican officials have said could help alleviate world hunger. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, says, "The problem of hunger involves the conscience of every man and in particular those of Christians. For this reason, the Catholic Church follows with special interest and solicitude every development in science to help the solution of a plight that afflicts such a large part of humanity."
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The Financial Express
Sudhir Chowdhary
11/10/2003
According to India’s agricultural commissioner Dr. C.D. Mayee, agricultural biotechnology can help reduce poverty, promote rural development, strengthen trade and economic competitiveness, and encourage agricultural sustainability, even while delivering direct benefits to farmers and consumers. “It is a good option for agriculture since it is accurate, predictable, faster, scientific and safe,” he said.
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Arizona State University
Ishtiaque Masud
11/10/2003
“By 2050, the global population will grow nearly 40 percent to reach 8.9 billion, according to the United Nations. And all these people will need to eat. Here's the problem: Feeding them all will require the current global food output to double or even triple. [Biotech] food may just pose the best solution to this upcoming dilemma.”
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AgWeb
Dean Kleckner
11/6/2003
“Biotech is not only helping us eat smart today – it's going to help us eat even smarter tomorrow,” says farmer Dean Kleckner. “Biotech food means healthier food – and we're just now scratching the surface of what's possible. Soon we're going to hear plenty about tomatoes with cancer-fighting lycopene…[and] a new variety of corn that lowers cholesterol.”
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The Western Producer
Barry Wilson
11/6/2003
The increasingly bitter debate over the safety of biotech crops threatens to sabotage all the benefits that biotechnology can bring to agriculture and the developing world, Canadian federal International Cooperation Minister Susan Whelan warns. In a speech in Nairobi, Kenya, on Oct. 29, she called on developing countries to become more involved in the debate, and on scientists to take seriously the critics of biotech crops.
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International Service of the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications
John Dutcher
11/6/2003
Wider global adoption of biotech corn could produce an additional 35 million metric tons of corn – more than a 5 percent increase globally. That increase could give developing countries a significant boost in meeting rising demand for corn. “Bt corn offers a unique opportunity to provide developing countries with safer and more affordable food and feed, which can make a major contribution in alleviating the hunger and malnutrition that claim 24,000 lives a day in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” said Clive James, chair of ISAAA.
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GhanaWeb.com
Albert Wireko Osei
11/4/2003
Ghana’s ratification of the Catagena Protocol on Bio-safety will have significant meaning for food policy and poverty reduction in the country. The international treaty sets up a comprehensive regulatory system for ensuring the safe development, transfer, handling and use of biotech seed and foods within and across state borders. Biotech foods and agricultural products may now become valuable contributors to producing an “affordable, accessible and available supply of food to feed Ghanaians and those beyond her borders.”
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Benefits Seen in GM Onion Trial
Life Sciences Network
11/3/2003
Federated Farmers of New Zealand (Inc) support an application from a government-owned research company to field test biotech onions designed to tolerate a common herbicide. "By using modified onions it will be possible to control weeds with only two or three applications. This is better for the environment and for growers concerned about risks from exposure to more toxic herbicides," said Hugh Ritchie, the federation's spokesman on biotechnology.
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USDA-ERS Amber Waves
Robbin Shoemaker, D. Demcey Johnson and Elise Gola
11/1/2003
Farmers in the United States have adopted biotech crop varieties because they have benefited from increases in yields and net returns as a result of reduced use of insecticides and herbicides. Farmers also realize non-financial benefits in the form of convenience and reduced management time. The next generation of biotech crops, however, will have qualities – such as enhanced nutritional value or other functional characteristics – that make them attractive to consumers and others. The success of these foods will ultimately depend on consumer attitudes toward agricultural biotechnology.
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Irish Examiner
John Geraghty
10/28/2003
“GM crops, if properly researched, developed and applied, can make a significant contribution to improving food security and increase production in areas where diseases, pests and adverse soil and climatic conditions stop farmers from producing enough food for themselves, their families and the local population.”
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The Grocery Manufacturers of America
Stephanie Childs
10/21/2003
According to Karil Kochenderfer of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, “The European Union has codified a new barrier to trade by requiring mandatory traceability and labeling of all biotech ingredients.” He further explains, “Numerous scientific organizations, including the European Commission and the French National Academy of Sciences have repeatedly stated that biotech foods are as safe, if not safer than, conventional varieties of foods.”
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Why Frankenfoods Will Save the Planet
Wall Street Journal Europe
Jonathan Rauch
10/21/2003
Growing biotech crops could harm the environment, but failing to grow them could harm the environment a great deal more. The potential environmental benefits of biotech crops are large; and, among those benefits, the preservation of wildlife and wild lands is possibly the largest of all. Biotech crops offer hope of greatly increasing productivity from existing fields and reducing pesticide use by millions of pounds, which is why a growing number of American environmentalists are beginning to see biotechnology as an important tool.
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Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) Media Release
10/21/2003
“Worldwide adoption of biotechnology in crop production has the potential to generate substantial gains in global welfare”, Dr Brian Fisher, Executive Director of ABARE, said today when releasing the report, Agricultural Biotechnology: Potential for Use in Developing Countries.
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Des Moines Register
Anne Fitzgerald
10/21/2003
The upper Midwest produces millions of acres of crops, and has dozens of agricultural research operations, including many that employ biotechnology. Agricultural biotechnology endeavors generally have not been the targets of sabotage, but companies have added security in recent years. "I think it's basically a question of being vigilant," said Walter Fehr, a soybean agronomist and head of agricultural biotechnology research at Iowa State University.
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Nature Publishing Group
10/20/2003
Today, four countries account for 99 percent of the world's commercially grown biotech crops. However, biotechnology continues to take root around the world as policies are thrashed out, laws drawn up and seeds sown.
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The Globe and Mail
10/20/2003
Whatever environmental changes biotech crops might cause must be weighed against the enormous potential advantages they will bring. Some biotech crops allow farmers to use less pesticide, while others resist common herbicides, thus reducing weeds. Still other crops require less fertilizer, another potential pollutant. In addition, biotech crops are generally more productive, meaning that less land has to be cultivated to produce the same amount of food. For all of these reasons, it is odd that the environmental movement has become so fixated on the threat it sees in biotech foods.
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Tech Central Station
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri
10/20/2003
India and Brazil are continents apart, yet the experience of farmers in both countries illustrates their common desire to access new technologies, improve productivity and reach new markets. Indeed, the future of agriculture biotechnology may rest on what happens in these two large agriculturally significant countries. The increasing demand for biotech seeds by farmers is forcing the hands of the governments in both countries.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Jim Rogers and Jerry Redding
10/17/2003
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has announced the establishment of a dedicated compliance and enforcement unit within its Biotechnology Regulatory Services program. "Compliance with APHIS' biotechnology regulations has been very high over the past 15 years, but with the ever-changing science, it is imperative that the safeguards in place to protect America's agriculture continue to evolve," said APHIS Administrator Bobby Acord.
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The California Aggie
Peter Hamilton
10/15/2003
Researchers have discovered and cloned the gene that protects potatoes from all known strains of potato blight. A biotech potato containing the gene will be very beneficial to both the United States and the developing world. It could be only a matter of time before the resistant potatoes are commercially used, says John Helgeson of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, who notes that “the environmental stress of thousands of tons of fungicides could be reduced or eliminated.”
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Associated Press
10/15/2003
HarvestPlus, a group working to provide more nutritious food to the world's poor, has received a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The money will be used to fund a project on bio-fortification, as well as to conduct further research on biotech crops. "We're very convinced that this is where the breakthroughs will come in the future,” said Joachim Voss, director general of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
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International Food Policy Research Institute
Joel I. Cohen, Hector Quemada, Robert Frederick
10/10/2003
“Crop biotechnology, appropriately applied, has the potential to address key production constraints affecting resource-poor farmers,” states the report. It also stresses the importance of capacity building for biotechnology and biosafety in developing countries.
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National Corn Growers Association
10/10/2003
International visitors who participated in the Nebraska Harvest Tour got a firsthand view of biotechnology and, hopefully, a better understanding of the technology’s importance, according to Nathan Danielson of the National Corn Growers Association. “These other countries are concerned about biotechnology, and a lot of it is because there isn’t good dialogue among the nations.”
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Truth About Trade & Technology
Dean Kleckner
10/10/2003
The next generation of biotech food will be driven almost entirely by its appeal to consumers. From foods that are made heart-healthy through biotechnology to crops that will help fight diseases, biotechnology is about to take a big step forward with the American public. “In a few years, everybody will know they’re consuming biotech foods. And they’ll be glad about it,” says Kleckner.
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Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
David Elstein
10/9/2003
Scientists are developing new varieties of corn and other food crops that have higher levels of vitamin E. In addition to making the crop more nutritious, boosting vitamin vitamin E levels is likely to increase the crop's shelf life.
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United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
10/7/2003
Africa must seize the opportunity offered by biotech, explained Kingsley Amoako, head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), to a conference on sustainable development in Ethiopia. A recent report issued by the ECA states, “The biggest risk would be to do nothing and let the biotechnology revolution bypass the continent.”
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Grand Forks Herald
Terry Wanzek
10/5/2003
It appears that North Dakota will not impose a ban on biotech wheat anytime in the near future. Although opponents of biotechnology have tried twice to enact a moratorium on biotech wheat in North Dakota, they've failed both times, and their efforts are growing weaker. “We stand at the threshold of a new era in which biotechnology will help us keep pace in a growing world. It's a wonderful opportunity that the people of North Dakota appear ready to seize,” says former state senator Terry Wanzek.
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ZENIT, The World Seen From Rome
10/4/2003
The long-running debate over biotech crops is being examined by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Interest in what will be Rome's position on the subject is running high, as reports have indicated that the Vatican is opening up to the idea of approving biotech crops. Archbishop Renato Martino, the president of Justice and Peace, has said that it is imperative to find a way to bring food to those who are starving.
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Council for Biotechnology Information
10/1/2003
Growing biotech crops in Africa has gained another voice of support in former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter. In a speech in September at the United Nations University in Tokyo, Carter condemned those who portray biotechnology as a threat to safety and to the environment without offering any facts to back up such claims. "There has never been any evidence of a hazard to humans or animals," he said.
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Council for Biotechnology Information
10/1/2003
Researchers from around the world are working to develop biotech bananas that are resistant to two of the fruit's worst enemies – black Sigatoka and Panama fungal diseases. Recognition is growing that biotechnology may be the only way to save the banana from the ever-changing pests and diseases that prey on it.
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New York Times
Tony Smith
9/25/2003
Brazilian farmers, the world's No. 2 producers of soybeans, got the go-ahead today to plant biotech seeds this season after the country's vice president, José Alencar, said he would lift a ban on biotech crops. "This decree essentially legalizes what was already happening, but it is important," said Amaryllis Romano, agribusiness analyst at Tendencias, a consultant in São Paulo.
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UPI Science News
Gene J. Koprowski
9/19/2003
A recent ruling by the European Court of Justice is raising U.S. hopes that some European regulators might take a more scientific approach to regulating the sale of biotech foods. The ruling asserts Europena governments cannot ban the sale of biotech foods in their domestic markets based on concerns over the quality and safety of the products that are “purely hypothetical or founded on mere suppositions which are not yet verified.”
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Expatica
9/18/2003
Researchers at the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Research in Gatersleben, Germany have created biotech potatoes that produce a cancer-fighting vaccine. Consumption of the potatoes, which contain proteins similar to those in the outer layer of human papilloma virus (HPV), leads the body to produce antibodies and create an immunity to HPV 16, the cause of about half of all cases of cervical cancer.
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Reuters
David Evans
9/18/2003
French maize farmers will be swift in adopting new biotech strains once regulatory hurdles are swept away under EU law in the pipeline, officials from the main corn seed growers' association say. “Once it takes off, I see exponential growth in their use and it will happen quite quickly," says Gregoire Berthe, president of the association.
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Reason Online
Ronald Bailey
9/17/2003
Villagers in the small town of Valle Verde, Mexico are not afraid of biotech crops. Despite efforts by anti-biotech activists to frighten the villagers into declining biotech food, not a single village woman was persuaded by the scare tactics, and all readily accepted donations of the food. One woman declared, “We just know that the food is good; we buy it all the time in the stores.”
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World Environment News
9/11/2003
If the European Union opens its market to two new biotech corn varieties, American farmers will grow the crops on a massive scale, says a United States biotech analyst. Leonard Gianessi, of the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy said a positive EU decision would spur the biotechnology sector in the U.S. "We would expect to see an increase of 50-60 percent in the number of acres of biotech maize (corn) under cultivation."
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BBC News
Orla Ryan
9/11/2003
President George W. Bush has said Africa is losing out by not adopting biotech crops. Now Uganda's President, Yoweri Museveni, has also made clear that he is convinced of the logic for biotech food. Steps are underway to put a law in place governing the adoption and use of biotech foods in Uganda. According to Dr. Mugoya of the National Council for Science and Technology, the real risk is that Uganda is left behind, not that they move too fast.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture
J. B. Penn, Under Secretary, Farm and Foreign Agri
9/1/2003
Biotechnology, according to J.B. Penn, “in combination with political and economic reforms, can increase crop productivity by increasing yields and improving the nutritional content of crops in developing countries. It will also help provide lower-cost food to low-income consumers. Bringing such benefits to developing countries would have far-reaching results.” Penn also says that biotechnology is simply another crop improvement tool in the long history of cultivation.
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Lester M. Crawford, Deputy Commissioner, FDA
9/1/2003
Biotechnology provides distinct advantages over traditional breeding technologies, says Deputy U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford. Crawford also argues that there are no scientific reasons that a product should include a label indicating that it was produced using biotechnology. “We believe that we have neither a scientific nor a legal basis to require such labeling,” he explains.
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Biotechnology Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Bruce Chassy
9/1/2003
“There is accumulating evidence that biotech crops can be more productive and profitable for farmers,” says Chassy. He goes on to say that biotechnology is now being directed at improving the production and yield of African staple crops and improving the nutritional value of the African diet. “Over the long term, agricultural biotechnology promises to play a crucial role in the improving agricultural productivity and reducing the environmental impact of agriculture, leading to agricultural sustainability and food security in many regions of the world.”
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AgBioForum
Jikun Huang and Qinfang Wang, Chinese Academy of S
9/1/2003
Chinese policymakers consider agricultural biotechnology as a strategic tool for improving national food security, raising agricultural productivity, and creating a competitive position in international agricultural markets. According to the authors, “The demand of producers (for productivity-enhancing technology) and consumers (for cost savings), the current…increase of research investments, and past success in developing technologies suggest that products from China's plant biotechnology industry are likely to become widespread in China in the near future.”
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Alan Larson, Under Secretary of State for Economic
9/1/2003
“Biotechnology is one of the most promising new technologies of our times,” says Larson. He goes on to say that the unjustified restrictions some countries have imposed on biotech crops “threaten the international trading system and are preventing developing countries from exploring the enormous potential of biotechnology to improve the lives of their people.”
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All Africa
Gerald Tenywa
8/25/2003
Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, has allowed the importation of biotech foods into the country. Mugerwa said biotechnology would enhance food security, especially in the poor countries. "I am now fully mobilized to accept biotechnology," Museveni said.
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SciDev.Net
Innocent Sithole
8/22/2003
A team of African scientists set up by the 14 nations of the Southern African Development Community to investigate the effects of biotech foods has concluded that they pose no immediate risk to humans and animals. The scientists also advise the South African nations should the technology, because of its potential to increase agricultural yields.
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Independent Online
8/22/2003
Biotech crops pose no danger to humans, British Nobel prize winner Timothy Hunt said at a European technology forum taking place in Austria. "If gene manipulated organisms can grow better in the developing countries, we should not deny the population there these advantages...," says Hunt.
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Grand Forks Herald
8/15/2003
Biotech crops are a reality. They have become - and will continue to become - crucial to the development of agriculture, not only in the United States, but worldwide. As North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture Roger Johnson said: "That genie is out of the bottle." And it should be. Responsibly managed and scientifically evolved, it can be a benevolent genie.
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AGRI-News
Daniel J. Grant
8/14/2003
According to German Perez D-Estephen, assistant secretary of agriculture in Honduras, the main concern right now, about biotech crops, is simply a fear of the unknown. However, Honduras currently imports all its soybeans from the U.S., a country which plants roughly three-quarters of its soybean crop in biotech varieties. D-Estephen said that Honduras will continue to accept biotech foods as long as the products continue to prove themselves. "If we see the products are working well, then we won’t have any problem adopting them," he added.
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Canadian Press / Associated Press
8/7/2003
The U.S. administration has requested formation of a World Trade Organization dispute panel as the United States presses ahead with a case against the European Union over genetically modified food. "This trade barrier harms farmers and consumers around the world by denying them the benefits of productive, nutritious and environmentally friendly biotech products," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said in a statement.
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Information Systems for Biotechnology - IBS News Report
Phillip B. C. Jones
8/1/2003
While the latest EU efforts may end the moratorium, the new rules on labeling and traceability pose difficulties for U.S. agriculture. In fact, Bob Callanan, a spokesman for the American Soybean Association, characterized the rules as "outrageously stupid."
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Bloomberg
7/22/2003
European Union governments gave their final approval to standards for labeling and tracing genetically modified food throughout the bloc's 15-nation food chain, a move that may prompt a U.S. challenge at the World Trade Organization. “They are simply replacing one trade barrier with a worse trade barrier,” said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
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St. Joseph News-Press
Charles Crain
7/21/2003
“Some governments are blocking the import of crops grown with biotechnology, which discourages African countries from producing and exporting these crops,” President Bush said in laying out his agenda for his visit to Africa. “The ban of these countries is unfounded. It is unscientific. It is undermining the agricultural future of Africa.” The president’s faith in genetically modified foods is shared by farmers and scientists across the United States, who see a weapon against hunger and disease in genetically modified crops.
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UC Berkeley News
Kathryn Stelljes, College of Natural Resources
7/11/2003
Biotechnology, chemical fertilizers, and policy changes will be key to feeding the world's increasing population and protecting the environment, according to Nobel Laureate Norman E. Borlaug. "We should use any new crop variety that has an advantage over what is already out there. If you wait for perfection, you'll never produce anything," he says.
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Biosafety News
7/1/2003
Speaking during the launch of the Biotechnology Outreach Society of Zambia, Dr Bruce Siamasonta, an official from the Zambia Cotton Development Trust, told delegates: “Technology will not wait for us, it is advancing. Therefore if we do not go for it now, it will come to us later, at a price.” He said biotechnology would greatly contribute to domestic food security through improved agricultural production, improved quality of agricultural commodities and increased income earnings to farmers.
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A Harvest.net
1/1/2003
In many ways, the European Union’s moratorium on biotech food and crops translates to a negative blow for Africa. The African continent, more than any other, urgently needs agricultural biotechnology to improve food production. “Africa cannot afford to be excluded or to miss another major global 'technological revolution' because of the ‘blackmail’ of trade.”
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