Environmental groups failed to show that seed plants for Roundup Ready Sugar Beets would cause irreparable harm, a federal appeals court said Friday. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a previous injunction that called for the destruction of the plants. “We conclude the district court abused its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction requiring [...]
Archive for the ‘Biotech’ Category
7 Feb
USDA Announces Partial Deregulation of Biotech Sugar Beets
The Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced Friday it will partially deregulate biotech sugar beets. The decision means farmers can resume plantings of sugar beets that had been barred by a federal judge. “After conducting an environmental assessment, accepting and reviewing public comments and conducting a plant pest risk assessment, APHIS has [...]
28 Jan
USDA Announces Deregulation of Biotech Alfalfa
The Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on Thursday announced its decision to grant non-regulated status for alfalfa that has been genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide commercially known as Roundup. “After conducting a thorough and transparent examination of alfalfa through a multi-alternative environmental impact statement and several public comment opportunities, [...]
27 Jan
Guest Commentary
The Problem with Roundup Ready Alfalfa By Rob Jones Round-Up Ready alfalfa? When I first heard about this I was puzzled why a company would risk so much investment in a crop that is characterized by taking care of itself when it comes to weeds. Sure it takes a while to get it established, but [...]
27 Dec
USDA U-Turn on Roundup Ready Alfalfa
Despite the USDA’s own proposal from last year, Sec. Vilsack’s department is now reversing course on deregulating Roundup Ready Alfalfa. According to the Department’s environmental review, the alfalfa was judged substantially equivalent to other varieties without red flags for regulators. But instead of taking the news as a green light to let the alfalfa on [...]
22 Dec
Sugar Beet Decision Delayed Again
Genetically modified sugar beet plants that would produce seeds for the 2012 planting season can’t yet be destroyed as ordered by a judge, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals put on hold until Feb. 28 a judges Nov. 30 order to dig up 256 acres of sugar beet [...]
4 Nov
A New Solution for Beets
The USDA has unveiled a plan that would allow the planting of Roundup Ready sugar beets in 2011 under strict regulations. According to The Wall Street Journal, the USDA’s proposal represents the preliminary stage of the process and will be followed by a 30-day comment period before the department makes a final decision. The USDA [...]
6 Oct
‘Demonizing’ Biotech Crops Hurts Hungry Populations
Supporters of biotech crops should concentrate on keeping European officials from “demonizing” this method of production so that the technology can benefit developing countries with hungry populations, Roger Beachy, head of the Agriculture Department’s National Institutes of Food and Agriculture, said Tuesday. Arguing that using biotech crops boosts yields is not persuasive in Europe due [...]
5 Oct
Biotech Sugar Beets on Hold Again
The uncertainty continues over the planting of Roundup Ready sugar beets in 2011. A federal judge in California has ruled that USDA has once again violated a federal environmental law by allowing companies to plant Roundup Ready sugar beet seedlings. In August, Judge Jeffrey White ruled that USDA was wrong in deregulating Round Ready sugar beets [...]
26 Aug
Iowa Grand Champion Steer is a Clone
DTN reports that the 2010 Iowa grand champion steer was a clone of the animal that won the same event in 2008. The crossbred steer was shown by Tyler Faber of Sioux Center, Iowa. According to the DTN report, Faber’s father, David Faber, is president of Trans Ova, a livestock production company in Sioux Center. [...]
23 Aug
Wheat Research Reveals Exciting Traits
Texas AgriLife Research scientists have discovered a resistance gene to one of the most plaguing wheat viruses today. Studying a Colorado wheat variety, scientists identified the gene providing resistance to wheat streak mosaic virus. The virus is one of the most common wheat viruses found in the 75 million acres of wheat in the US. [...]
16 Aug
Judge Revokes USDA’s Approval of Biotech Sugar Beets
Federal District Court Judge Jeffrey White revoked the Agriculture Department’s approval of Roundup Ready sugar beets Friday because the department had not adequately assessed the environmental consequences before approving them for commercial cultivation. The decision appears to effectively ban the planting of biotech sugar beets, which make up 95 percent of the crop, until USDA [...]
26 Jul
Congress in support of Roundup Ready Alfalfa
Seventy-five house members on Friday signed a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack urging the USDA to partially deregulate Roundup Ready alfalfa (RRA) in time for inventoried seed to be planted in 2010. The largely bi-partisan effort, organized by Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS), is intended to make the benefits from a recent ruling of the [...]
7 Jul
Monsanto and BASF to Expand Collaboration into Wheat
Wheat is now to be included in the joint research efforts of Monsanto and BASF. Joining efforts and resources in 2007, the two companies are dedicated to developing high-yielding and stress-tolerant products of the major crops, including corn, soy, cotton and canola. Previously abandoning wheat after incurring widespread reluctance, the uptake of biotech research of [...]
6 Jul
ERS Report: Biotech Varieties More Popular Than Conventional Ones
American farmers continue to choose biotech varieties over their conventional counterparts, according to a report released Thursday by the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service. Among the findings of the ERS report, Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S., adoption of biotech soybeans is 93 percent in 2010, up from 91 percent in 2009; adoption [...]
16 Apr
Audit Finds USDA Falls Short on Tracking Residue in Beef
The Agriculture Department’s Office of the Inspector General concluded in a March audit report that USDA, along with the Food & Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency “is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for harmful residues.” The bulk of the report focuses on recommendations from the inspector general for jump-starting [...]
16 Mar
Judge Denies Sugar Beet Injunction
Capital Press has the story… A federal judge in California has struck down an effort to block the planting of genetically engineered sugar-beet seeds this spring. In a ruling filed today, Judge Jeffrey White denied a motion by the Center for Food Safety for an injunction that would have prohibited beet growers from using Monsanto’s [...]
10 Mar
The Primitive Food Movement
The New York Times economics blog, Freakonomics, (which follows the methodology of the best selling book by the same name) has outlined what it calls the ‘Primitive Food Movement’ in a recent post. Americans are currently embracing a strange sort of primitivism… This trend appears to be a unique response to a declension narrative that [...]
11 Feb
Can GM Crops Help the Environment?
In its most recent issue, Forbes magazine examines just how biotech crops can help producers increase conservation practices and help the environment. The article highlights many organic and sustainable agriculture advocates who are friendly towards biotech crops and promote their eco-friendly benefits.
20 Jan
Forbes Writer Goes After Critics of ‘Corporate Agriculture’
No sector in America is better positioned for the future than agriculture, if it is allowed to reach its potential, according to a column penned by Joel Kotkin, a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. “Like manufacturers and homebuilders before them, farmers have found themselves in the crosshairs of urban aesthetes and [...]
30 Nov
China Approves Biotech Rice
According to the Wall Street Journal… China’s government declared two strains of genetically modified rice safe to produce and consume, taking a major step toward endorsing the use of biotechnology in the staple food crop of billions of people in Asia. In a written reply to questions from The Wall Street Journal, China’s Ministry of [...]
16 Oct
Cal Poly Alum Protests Pollan Solo Lecture
A solo lecture by food activist Michael Pollan scheduled for 11 a.m. Pacific time today on the campus of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was hastily converted to a panel discussion after alumni, including the chairman of Harris Beef Ranch Co., protested. Pollan will participate in a panel discussion that includes Gary Smith, a Colorado [...]
16 Oct
Gates Chides Critics, Defends Biotech Crops
Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman who is pouring part of his fortune into alleviating global poverty, defended the use of genetically engineered crops to help poor farmers increase food production. In what was billed as his first major speech on agriculture, Gates chided critics who he said are “instantly hostile to any emphasis on productivity. [...]
14 Sep
The Father Of the Green Revolution
“When wheat is ripening properly, when the wind is blowing across the field, you can hear the beards of the wheat rubbing together. They sound like the pine needles in a forest. It is a sweet, whispering music that once you hear, you never forget.” — Dr. Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, as [...]
4 Sep
TIME Writer Admits Piece was Slanted
Bryan Walsh, who wrote a damning article on modern agriculture in Time magazine, admitted in an AgriTalk interview with Mike Adams Monday morning that the story took the angle he wanted to pursue rather than presenting both sides in a balanced, objective manner. He said it’s been a trend at Time to have “more stories angled toward the [...]
1 Sep
Boulder Leaves Door Open for Roundup Ready Beets
The Boulder County (Colorado) Commission voted last Wednesday to delay action on a farmer’s eight-month-old application to cultivate biotech sugar beets on county land. The delay comes at the request of the 6 member-growers of sugar beets on Boulder County Open Space land. In a letter to commissioners the growers said, “We would like to [...]
27 Aug
Meat Groups Blast Time Article
Meat industry groups are airing discontent with the Aug. 31 Time magazine cover story “The Real Cost of Cheap Food” that is loaded with inaccurate information and has no hint of objectivity. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the only meat industry group quoted in the article, lashed out with a press release outlining the steps [...]
24 Aug
Trent Loos Responds to TIME Hitpiece on Ag
From Feedstuffs, Ag broadcaster and commentator Trent Loos responds to the Time article on modern agriculture.
21 Aug
Time Magazine Attacks Modern Farming
Without even a hint of objectivity, Time magazine is using the cover story of its Aug. 31 print edition to attack modern agriculture. The story is a wide-ranging frontal assault on all aspects of modern food production, and the story is written in a manner that the very few words included to give agriculture a [...]
18 Aug
British Ministers: Increase GM Crop Imports
British government ministers are urging the European Commission to speed up approval of GM crop varieties or risk a collapse in the market for home-produced chicken, eggs, pork and milk. The move could apply to 30 GM crop varieties that have passed the EU’s scientific tests on health and safety but which still await political [...]
Shawn Martini
Chad Vorthmann
Rachel Vermillion
Garin Vorthmann
Crystal Korrey
Troy B
El Sagehorn
Brent Boydston
