The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), in a new report titled, “For your own good!” The chicanery behind GM non-commercial ‘orphan crops’ and rice for Africa shows that the GM industry is expanding its grasp to African traditional crops such as cassava, sorghum, sweet potato, pigeon pea, cowpea, banana as well as rice under the guise of philanthropy.

The report reveals that a great deal of research and development is currently underway into the genetic modification (GM) of these crops, with most of the on-going trials being focused on drought and salt tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, resistance to tropical pests and diseases and nutritional enhancement (biofortification). The key countries that have been targeted include, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi.

More than 100 groups representing over 5 million Nigerians, comprising of farmers, faith-based organisations, civil society groups, students and local community groups, are vehemently opposing Monsanto’s attempts to introduce genetically modified (GM) cotton and maize into Nigeria’s food and farming systems. In written objections submitted to the biosafety regulators, the groups have cited numerous serious health and environmental concerns and the failure of these crops especially GM cotton in Africa.

Monsanto Agricultural Nigeria Limited has applied to the National Biosafety Management Agency (NABMA) for the environmental release and placing in the market in Zaria and surrounding towns of GM cotton (Bt cotton, event MON 15985). A further application isfor the confined field trial (CFT) of two GM maize varieties (NK603 and stacked event MON 89034 x NK603) in multiple locations in Nigeria.

When communities come together to build back soil and replace harsh chemicals with biology, they are very successful and create lasting solutions.

In 2007, the United States agricultural industry spent over 7.8 billion dollars on pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides combined. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman is one of the experts leading the movement against the widespread use of pesticides. She is a senior scientist and director of the Grassroots Science Program at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN). She is also a graduate of Yale and Cornell Universities with degrees in women’s studies and ecology and evolutionary biology.

If we act, we can stop the Big Six from becoming the Titanic Three.

As ETC first warned in May[i] last year and again in February[ii] this year, the pressure of two mergers among the Big Six Gene Giants would make a third merger inevitable. In the last few days the business media have reported that Monsanto is in separate talks with Bayer and BASF – the two German giants among agricultural input companies. While anti-competition regulators are fussing about the hook up of DuPont with Dow and of Syngenta with Chem China, Monsanto urgently needs to make a match. They hope that if regulators let the other two deals go through, they won’t be able to deny Monsanto a chance to even the score.

TORONTO — Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have approved a genetically engineered potato for sale, said a U.S.-based company on Monday in announcing that its non-browning spuds could be in Canadian supermarkets by Thanksgiving.

J.R. Simplot Company was notified by both agencies in letters dated March 18 that it could sell its potatoes — which purportedly are less likely to bruise or turn brown when cut — to consumers or for livestock consumption.

The EU Commission should not renew the approval of glyphosate as long as concerns remain about its carcinogenicity, said MEPs

Another skirmish in the global battle over GMOs has broken out — this time at Iowa State University. Recently, a coalition of students delivered a petition with 57,309 signatures to ISU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences protesting an upcoming human feeding trial of genetically engineered (GE) bananas. The petition, addressed to the college and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was simultaneously delivered to by AGRA Watch to the Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle. If the experiment takes place, twelve female ISU students will be paid $900 each to eat the bananas in what is billed as one of the first human feeding trials of GE products.

This small Himalayan state has been officially declared free of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Sunday mornings are perfect for bright sunny strolls through local farmers markets, where you can spend hours picking fresh produce. One of the reasons that people flock to these markets on their day off is because these fresh fruits and veggies are also organic.

Within the past decade or so, we’ve seen a global cultural shift towards a health conscientious mentality where eating organic food is the first step to a healthier lifestyle—it’s a great example of when you know better, you do better. We’ve come a long way from frozen entrees as being considered the healthy choice over fresh foods.

Navdanya travels to the cotton growing Malwa belt of Punjab to report the damage done by the whitefly on Bt cotton in October ’15. Despite spraying pesticides 10- 15 times, 1.2 million acres of cotton was destroyed by the whitefly, a common pest. This short film is an attempt to make the pain of the Bt Cotton farmers be heard and make the lives our farmers’ lives matter.

Four EU states force delay of a vote to renew the licence for glyphosate, which has been found to be ‘probably carcinogenic’

A mutiny by several EU states has forced the postponement of a vote in Brussels on relicensing a widely used weedkiller that the World Health Organisation has found is probably carcinogenic.

Italy joined France, Sweden and the Netherlands in opposing a new 15-year licence for glyphosate at a meeting which had been expected to rubber stamp its reapproval on Tuesday.

The European commission may now bring forward a new proposal to cut the licence’s length, or create a list of “co-formulants” whose use can be limited or banned. These surfactants increase a plant’s uptake of glyphosate, and can be more dangerous than the herbicide alone.

But the Netherlands is calling for the relicensing to be put on hold until after a separate evaluation of glyphosate’s toxicity next year.