Senate Introduces New GMO Labeling Bill
Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced a new GMO labeling bill to the Senate last week that’s basically the Senate’s version of HR 1599, the bill passed in the US House of Representatives last year (and introduced by Kansas Representative Mike Pompeo — those Kansas politicians sure do hate GMO Labeling). The clock is ticking on the enactment of Vermont’s labeling...
EU GMO Regulation Under Fire
Recently we’ve talked about how, in the Netherlands, lobbyists are pushing for a change in the EU GMO regulation of cisgenesis. It isn’t just the Netherlands, however, hoping for this deregulation — biotech advocates throughout Europe are pushing for this same deregulation at the EU level as well. The industry’s lobbying group has been working hard — The trail of Freedom of Information requests over the...
Netherlands Works to Deregulate Cisgenesis
The fight to exclude cisgenesis from EU regulation has been ongoing for years in the Netherlands. The term ‘cisgenesis’ refers to the insertion of genes from the same or closely related species into a recipient plant, in contrast with transgenesis, whereby genes from another species are introduced. In general, the Dutch people are opposed to GMOs, yet the the Dutch Government has been pushing for deregulation of cisgenic...
License to Farm Documentary Stirs Up the GMO Controversy
Most of us believe our farmers are doing the best they can to provide safe food while being mindful of the environment. License to Farm, a documentary now available on YouTube, reinforces this belief by spotlighting various Canadian farmers and hearing their points of view. It’s similar to what we did here at The Walk A Mile Project when we interviewed Abe Wiens, also a Canadian farmer, in podcast #5, Walk a Mile in a GMO...
GMO Alfalfa Contamination a Growing Problem
Co-existence between GE, traditional, and organic crops proves to be a major complication, this time showcased by cases of GMO alfalfa contamination in the U.S. In 2011 and 2012, USDA Scientist Stephanie Greene and her team found 404 wild alfalfa populations on roadsides, and testing revealed that over one-quarter (27 percent) of them contained transgenic alfalfa—that is, plants that tested positive for the Roundup Ready gene....