| | 27/February/20
| | Gene-editing regulation not the biggest hurdle for SMEs in EU, says academic The argument that excessive regulation adversely affects small and medium enterprises (SMEs) does not stand up to scrutiny, according to molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou, head of the gene expression and therapy group at King’s College London. The regulatory approval process for new biotech crop varieties is often said to be unduly slow and expensive, presenting an important barrier for biotech SMEs. However, speaking at a recent conference on gene editing and seed rights, Antoniou said that contrary to popular belief, excessive regulation is not the limiting factor for SMEs entering the gene editing market. EURACTIV.com EU mulls faster genetically modified food approvals for Trump Brussels is ready to offer to speed up the approval process for genetically modified organisms imported into the EU, as part of a mini trade agreement with Washington. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to strike such a deal with US President Donald Trump by March 18. POLITICO spoke with four diplomats and three EU officials who said that as part of the deal, the EU could commit to accelerating its system of checks and approvals for GMOs — a system Washington alleges was designed to arbitrarily slow down the approval of crops that compete with EU products. [GMW: This is a dangerous development that could further weaken the already problematic GMO risk assessment by EFSA.] Politico Dicamba not controlling some Tennessee palmer amaranth populations University of Tennessee weed scientist Larry Steckel has spent the past two months coaxing Palmer amaranth weeds to grow from seed collected in 2019 - so he could try to kill them. But after a labelled rate of the dicamba herbicide XtendiMax on two-inch tall weeds, in the controlled environment of a greenhouse, a lot of that pigweed did not die. This week, Steckel made a series of grim phone calls he had been bracing for all winter. "I called the farmers and retailers who found some of these and I told them - dicamba isn't going to control Palmer amaranth in these fields anymore," he said. "They were not surprised at all." These new performance failures represent the first cases of likely dicamba resistance resulting from the GMO dicamba-tolerant Xtend cropping system that topped out at 60 million acres last year. DTN Progressive Farmer China may send ducks to battle Pakistan's locust swarms China could deploy 100,000 ducks to neighbouring Pakistan to help tackle swarms of crop-eating locusts, according to reports. Pakistan declared an emergency earlier this month saying locust numbers were the worst in more than two decades. An agricultural expert behind the scheme says a single duck can eat more than 200 locusts a day and can be more effective than pesticides. BBC News DONATE TO GMWATCH __________________________________________________________ Website: http://www.gmwatch.org
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