01/April/20

 

Bayer has agreed to pay $39.5 million to settle allegations that its Monsanto unit ran misleading ads about the controversial Roundup weedkiller and its potential health risks to humans and animals. As part of the deal, language will be removed from Roundup Weed and Grass Killer’s label saying that glyphosate - the product’s active ingredient - only affects an enzyme found in plants. Consumers alleged that the chemical attacks an enzyme found in humans and some animals. The settlement comes as Bayer is feverishly working to resolve more than 13,000 lawsuits blaming exposure to glyphosate in Roundup for cancer in users. The company denies glyphosate causes cancer. Bloomberg via Farm Progress

 

 

Cotton farmers in Karaikal have asked the district administration to give them passes to carry out work in the fields in order to protect the crops from pest attack. Cotton cultivation is taken up on about 1,000 acres in the district. Due to lack of maintenance, which includes spraying of pesticides, during the curfew period, most of them are prone to pest attack. Most of the farmers have cultivated "Bt cotton", a genetically modified crop. The New Indian Express

 

 

Shetkari Sanghatana, the corporate front group that GMO cheerleaders love to promote as a grassroots Indian farmers' union, is protesting the government's decision to waive Monsanto's trait fee on Bt cotton. Indian Express; background by GMWatch

 

 

Plant virologist Dr Safaa Kumari discovered seeds that could safeguard food security in the region – and risked her life to rescue them from Aleppo, Syria. Kumari used natural cross-breeding to produce a bean variety naturally resistant to the fava bean necrotic yellow virus (FBNYV). This and various other viruses, fuelled by climate change, have decimated beans, lentils and chickpeas from Syria to Ethiopia, gradually destroying the livelihoods of low-income populations. The Guardian

 

 

At a time when the GMO lobby's calls to soften regulation around genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are becoming ever more shrill, the research organisation Testbiotech has created a new resource to explain the dangers of weakening the rules. The "Limits to Biotech" resource is understandable for the layperson but also informative for those with more specialist knowledge. It offers ten examples of GMOs that have already gone wrong, as well as GMOs that could present problems in the future, based on their known and unknown properties. GMWatch