SA: GM crops cover 1,4m hectares

South African farmers, commercial and emergent, are growing more genetically modified (GM) crops.

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Jamais Cascio - Open the Future

Denise Caruso’s new column at the New York Times kicks off with an essay on patents in the world of biotechnology. Most of the piece looks at how to build an intellectual property regime for biotechnology that serves the interests of society, not just a handful of companies. She cites a troubling, if not surprising, statistic: more than 20% of the human genome has already been patented, mostly by corporate biotech.

She also mentions the case of genetically-modified potatoes from biotech firm Syngenta. Not only are the GM spuds patented, they’ve been modified to be sterile without the application of a particular chemical. Potato farmers can’t “copy” the crop without paying a fee.

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200m ha of GM crops seen by '15

At least 20 million farmers in 40 countries would be growing genetically modified (GM) crops on 200 million hectares by 2015, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri- Biotech Applications (ISAAA) said on Tuesday.

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Idaho's Simplot company tries to perfect GM potatoes

In the potato capital of the world, spud honchos made sizzling rich on America's french fry affair fill downtown offices. In the distance, potato fields sprawl east and west and there are ample cafes to carbo-load on spuds served baked, stuffed, fried and, somewhat miraculously, frozen into ice cream.

And inside tucked-away laboratories in the town that hash browns built, teams of scientists are splicing potato genes, working daily to perfect Idaho's top cash crop with modern biotechnology.

At J.R. Simplot Co., the eponymous potato company founded by Idaho's richest man, biologists have used gene technology to design a spud that's tastier and resistant to unsightly bruises and sprouts.

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En busca de la patata perfecta

Un grupo de biólogos de Idaho (Estados Unidos) han empleado técnicas de ingeniería genética para lograr patatas con más sabor y resistentes a magulladuras y al nacimiento de brotes, según recoge la lista de distribución de noticias Agbioworld. Los responsables de la compañía que desarrolla la investigación, J. R. Simplot, productora de patatas congeladas, fertilizantes, semillas y piensos para ganado, sostienen que todavía tendrán que pasar entre cinco y diez años para que esta patata mejorada genéticamente pueda ser comercializada.

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EU to debate Hungary GMO ban, flowers and potatoes

EU environment ministers will rekindle Europe's simmering row on genetically modified (GMO) foods next month when they tackle three different strands of the debate, including whether to authorize a "live" biotech crop.

All three GMO items, to be debated when the ministers meet on February 20, have already undergone a lower-level process when EU experts failed to reach a required majority consensus. Under EU law, those items now pass to ministers for approval.

Two of them look set to be highly controversial: a draft order for Hungary to lift its ban on a GMO maize and a proposal to let farmers grow a GMO potato, the EU's first attempt in eight years to approve a biotech crop designed for cultivation.

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'Insulted' farmers pick GM potato fight with Syngenta

A coalition of indigenous farmers in South America will today (12 January)
launch an international protest against the multinational corporation Syngenta, claiming that its plans threaten their region's biodiversity, culture and food sovereignty.

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