GMOs
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Sugar from GM sugar beets will soon be unlabeled and widespread
The scariest thing next Halloween might not be the monsters, zombies or witches trolling our streets — it might be the candy. Those colorful, tin-foil-wrapped Hershey’s kisses and dark chocolate pumpkins could contain sugar extracted and processed from the roots of genetically modified sugar beets. Sugar in Halloween candy comes from several sources, including sugar […]
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Non-GM seed and feed make a comeback
I recently met with members of Japan’s Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Cooperative (SCCC) in my office in San Francisco to discuss how to overcome the difficulties of obtaining certain non-GM products for its 1 million members. The 14-person delegation — comprised of pig, chicken, cattle, and dairy producers for the co-op — came to the U.S. […]
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With little oversight, BP, Chevron, ADM, and Cargill cook up next-gen biofuels
Synthetic biologists, a brave new breed of science entrepreneurs who engineer life-forms from scratch, are holding their largest-ever global gathering in Hong Kong this week, known as “Synthetic Biology 4.0.” Although most people have never heard of synthetic biology, it’s moving full speed ahead fueled by giant agribusiness, energy and chemical corporations with little debate […]
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Is organic pet food worth the trouble?
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. —– Dear Grist, I eat organic food; should my dog? What’s the deal with organic dog food and what’s the problem with conventional […]
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Michael Pollan and Monanto’s Hugh Grant square off at Google.org forum
What do you get when industrial agriculture’s most famous critic crosses swords with industrial agriculture’s (arguably) most powerful executive? Michael Pollan and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant squared off at a forum put on recently by google.org (video below the fold.) The topic of the discussion: how to “feed the world” as population expands over the […]
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The GMO seed giant expects Roundup to generate $1.8 billion in profits in 2008
Monsanto positions itself as a green company. “Using the tools of modern biology,” its website informs us, “we help farmers grow more yield sustainably so they can produce more and conserve more.” Compare that twaddle to this bit from Monsanto’s announcement on Tuesday: [Monsanto’s Chief Financial Officer Terry] Crews will indicate that Monsanto’s Roundup® and […]
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The GMO industry has been scraping by on bad science
In 2002, a most unlikely book came out: an oversized, lushly produced, coffee-table tome on the ills of mass-scale, chemical-intensive agriculture. Grandly titled Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, the book contained stark photos of highly mechanized, monocrop farming, along with pungent, probing essays by Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and other seminal thinkers of […]
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Only GMOs and agrichemicals can ‘feed the world,’ don’t you know?
People involved in the sustainable food movement have been debating the best ways to promote what Wendell Berry recently called “local adaptation” with regard to food and agriculture. The point is to shift away from a paradigm of relying on a fossil fuel-powered agriculture system to feed people living far away from the actual farms […]
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U.S. foreign policy: GMO all the way
About a week ago, The New York Times ran a brief interview with Nina V. Federoff, official “science and technology adviser” to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Not surprisingly, Condoleeza Rice’s science czar has a special place in her heart for genetically modified organisms. In the Times interview, Federoff defends […]
