GMOs

Investigative journalist reveals serious safety concerns about GM food

Note: For the next few days I’ll be reporting from Eco-Farm, the annual conference held by the Ecological Farming Association of California. At Eco-Farm, some 1,400-1,500 organic farmers, Big Organic marketers, and sundry sustainable-ag enthusiasts pack into a rustic, beautiful seaside conference hall an hour-and-a-half south of San Francisco to talk farming amid the dunes. […]

New superfood is higher in press-release fluff and poor journalism than your average carrot

The best way to read this post is to begin with a recent press release from Texas A&M on their new Supercarrot.

Second, read Wired magazine journalist Alexis Madrigal's coverage of the story. Alexis praises the next generation of biotech crops. He writes that, "A carrot that increases what's known as the bioavailability of calcium could have a major impact in the marketplace." Really?

You are correct, Alexis: it could have a major impact on a totally uninformed marketplace -- but not much of an impact on nutrition. However, it is likely to have an impact on genetic contamination, wasted public research dollars, and increased corporate profits. If you had read the press release and considered the math around just how much more calcium we are getting from this new carrot, and at what costs, you might have seen that this "news flash" is no news at all. This is a great example of industry fluff. This is promoting a new breakthrough that on the surface has lots of flash and pizazz, but with scrutiny becomes a big "So what?".

The biotech industry is going to keep pushing a media blitz to get us to swallow their breakthroughs and keep their stock prices up. Unfortunately, many researchers at our public universities are willing partners in spreading their misinformation. Don't believe me? Let's look at the math:

Seed-savers and greens unite to challenge Monsanto’s latest cash cow

For years, candy makers and other industrial food manufacturers refused to use genetically modified sugar, fearing a consumer backlash. Photo: iStockphoto As a result, Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet — designed to withstand heavy application of Roundup, Monsanto’s herbicide — has been dead in the water. (Sugar beets, grown in the Midwest and Northwest, account […]

The GM seed giants lumber into the veggie patch

In 2005, Monsanto bought Seminis, the world’s largest vegetable-seed company. At the time, Monsanto — which enjoys a dominant position in the global market for GM soy, corn, and cotton traits — claimed it had no imminent plans to subject veggies to genetic modification. Now I learn from the excellent new blog SeedStory, by Matthew […]

The former governor of North Dakota loves biofuel and GMOs

Speaking yesterday at a gathering of the Grocery Manufacturers Association — a trade group whose member list reads like a directory of multinational food corporations — President Bush waxed coy about his new choice for USDA secretary. This afternoon I’m going to name a new Secretary of Agriculture. I’m not going to tell you who […]

New company says it can make better, cheaper biofuels

Picture a liquid fuel that is derived from the same feedstocks as cellulosic ethanol (switchgrass, sugar cane, corn stover) but contains 50% more energetic content and is made via a process that uses 65% less energy. Unlike cellulosic ethanol, this fuel can be distributed via existing oil pipelines rather than gas-hogging trucks and trains, dispensed […]

Why we may one day bitterly regret GM crops

Edible Media takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. I spent the weekend in Atlanta at the first-ever U.S. Social Forum — an extremely interesting event, but not the place to go for someone needing to catch up on rest. Now I’m laid up with a sore throat, which […]

Pesticide efficacy is decreasing

If you've ever colored Easter eggs -- I mean the old-fashioned way, with food-coloring, not with those plastic wraparounds -- then you know that when you mess up, you have two options: rinse them off with some white vinegar and start over, or forge ahead, layer even more color on top, and hope that something presentable emerges.

Okay, so that metaphor's a bit of a stretch, but that's what came to mind when I read, earlier this week, that scientists at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, have engineered a new category of transgenic crops. The new plants -- which include broad-leafed greens such as soybeans, tomatoes, and tobacco -- harbor a bacterial gene that makes them resistant to an herbicide called dicamba.

"But we have Roundup!" you cry. "Why do we need anything else?" Well, because Roundup (active ingredient: a chemical called glyphosate) isn't working as flawlessly as it used to. According to the story in Science (sorry, subscription only), 24 percent of farmers in the northern Midwest and 29 percent in the South say they have glycophate-resistant (GR) weeds. Crop scientists in Argentina, Brazil, and Australia report GR grasses popping up too.

Twice in one week!

Monsanto has barreled its way toward dominance over the global seed market with strong-arm tactics and friends in high places. As evidence of the former, the roguish company once threatened to sue me — then a neophyte blogger with 30 readers — on the most trivial grounds possible. As for the latter, software monopolist Bill […]