Seed producers will be allowed to plant biotech sugar beets again following a September decision from the United States Department of Agriculture’s crop approval arm to allow planting under interim guidelines. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will issue limited permits to seed developers authorizing genetically modified (GM) beet planting this fall as long as the harvested beets are not allowed to flower. The permits are a legal way around a federal judge’s 13 August decision to ban all commercial farming of Monsanto’s Genuity Roundup Ready sugar beets beyond that date. Continue reading Sugar beets still in the game
Tag Archives: Biotechnology
Brazil bans Bayer
A judge has prohibited Bayer Cropscience from marketing Liberty Link corn, a genetically modified crop resistant to Ignite and Liberty herbicides, in Brazil. If the Leverkusen, Germany–based company fails to suspend marketing, planting, transportation and import immediately, it will be fined R$50,000 ($28,500) a day. This ruling issued in July by an environmental court in the southern state of Parana is only the second time a Brazilian court has overturned a commercial GM crop already approved by the country’s technical commission on biosafety (CTNBio), says the commission’s coordinator Jairon Nascimento. Continue reading Brazil bans Bayer
EC woos SMEs
The European Commission (EC) is inviting biotech firms to apply for research grants, if partnered with academia. For the first time, a quarter of the biotech-specific grants will require the participation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The EC plans to hand out €240.3 million ($310.2 million) in direct research grants in 2011, up 26% from the €190 million ($245.3 million) this year. Continue reading EC woos SMEs
Virus-resistant cassava could be available by 2015
Cassava breeds that are resistant to two major viruses could soon be available to farmers in Africa.
Cassava mosaic disease and brown streak disease stunt the growth and rot the roots of crops, respectively.
Mosaic disease alone destroys an estimated 35 million tonnes of African cassava a year — the difference between needing to import food into Africa and achieving food independence, according to researchers at the US-based Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
The team has shown in the laboratory tests that genetically engineered (GE) tobacco plants resist brown streak disease. Their results will appear in Molecular Plant Pathology next month (August), Claude Fauquet, lead author of the study and director of cassava research at the centre, told SciDev.Net. Continue reading Virus-resistant cassava could be available by 2015