In the recently published “The Size and Distribution of the Benefits from the Adoption of Biotech Soybean Varieties” EMAC researchers and collaborators from WAEES and the University of California Davis, measured the global economic impacts of herbicide tolerant soybeans in their first 15 years of adoption. Their analysis finds economic benefits amounting to a total of about US$46 billion. These include benefits to consumers and producers all over the world (86% of total) as well as benefits to the innovator (14%).  (more…)

“Genetically modified ingredients have been eliminated from one of the best-known breakfast cereals in the United States after a year-long campaign from environmental groups.

Food industry giant General Mills says it took genetically modified organisms (GMOs) out of its Cheerios brand not out of safety concerns, but in response to consumer demands.”

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“Connecticut made food history last week when Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) signed the first state law in the nation mandating the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. But there’s a catch that’s bigger than the fry of an escaped GMO salmon: The new law might never actually lead to the labeling of GMO foods.”

“That’s because the state is understandably reluctant to go it alone in the legal battles that are sure to ensue when big-spending agro-corporations are ordered to be fully transparent. The Connecticut Post explains how the Nutmeg State’s lawmakers worked around that threat: (more…)

Signs of late blight appear suddenly but predictably in Ireland as soon as the summer weather turns humid, spores of the fungus-like plant pathogen wafting across the open green fields and landing on the wet leaves of the potato plants. This year it began to rain in early August. Within several weeks, late blight had attacked a small plot of potatoes in the corner of the neat grid of test plantings at the headquarters of Teagasc, Ireland’s agricultural agency, in Carlow. (more…)