“Just as many on the political right discount the broad scientific consensus that human activities contribute to global warning, many progressive advocacy groups disregard, reject, or ignore the decades of scientific studies demonstrating the safety and wide-reaching benefits of GE crops. Is political identity more important than science and the environment?”
EMAC director, Dr. Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes, participated in a conference that discussed the implications of asynchronous approvals of new biotech traits and the potential for Low Level Presence of such traits in trade flows, which took place in Bogota, Colombia.
“Scientists are striking back at activists who destroyed genetically modified (GM) “golden rice” plants in a test field in the Philippines last week. “It is an unconscionable criminal act to destroy a field trial conducted in accordance to international safety norms,” reads an online petition that has garnered nearly 2,000 signatures in the past few days.
“U.S. farmers are heading for a crisis,” says Stephen Powles of the University of Western Australia, Crawley. Powles is an expert on herbicide resistance, a worsening problem in U.S. fields. Weeds resistant to glyphosate—the world’s most popular herbicide—are now present in the vast majority of soybean, cotton, and corn farms in some U.S. states.
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