--mention terminator genes.
The golden rice thing could work, but the major reason it hasn't gotten very far is that beta-carotene is NOT Vitamin A. Unless you get enough fat in your diet, you can't absorb eta-carotene and transform it to Vitamin A. Levels are pretty low to be useful, but improved strains may do better. What I like about it is that the work is being done by a non-profit which will distribute seeds for free and encourage seed-saving--a far cry from Monsanto practices.
Resisance
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26999.cfm
That pretty much describes the situation last year, according to a new report from the agribusiness research consultancy Stratus. Since the 2010 growing season, the group has been polling "thousands of US farmers" across 31 states about herbicide resistance. Here's what they found in the 2012 season:
• Nearly half (49%) of all US farmers we surveyed said they have glyphosate resistant weeds on their farm in 2012, up from 34% of farmers in 2011.
• Resistance is still worst in the south. For example, 92% of growers in Georgia said they have glyphosate resistant weeds.
• But the mid-south and mid-west states are catching up. From 2011 to 2012 the acres with resistance almost doubled in Nebraska, Iowa and Indiana.
• It's spreading at a faster pace each year: total resistant acres increased by 25% in 2011 and 51% in 2012.
• And the problem is getting more complicated. More and more farms have at least two resistant species on their farm. In 2010 that was just 12% of farms, but two short years later 27% had more than one.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/17666-millions-against-monsanto-on-the-road-to-victory
After enjoying a year of maximum profits, record stock prices, the defeat of a major GMO labeling campaign in California, pro-industry court decisions, and a formidable display of political power in Washington, D.C. – including slipping the controversial Monsanto Protection Act into the Federal Appropriations bill in March - the Biotech Bully from St. Louis now finds itself on the defensive.
It is no exaggeration to say that Monsanto has now become the most hated corporation in the world.
Plagued by a growing army of Roundup-resistant superweeds and Bt-resistant superpests spreading across the country, a full 49 percent of American farmers are now frantically trying to kill these superweeds and pests with ever-larger quantities of toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides including glyphosate (Roundup), glufosinate, 2,4D (“Agent Orange’), dicamba, and neonicotinoids (insecticides linked to massive deaths of honey bees).
Reacting to this dangerous escalation of chemical farming, toxic residues on foods and environmental pollution, over a million consumers and organic farmers have pressed the Obama administration to reject a new generation of GE “Agent Orange” and dicamba-resistant crops, forcing the USDA to postpone commercialization of these crops, at least temporarily. ...............
GMO Bt Cotton Crop Failure Leads to Cotton Ban: Sorry Rockefellers
http://www.nationofchange.org/gmo-bt-cotton-crop-failure-leads-cotton-ban-sorry-rockefellers-1397140543
Following crop failure in seven different districts in Karnakata, where cotton growers faced devastating losses, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd.’s (Mahyco) GMO Bt cotton has been permanently banned. Though not one of the biggest biotech companies, the news is still a remarkable blow back to the Big Ag monopolies trying to take root around the world.
Mahyco was founded by “a man who dared to venture beyond visible possibilities and showed immense confidence in his vision. Post independence, when India was still in the process of fortifying her weak economic strength, Badrinarayan Ramulal Barwale sowed the first seeds of economic development,” or so says their website. But it also goes on to mention that funding was provided by none other than the Rockefeller Foundation.
The order was issued by the Director of Agriculture after, “the Bt cotton hybrid MRC-7351 and Nikki Plus supplied by Mahyco failed to give expected yields during kharif (pulses harvest) 2013. In Karnataka, 54,157 farmers who have grown Bt cotton supplied by Mahyco in 58,195 hectares suffered yield loss of more than 50 percent,” reports the Indian newspaper, The Hindu.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/17666-millions-against-monsanto-on-the-road-to-victory
It is no exaggeration to say that Monsanto has now become the most hated corporation in the world.
Plagued by a growing army of Roundup-resistant superweeds and Bt-resistant superpests spreading across the country, a full 49 percent of American farmers are now frantically trying to kill these superweeds and pests with ever-larger quantities of toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides including glyphosate (Roundup), glufosinate, 2,4D (“Agent Orange’), dicamba, and neonicotinoids (insecticides linked to massive deaths of honey bees).
US farmers may stop planting GMs after poor global yields
http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/06/02/2013/137518/us-farmers-may-stop-planting-gms-after-poor-global-yields.htm#.UW0FGkb9SGd.twitter
Some US farmers are considering returning to conventional seed after increased pest resistance and crop failures meant GM crops saw smaller yields globally than their non-GM counterparts.
Farmers in the USA pay about an extra $100 per acre for GM seed, and many are questioning whether they will continue to see benefits from using GMs.
"It's all about cost benefit analysis," said economist Dan Basse, president of American agricultural research company AgResource.
"Farmers are paying extra for the technology but have seen yields which are no better than 10 years ago. They're starting to wonder why they're spending extra money on the technology."
One of the biggest problems the USA has seen with GM seed is resistance. While it was expected to be 40 years before resistance began to develop pests such as corn rootworm have formed a resistance to GM crops in as few as 14 years.
Terminator genes
http://www.banterminator.org/The-Issues/Biosafety/Terminator-Technology-and-Genetic-Contamination
Terminator could be a biosafety hazard with serious consequences for Indigenous peoples, local communities, peasants and small-scale farmers
If Terminator were to be accepted under the guise of biosafety, it would have devastating consequences for farmers, food security and food safety. Irrespective of any capacity to produce sterile seeds, pollen movement from Terminator crops would take place and lead to contamination of other (open pollinated) plants nearby, at least in the first generation. Seeds (e.g. grain for food) from those plants would contain the initial trait gene (e.g. pharma gene, herbicide resistance gene or Bt-endotoxin gene) plus the Terminator genes intended to make them sterile. This contamination would affect related crops as well as wild relatives.
Terminator would have serious impacts on food security and food sovereignty for farmers and communities. Farmers who saved their seeds for replanting and whose crops had been cross-pollinated by Terminator plants grown in the area, could find that a percentage of their seeds did not germinate. This percentage could translate into significant yield loses. Farmers would not be able to identify the Terminator seeds until they replanted seed from the first harvest, and found that the seed does not germinate. People who depend on humanitarian food aid would risk particularly devastating crop losses if they kept food aid seed that contained Terminator genes for re-planting.
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for the impaired.
