GM

You could be forgiven for thinking that you already know what’s so controversial about genetically-modified (GM) food.

After all, doesn’t GM food represent a radical break with earlier methods of crop development, producing weird transgenic species (containing genes from different species) that could never occur in nature, posing a dire threat to human health? And hasn’t the introduction of GM crops in the Global South been wholly negative, leading to a dramatic rise in suicides…

Being cautious and trying to apply the saying “you are what you eat” today can perhaps be trickier than simply checking the nutritional information about the levels of sugar, fat and vitamins that the food you are buying contains. Indeed, last year about 170 million hectares of genetically modified (GM) crops were…

The scientific establishment, including the European food safety authority, has rounded on a study published in September that appeared to show that feeding rats a popular genetically-modified (GM) corn gave them cancer (see PN 2550).

Critics have…

Rats fed a popular strain of genetically-engineered corn for two years developed large tumours and died earlier than rats in a control group. This is the conclusion of a paper by a French university research group published in a peer-reviewed journal in mid-September.

The maize in question is genetically-modified (GM) to withstand spraying with Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. The rats were divided into groups; one fed the GM corn; another fed with GM corn sprayed with Roundup; a…

If one does a search on the entrance of Genetically Modified (GM) food and crop products into Nepal, there really isn’t much written on the topic. According to a Food Research Officer for the Government of Nepal Yakindra Timilsena, resident of Kailali district, “Till now no published data was found about the GM food and crop products which enter Nepalese market” [sic]. This was posted in his personal blog on 20th March, 2011.

This small article wishes to highlight the impending doom…

In late January this year there was a very well-organised and dynamic anti-GM meeting in London called Gathering Momentum which attracted well over 100 participants, including farmers, scientists and activists, from all over Britain and Ireland. This very useful little booklet, distributed at the meeting, is essentially a print copy of the Stop GM website, but it reads very well in its own right. It provides a very clear and grounded rationale for opposition to GM and brings the reader…

Despite gaining government consent to go ahead, the German-based chemical company, BASF, has abandoned its plans to carry out GM potato trials in Yorkshire. The decision comes just weeks after protesters staged an organic potato planting action on a site near Hull which was believed to be earmarked for GM.

Following recent media attention over the BAE affair and a significant campaign success when global publishing company, Reed Elsevier, announced it will no longer be organising…