Archive for March, 2006

Africa Shot Its Foot on Biosafety Rules

I feel obliged to revisit the events of the just concluded Third Meeting of the 132 Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (MOP3) in Curitiba, Brazil.
I Am doing so because what transpired in the dying hours of this landmark meeting on the future of trade in products containing genetically modified organisms is quite [...]

Africa needs technical help to enact GM rules

By Ochieng’ Ogodo
20 March 2006
Source: SciDev.Net

[CURITIBA] Most developing countries will struggle to enact a key UN agreement on genetically modified (GM) organisms because they lack the necessary technology and personnel, a conference has heard.

GM rice: under the protocol, GM foods cannot be exported to [...]

GM Food: Africa Must Walk the Talk

Hundreds of scientists, last week, converged in Curtiba, Brazil, to discuss biosafety issues. Under the aegis of Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the scientists were expected to draft an agreement on transshipment of genetically modified (GM) food.
This gathering, specifically, centered on who’s liable for GM “contamination” during cross border movement of GM food. No agreement [...]

Why GM is Good for Us

March 14, 2006
Newsweek
By: Lee Silver
Farm-raised pigs are dirty, smelly animals that get no respect. They’re also an environmental hazard. Their manure contains phosphorus, which, when it rains, runs off into lakes and estuaries, depleting oxygen, killing fish, stimulating algae overgrowth and emitting greenhouse gases. During the 1980s, phosphorus pollution killed all aquatic life in the [...]

Ignore Alarmist Reports About GM crops

Do genetically modified (GM) crops pollinate wild relatives? This question continues to dominate the debate about GM crops.
Anti- GM critics, in particular, have sought, unsuccessfully, to convince the public that GM crops must be cultivated in isolation because they pose grave dangers to conventional varieties. What’s interesting is that they never back their arguments [...]

Do Humans Need GMOs? –A View From a Global Market

Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, Vol. 8 (1), 147
By Chi-Chung Chen and Wei-Chun Tseng (National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan)
As the population of the world continues to increase, [...]

Invest in biotech to fight bioterror, say researchers

Talent Ngwande
Wealthy nations should promote the use of biotechnology in developing countries as this would combat the risk of ‘bioterrorism’ — the use of living agents such as bacteria to attack people or plants — says a report released today (February 27).
It urges the G8 group of most industrialised nations to create a [...]

Biotechnologists Are Sleeping On Their Job

One of the main reasons why genetically modified crops are least understood in developing countries is due to lack of factual and accurate information. Ten years since the commercialization of the first genetically modified crop, most developing countries seem not to appreciate their potential. This, at a time when other countries are minting billions of [...]