GM sweet corn kills bugs. By Lucy Sharratt • Generally, if our food kills living organisms, it is viewed as a negative. For Monsanto, however, this feature is a great new selling point. New genetically engineered (also called genetically modified or GM) sweet corn designed to kill insect pests is now being harvested across Canada. Of course, without labelling, we need to conduct our own investigations to learn where GM sweet corn is being sold. Until last fall, there was only one US seed company selling a limited number of GM sweet corn varieties from Syngenta, to farmers in Ontario and Quebec. Now, Monsanto, the largest seed company in the world, has introduced three varieties of GM insect resistant, herbicide tolerant sweet corn.
Sobeys grocery chain (in Eastern Canada) has confirmed to the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network that they have no GM fresh sweet corn in their stores. GM sweet corn will be the first GM insect resistant (Bt) crop in the world to be widely consumed as a whole, unprocessed food. Report_on_animals_exposed_to_gmos.pdf (application/pdf Object)
Monsanto Fails at Improving Agriculture: UCS Spreads the Word. Help UCS Set the Record Straight by Sharing Our New Ad Campaign Monsanto's advertisements tell an impressive tale of the agribusiness giant's achievements: Feeding a growing population. Protecting natural resources. Promoting biodiversity. It sounds wonderful, but unfortunately, there's a catch: These claims are often exaggerated, misleading or downright false. In the ads below, we counter Monsanto's feel-good rhetoric with some facts gleaned from UCS analysis. . #2: A Bumper Crop of Superweeds Monsanto Says: "Our rapidly growing population is putting limited resources--such as land, water, and energy--under increased pressure.
" In Fact: The challenge is real, but Monsanto's products aren't the answer. . #3: All Wet on Drought Tolerance Monsanto Says: "With the right tools, farmers can conserve more for future generations. " In Fact: If farmers want to conserve more water, Monsanto's DroughtGard corn isn't the right tool. How Huge Food Corporations Will Make Upcoming Food Price Hikes Even Worse. Richardson reports: "The fate of the corn crop on Midwestern farms even has comedian Stephen Colbert worried. Agricultural economist Bruce Babcock appeared on his show, warning him that the prices of meat, dairy and eggs will increase because 'American livestock are fed a corn-heavy diet.' As Colbert put it, 'It is one thing for global warming to make sea levels rise, but nobody told me it would make my cheese levels recede.'" By Jill Richardson, AlterNet 10 August 12 The entire American food system is built on one crop -- corn.
And that is really bad news. armer George Naylor sounds a little too much like the fictional character Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh when I ask about his corn crop. The 2012 drought is now the worst drought our country has faced in half a century. Most of the time, Americans don't need to worry much about how the food gets to our table and whether the weather has anything to do with it. Where does all the corn go? Those who will suffer are livestock producers. Monsanto's new sweet corn adds to debate on genetically modified foods. August 04, 2012|By Monica Eng, Chicago Tribune reporter (George Thompson, Chicago Tribune) As the Midwest crunches into sweet corn season, a new type will be appearing on grocery store shelves — even though shoppers have no way to recognize it.
It's genetically modified sweet corn from the biotech giant Monsanto, engineered to resist a common herbicide and certain pests. The arrival of the crop's first harvest has alarmed consumer groups and activists who say genetically modified foods may pose environmental and health risks. In recent months they have urged major retailers to avoid Monsanto's sweet corn, prompting Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and General Mills to pledge not to sell or use it. But this week the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., confirmed to the Tribune that it would not restrict sales of the genetically modified corn in its stores. Other retailers also received requests to avoid the product but have not responded, Lovera said. The U.S. 'Super weed' found in Alberta - Business.
Business Federal scientists have confirmed the first case of a so-called 'super weed' in Western Canada. Kochia resistant to world's top-selling herbicide CBC News · Posted: Jan 12, 2012 5:36 PM EST | Last Updated: January 12, 2012 Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientists in August found kochia in three fields in southern Alberta. Monsanto Canada announced the confirmation on its website Wednesday. Glyphosate resistant weeds mean higher weed control costs and lower crop yields for farmers. Other super weeds found in Ontario Kochia populations resistant to glyphosate have previously been confirmed in Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska. There are also suspected cases being investigated in North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Two other resistant weed species had previously been found in Canada, both in southwestern Ontario.
Eyewitness Report: Animals Won’t Eat GMO’s « The Mommypotamus. A Corny Story Apparently I forgot a category in yesterday’s poll (which is still going on btw!) . . . “investigative journalism of controversial topics.” Thanks, Whittney! The farmer grinned as he told the visitor, “Watch this!” When I first read this I thought “nice way to make a point! The Washington Post reported that laboratory mice, usually happy to munch on tomatoes, turned their noses up at the genetically modified FlavrSavr tomato. Cows, pigs, elk, deer, raccoons, squirrels, rats, and mice all share the same aversion to GMO’s, says Smith. Katie and I created a mini-snack bar on the fence by the pecan tree where the squirrels hang out.
While we were filling the containers Katie tried to eat the Kroger corn and I totally flipped out. Snack bar open for business!!! For the first couple of days I ran out every morning to see what was happening. Thanks . . . Or maybe they picked out the roughly 15% that wasn’t genetically modified. Resources: Top 10 Reasons To Label GMO Products. Failure-to-yield.pdf (application/pdf Object) GMO corn leading to pesticide resistant bugs | GoGreenNation.org. GMO corn leading to pesticide resistant bugs Posted by Christine, January 16, 2012 Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) – Monsanto Co. corn that is genetically engineered to kill insects may be losing effectiveness against rootworms in four states, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said. Rootworms in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska are suspected of developing tolerance of the plants’ insecticide, based on documented cases of severe crop damage and reports from entomologists, the EPA said in a document dated Nov. 22 and posted yesterday on the government website.
Monsanto’s program for monitoring suspected cases of resistance is “inadequate,” the EPA said. An Iowa State University study said in July that some rootworms have evolved resistance to an insect-killing protein derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a natural insecticide engineered into Monsanto corn. There is no scientific confirmation of resistance to Monsanto’s Bt corn, Lee Quarles, a spokesman for the St.
Genetically modified crops' results raise concern | Full Page. Washington -- Biotechnology's promise to feed the world did not anticipate "Trojan corn," "super weeds" and the disappearance of monarch butterflies. But in the Midwest and South - blanketed by more than 170 million acres of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton - an experiment begun in 1996 with approval of the first commercial genetically modified organisms is producing questionable results. Those results include vast increases in herbicide use that have created impervious weeds now infesting millions of acres of cropland, while decimating other plants, such as milkweeds that sustain the monarch butterflies.
Food manufacturers are worried that a new corn made for ethanol could damage an array of packaged food on supermarket shelves. Some farm groups have joined environmentalists in an attempt to slow down approvals of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, as a newly engineered corn, resistant to another potent herbicide, stands on the brink of approval. Vote on labels. New GMO ‘Agent Orange Soy’ Silently Backed by USDA. Mike BarrettActivist Post Millions of pounds of herbicides are applied to crops around the nation each year. In one single year, 2006, 96.7 million pounds of glyphosate was sprayed on soybeans alone; this is a 20-fold increase from the 4.9 million pounds in 1994, the year before Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds were introduced. Well, now, biotechnology giant and creator of pesticides and herbicides, Dow AgroSciences is bringing forth brand new GMO soybeans and GMO corn to the market that will ultimately cause more herbicides than ever to be sprayed across the nation.
What’s more, the USDA is all over the idea. 2,4-D Herbicide and Super GMO Crops And perhaps even more startling than the drastic increase in herbicide usage is the fact that Dow AgroSciences’ new genetically modified soy is actually specifically designed to resist an especially toxic herbicide known as 2,4-D, a toxic compound used in the well-known Vitetnam War defoliant Agent Orange. So what will be the outcome of all of this? DuPont Hid Failure of Soybeans for Years, Monsanto Says. DuPont Co. (DD), the most valuable U.S. chemical company, didn’t tell investors for years that efforts to develop its own herbicide-tolerant soybean seeds had failed, Monsanto Co. told a jury at the start of a patent trial. DuPont knew as early as 2006 that its GAT soybeans didn’t grow as well as Monsanto’s Roundup Ready beans and didn’t make the information public until 2009, George C.
Lombardi, an attorney for Monsanto, said today at the start of a patent trial in St. Louis. Monsanto is suing DuPont for adding the Roundup Ready trait to make its product work, a patent infringement it said is worth as much as $1 billion. “For years, they told the world GAT was going to work,” Lombardi, a Chicago-based lawyer with Winston & Strawn LLP, told the jury in Monsanto’s opening arguments. DuPont claims there was no infringement because St. Soybean Sales Head Start Monsanto sued in 2009 to block the combination. The case is Monsanto Co. v. To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Kaskey in St. Bt Toxicity Confirmed: Flawed Studies Exposed.