Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It - Wired Science. Corn rootworm on the roots of a corn plant. Image: Sarah Zukoff/Flickr One of agricultural biotechnology’s great success stories may become a cautionary tale of how short-sighted mismanagement can squander the benefits of genetic modification. After years of predicting it would happen — and after years of having their suggestions largely ignored by companies, farmers and regulators — scientists have documented the rapid evolution of corn rootworms that are resistant to Bt corn.
Until Bt corn was genetically altered to be poisonous to the pests, rootworms used to cause billions of dollars in damage to U.S. crops. Named for the pesticidal toxin-producing Bacillus thuringiensis gene it contains, Bt corn now accounts for three-quarters of the U.S. corn crop. First planted in 1996, Bt corn quickly became hugely popular among U.S. farmers.
By the turn of the millennium, however, scientists who study the evolution of insecticide resistance were warning of imminent problems. AkZehn~ IPS – U.S. Activists Outraged Over So-Called ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ Active Citizens, Food & Agriculture, Headlines, North America, TerraViva Europe, TerraViva United Nations A new act will require the USDA to issue temporary permits allowing farmers to continue planting genetically modified organisms.
Credit: Peter Blanchard/CC by 2.0 - Food safety advocates are outraged over revelations that U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama approved an act that includes a provision purporting to strip federal courts of the ability to prevent the spread of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The provision in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 requires the U.S. The provision, which activists call the Monsanto Protection Act, is one for which the multinational corporation Monsanto has been lobbying Congress for at least a year.
Industry control U.S. Once again, agribusiness multinational corporations [are] putting farmers as serfs In a statement, Mikulski’s spokeswoman, Rachel MacKnight, defended her. Future benefits. GMO Deregulation: An act of war. By Barbara H.
Peterson Farm Wars Scotts Miracle Gro has applied for and received complete deregulation for genetically engineered Kentucky Bluegrass from the USDA. Scotts “is Monsanto’s exclusive agent for the international marketing and distribution of consumer Roundup®.” The main ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate. How Scotts GE Kentucky Bluegrass achieved complete deregulation Scotts’ genetically engineered (GE) Kentucky Bluegrass will not be regulated as either a plant pest or noxious weed, and these are the ONLY two ways that GMOs can be regulated by the USDA. Plant pest strategy: The situation with the Kentucky bluegrass arises because genetically engineered crops are regulated under rules pertaining to plant pests.The rules are really meant for pathogens and parasites, not corn stalks.
Noxious Weed strategy: It would seem that the ICTA and CFS knew of the problem long before deregulation became a reality. The GMO regulatory fiction Introduced Substantial Equivalence Conclusion. Monsanto and Gates Foundation Push GE Crops on Africa. Skimming the Agricultural Development section of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation web site is a feel-good experience: African farmers smile in a bright slide show of images amid descriptions of the foundation's fight against poverty and hunger.
But biosafety activists in South Africa are calling a program funded by the Gates Foundation a "Trojan horse" to open the door for private agribusiness and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, including a drought-resistant corn that Monsanto hopes to have approved in the United States and abroad. The Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) program was launched in 2008 with a $47 million grant from mega-rich philanthropists Warrant Buffet and Bill Gates.
The Gates Foundation claims that biotechnology, GE crops and Western agricultural methods are needed to feed the world's growing population and programs like WEMA will help end poverty and hunger in the developing world.