18 September 2015. Source ABC PM

MARK COLVIN: A meeting of hundreds of the world’s most eminent experts on grain crops has heard arguments for the likely necessity of genetically modified crops. The consensus among the scientists is that current crop yields are not enough to keep up with global population growth and climate change.

David Claughton reports.

DAVID CLAUGHTON: Global wheat production is 700 million tonnes, but researchers say that needs to reach a billion tonnes to feed the world’s population by 2050.

MAN: Things are getting warmer and drier and inevitably there are going to be new disease problems that occur.

MAN 2: In wheat if there is one degree rise in temperature you can almost expect 10 degrees production in yield.

DAVID CLAUGHTON: Sanjaya Rajaram, winner of the World Food Prize, says GM technology is needed to feed the world into the future. A wheat scientist in India and Mexico, he has bred 480 wheat varieties and is regarded as the world’s greatest wheat breeder. He told the ABC’s Country Hour, conventional hybrid breeding could increase production by 20 to 25 per cent, but that won’t be enough to leave genetic modification out of the mix.

03 September 2015. Source: The Land

WA organic farmer Steve Marsh has lost his Supreme Court appeal for compensation after genetically modified (GM) canola was found on his Kojonup property in 2010.

A decision on the appeal of the Marsh v Baxter case outcome was made today in the Supreme Court of WA Court of Appeal.

Mr Marsh lodged the appeal against a Supreme Court decision which ruled his neighbour Michael Baxter was not responsible for acting negligently in his traditional method of growing the genetically modified (GM) canola crop.

Mr Marsh was suing his neighbour for $85,000 in alleged damages after the organic certification of 70 per cent of his property was suspended in late 2010 when GM canola swathes were found in his crop.

4 May 2015. Source: National Geographic http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150502-nginnovators-rice-genetic-engineering-gm-organic-farming-pamela-ronald/

Can This Scientist Unite Genetic Engineers and Organic Farmers?

DAVIS, California—Eighteen scientists are sitting in a lab, talking about new ways to feed the planet. These are some of the world’s foremost experts on rice. Most of them are from China. Nearly all of them are men.

But it’s an American woman—tan and fit at 54, with gray-brown hair and bright green eyes—who clearly runs the show. Her name is Pamela Ronald, and this is, after all, her laboratory.

Ronald is a plant pathologist and geneticist—a professor at the University of California, Davis whose lab has isolated genes from rice that can resist diseases and tolerate floods. When those genes are inserted into existing rice plants, they help farmers grow high-yield harvests in places where the crop is a vulnerable staple. Last year, four million subsistence farmers in seven countries fed millions of people by planting seeds that carry a gene Ronald and her collaborators isolated.

But her innovations aren’t limited to science. She’s also trying to mend the perceived schism between genetic engineering and organic farming. To do so, she’s promoting a form of sustainable agriculture that draws on both practices. Only by combining elements of each, she contends, will we have a chance of feeding the world’s swelling population (expected to reach 9.2 billion by 2050) while also protecting the planet’s natural resources and countenancing the effects of climate change.

Last year, four million subsistence farmers in seven countries fed millions of people by planting seeds that carry a gene Pamela Ronald and her collaborators isolated.

It seems like a radical idea: There may be no more polarizing ideological debate today than the one over transgenic crops. Though there’s no meaningful scientific definition of “genetic modification” (GM)—virtually all the food we eat has been genetically improved in some manner—most critiques center on moving genes from one organism to another in a lab. For years many people around the world have been diametrically, often bitterly, opposed to this type of genetic engineering. (At least when it comes to crops. For whatever reason, few people seem to have a problem with insulin or other lifesaving GM medicines.)

But as Ronald sees it, plant geneticists and organic farmers aren’t enemies. In fact, they can be bedfellows: Her husband, Raoul Adamchak, is an organic farmer and co-author, with Ronald, of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. Praised by Bill Gates and Michael Pollan, their book argues for an integrated theory of agriculture in which “organic farming and genetic engineering each will play an increasingly important role,” rather than being unnecessarily pitted against each other.

“All this arguing about what’s genetically modified is a big distraction from the really important goals,” says Ronald. “We need to produce safe and nutritious food that consumers can afford and farmers can make a profit from. And we need agricultural practices that enhance soil fertility and crop biodiversity, use land and water efficiently, reduce use of toxic compounds, reduce erosion, and sequester carbon. I think most everyone agrees on those general principles.”…

4 May 2015. Source: National Geographic

http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/04/gmo-cattle-may-help-reshape-small-farms-in-africa/

With one gene, molecular geneticist Steve Kemp may someday be able to boost the success of small farms across a huge swath of central Africa.

The gene is from a baboon, and it’s important because it produces a protein that kills a diabolical protozoan called Trypanosoma brucei. Trypanosoma brucei causes a deadly wasting disease–trypanomiasis–in both cattle and humans. Now stick with me, here’s where it gets interesting: That protozoan, called a trypanosome, is the reason one-third of the African continent–an area the size of the United States–is almost completely prevented from keeping livestock. That’s because the tse-tse fly, the trypanosome’s preferred method of transportation, lives there. Where flies can infect cattle, cattle usually can’t survive.

The implications of animal-free farming in the developing world are enormous. For starters, there’s malnutrition. A quarter of the 800 million malnourished people on our planet live in sub-Saharan Africa, and lack of protein is a significant contributing factor.

But the larger problem is labor. Kemp, who’s been working on the disease since the 1980’s, says “Western people don’t understand the role of livestock in developing world agriculture. You talk about cows dying or not, and they think of steak and milk. But livestock are fundamental. If someone’s main business is growing maize, but he’s got a bullock that can pull a plow in the field and pull a cart to market, that’s huge. It’s about oiling the wheels of an agricultural system, and you need livestock.” In that cattle-free zone, 90 percent of the land is still worked by hand.

Trypanosomiasis doesn’t just kill livestock. It gets people, too. The human version is called sleeping sickness. The trypanosomes infect the central nervous system and cause confusion, behavior changes, and the sleep disruption that gives the disease its name. Untreated, it’s generally fatal. Livestock are sometimes the source for human infection.

The problem is pressing, and it caught Kemp’s attention when it became apparent that at least one kind of African cattle–the N’Dama breed, native to west Africa–had some natural tolerance of trypanosomes. Kemp, who’s originally from the UK and works at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, set out to investigate the source of that tolerance, in the hopes of breeding it into other kinds of African cattle.

He ran into two problems. The first was that cattle’s tolerance turned out to be complex. “There are at least ten genes involved,” says Kemp. The more genes involved, the harder it is to breed the trait into an animal. The second was that, because the cattle still played host to the trypanosome, even tolerant animals would be a disease reservoir, threatening humans and other animals.

While Kemp was studying trypanosomiasis in cattle, Jayne Raper, Professor of Biological Sciences at City University of New York’s Hunter College, was studying its absence in baboons. Along with a few other primates, baboons have complete resistance to the disease, and Raper was studying the source of that resistance, looking for clues to fight the human version of trypanosomiasis, which infected 20,000 people in 2012, according to World Health Organization estimates. Raper discovered that a component of baboon cholesterol, a protein with the charismatic name ApoL1, kills the trypanosome by punching holes in its cell walls. (Humans produce a similar protein, which kills some trypanosomes but not T. brucei.)

As Kemp describes it, the two scientists had an a ha moment at a meeting at ILRI in 2006. Raper was working on isolating the baboon gene in the hopes of created trypanosome-resistant transgenic mice to prove her concept. Kemp explained the problem with cattle and, well, a ha! By 2008, Raper had her mice, and Kemp now estimates that they’re about a year away from having a transgenic cow grazing the ILRI pastures…

Farmer and consumer cost of delaying approval of single GM trait estimated at $19 billion

4 May, 2015. Source: www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/05/04/farmer-and-consumer-cost-of-delaying-approval-of-single-gm-trait-estimated-at-19-billion/

A new white paper shows that a three-year postponement in global approval of biotech-enhanced soybean traits any time in the next 10 years would cost farmers and consumers a total of nearly $19 billion, compared with typical approval timelines.

This new research was released during a recent International Soybean Growers Alliance (ISGA) mission. Farmer-leaders from the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay met with Chinese governmental officials and influencers to discuss the economic implications of these delays for global producers and consumers of soy.

Farmers in large soy-exporting countries that quickly adopt new technology — the U.S., Brazil and Argentina — and consumers in large importing countries —China and the nations in the European Union — have the most to lose from delayed approvals, according to the white paper.

As an example of important biotech approvals that farmers might need in the near future, the study examined herbicide-tolerance traits and analyzed the effects of approval delays through 2025.

Regulatory delays have real costs for society. For example, when new biotech herbicide-tolerant varieties are not approved in a timely manner, farmers continue to incur increased weed-control costs, potential yield losses and reductions in acreage. Some farmers may see greatly increased production costs or be forced out of farming entirely. At the same time, higher prices and reduced supplies strain consumers.

4 May 2015. Source:

www.science20.com/news_articles/triple_null_new_genetically_modified_soybean_a_big_benefit_for_food_allergies-155306

Triple Null: New Genetically Modified Soybean A Big Benefit For Food Allergies

A new soybean with significantly reduced levels of three key proteins responsible for both its allergenic and anti-nutritional effects has been created. Soybean is a major ingredient in many infant formulas, processed foods and livestock feed used for agriculture. 

Conventional soybeans contain several allergenic and anti-nutritional proteins that affect soybean use as food and animal feed and in the U.S. alone, nearly 15 million people and 1 in 13 children suffer from food allergy…

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eliot Herman and colleagues targeted P34 as the soybean’s key allergen, and genetically engineered it out of the crop. Although the new soybean may have been less likely to cause allergic reactions, testing was impeded by government restrictions.

To circumvent the issue, Herman, now a professor in the University of Arizona School of Plant Sciences, and colleagues set out to create a similar soybean using conventional breeding methods that do not fall under the legal definition of a GMO…

After nearly a decade of crossbreeding each variety to the soybean reference genome called Williams 82, the team has produced a soybean that lacks most of the P34 and trypsin inhibitor protein, and completely lacks soybean agglutinin. Beyond these characteristics, the soybean is nearly identical to Williams 82. They’ve dubbed the new variety “Triple Null.”

Because it is not a GMO, it can be grown organically, like is done with mutagenesis-derived plants and other legacy genetically modified foods, or transgenic methods could add other producer or consumer traits.

First up will be tests to evaluate the efficacy of the low-allergen soybean in swine.

Growers say canola production down in South Australia due to GM moratorium

20 April 2015. Source: SA Country Hour (ABC Radio)

www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-20/growers-say-canola-production-down-in-sa-due-to-gm-moratorium/6404884?section=sa

Grain producers in South Australia are warning canola production will keep declining in the state if they are unable to plant genetically modified varieties.

CEO of Grain Producers South Australia, Darren Arney, said low prices and high production costs led to a huge reduction in the amount of canola being planted in the state this year.

He said South Australian growers were competing with Canada and the other Australian states who could grow GM varieties.

Until they were able to use those varieties, he said, it would be an uphill battle to grow the crop.

“We need a lift in the price now if Canada’s growing a lot more canola year on year it’s going to be hard to see that price come up,” Mr Arney said.

“Until we have access to the same technology that other producers in Australia have, then I guess we’ll see less canola and more cereal.

“(It means) less risk and, over time, potentially less production or less productivity from the state while we wait for the technology to come through.”

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce calls on South Australia to drop GM moratorium

17 April 2015. Source: SA Country Hour (ABC Radio)

www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-17/barnaby-joyce-tells-south-australia-to-say-yes/6400562?section=sa

Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has urged South Australia to reconsider its moratorium on genetically-modified crops.

Mr Joyce, speaking a dinner for agri-business leaders in Adelaide, said it was time South Australia became a ‘yes’ state.

He said South Australia needed to approve genetically modified crops and nuclear power production.

Mr Joyce said Adelaide was at risk of being overtaken by Darwin as the major city in central Australia.

“It’s a tale of two cities and it’s not Paris and London but it is Adelaide and Darwin and one city keeps saying yes, yes, yes and growing and planning for growth,” he said

“Unless we get the same vitality in Adelaide, Darwin will overtake them as the main city of central Australia, with a choice between Darwin and Adelaide… the business will go north and the prosperity will be closely in tow with it.

15 April 2015. Source: Pulp & Paper Canada
www.pulpandpapercanada.com/news/brazil-approves-commercial-use-of-genetically-modified-eucalyptus/1003570998/?&er=NA

Brazil has become the first jurisdiction worldwide to permit the commercial use of FuturaGene’s genetically engineered eucalyptus. The Brazilian National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) approved the commercial use of the yield-enhanced eucalyptus developed by FuturaGene. According to the company, field experiments conducted since 2006 at various locations in Brazil have demonstrated an approximate 20% increase in yield compared to its equivalent conventional variety.

The company says this approval represents the most significant productivity milestone for the renewable plantation forest industry since the adoption of clonal technology in the early 1990s. This approval enables the production of more fiber using less resources.

An impact study produced last year by Pöyry Silviconsult forecasts the potential gains of applying the genetically engineered eucalyptus technology to the entire Brazilian eucalyptus plantation area by the year 2050. It concludes that this variety of eucalyptus will be ready to harvest in 5.5 years compared with the seven-year harvest of conventional eucalyptus on Brazilian forestry plantations. Consequently, it will require 13% fewer hectares to meet the same wood demand as existing crops.

…

FuturaGene states that its yield-enhanced eucalyptus has been under development since 2001 and has undergone extensive biosafety assessment prior to submission for commercial approval. According to Dr. Stanley Hirsch, FuturaGene CEO, the company has several additional products at different stages of development in its pipeline.

1 April 2015. Source: Ballarat Courier

THE Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia has launched the second edition of The Official Australian Reference Guide to Agricultural Biotechnology and GM Crops at last week’s 15th annual Science Meets Parliament event in Canberra.

The launch was a focus of the council’s first bi-annual meeting this year held at Parliament House in Canberra.

The updated booklet provides information about genetically modified crops based on scientific evidence. Topics covered include the science, performance, safety and regulation of GM crops as well as products in the pipeline and the commercial and market realities. The guide also gives a voice to farmers actually using GM crops and answers some common questions regarding stockfeed, the organisations involved in GM crop research, and food safety.

“Genetic modification of crops has been an unnecessarily contentious issue in Australian food and agriculture for decades,” Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia chairman Ken Matthews said.

“It is only through the consideration of hard research, market and health data, as well as the experiences of scientists, farmers and consumers around the world, that a mature and reasoned debate can be achieved in Australia. The Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia has developed the Guide to provide factual information about GM crops.”

Agricultural biotechnology is being put forward as part of the solution to some of the world’s biggest challenges including: a rapidly growing world population, climate change and growing pressure on natural resources such as water and arable land.

Over the past 19 years over 450 billion acres of biotech crops have been planted across 20 developing and eight industrialised countries representing more than 60 per cent of the world’s population. This 100-fold increase makes biotech crops the fastest adopted crop technology in recent times.

Despite the widespread adoption by farmers, the technology continues to stimulate considerable community debate.

The guide presents information on coexistence in farming and the on-farm management practices and systems currently in place that maintain the integrity of both GM and non-GM crops. The long track record of farmers using different agricultural production methods alongside each other both here and overseas reaffirm that all agricultural production methods can and should work to coexist to deliver the best of Australian agriculture.

The Official Australian Reference Guide to Agricultural Biotechnology and GM Crops is available online at www. abca.com.au

31 March 2015. Source: ABC Rural – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-31/gm-safflower-trials-show-promising-results-oria/6358448 

Trials of genetically modified safflower in Western Australia’s Ord irrigation scheme are indicating it has the potential to be a billion dollar industry for the region in the future.

A one hectare trial conducted at the Frank Wise Research Centre near Kununurra has delivered very promising results.

CSIRO’s Craig Wood said the plants were very happy in the tropical environment.

“It turns out the Ord is a really nice place to grow safflower, the plants themselves loved it,” Dr Wood said.

“The oils were the best we have ever seen in terms of their functional properties and the plants themselves were large and very healthy.”

The trial is a collaborative effort between the CSIRO and the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

The plant was also trialled in Narrabri in New South Wales and in Canberra in the ACT, but Dr Wood said the results were most promising for the Ord.

“It’s a little bit early on to say that it’s much better in Kununurra but they were the best and healthiest plants we have grown so far.”

It wasn’t a complete surprise the crops grew so well considering safflower was grown in the region during the 1960s as one of its first crops.

Opportunities of safflower oil in industry

However, the oil content of the genetically modified crop impressed researchers.

Traditionally safflower produces the oil used in vegetable oil and Dr Wood said the genetically modified plant had been altered to make the oil it produces more stable.

“We are the leading edge for genetically modified safflower for this particular type of oil.

“This oil is not grown anywhere else in the world so it’s a unique and an Australian invention, one may say.”

The increased stability in the oil allows it to be used in industrial processes.

“Industrial processes are looking for oils, not necessarily from plants, but any type of oil that is very stable under temperature, it doesn’t go off, it doesn’t form into any fancy polymers.”

Dr Wood said there were a variety of purposes the oil could be used for, including in transformers.

“All of transformer boxes at the end of the street that convert different types of high voltage electricity into different household power supplies each one of those boxes has currently mineral oils that come from petrochemicals.

“It would be very interesting if we could replace those oils with these kind of sustainable safflowers oils,” he said.

Dr Wood said the market for such ‘green’ oils could be worth billions…

GM appeal rests on ‘duty of care’

24 March 2015. Source: http://www.farmonline.com.au/news/agriculture/cropping/general-news/gm-appeal-rests-on-duty-of-care/2727340.aspx

An appeal by Kojonup organic farmer Steve Marsh against a Supreme Court finding in favour of his GM-cropping neighbour, Michael Baxter, will hinge on whether appeal judges are convinced Mr Baxter had a greater duty of care to protect Mr Marsh’s organic certification.

Former Western Australian governor Malcolm McCusker, appearing for Mr Marsh and his wife Susan, asserted on Monday, the opening day of the appeal, that Mr Baxter was in breach of his duty of reasonable care when he harvested a genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready canola crop by swathing without considering the risk of swathes blowing over the fence.

“He (Mr Baxter) had a duty to ensure (GM) canola does not go onto a neighbour’s property,” Mr McCusker said.

“Mr Baxter’s duty was to take reasonable care to ensure his farming practises and GM product did not adversely affect his neighbour’s organic certification.”

After a high-profile 11-day hearing in February last year, Justice Kenneth Martin found in part there was no common-law negligence or breach of reasonable duty of care by Mr Baxter in growing a lawful GM crop and deciding to swathe it – cut it, rake it into windrows to dry and then process it to recover the seed.

…

19 March 2015. Source: Thanh Nien News – http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/vietnam-approves-commercial-crops-of-gmo-corn-to-cut-imports-40016.html

Vietnamese farmers nationwide are now able to plant three varieties of genetically-modified (GM) corn from the Swiss firm Syngenta, according to a new government’s rule announced Wednesday.

The three varieties are NK66 BT, NK66 GT and NK66 BT/GT and will be supplied to corn farms nationwide with each variety being distributed to specific regions, said the decision from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

NK66 BT in particular will be supplied to regions with European corn borers, NK66 GT for places with strong weeds and the other for farms susceptible to both the borers and weeds.

Pham Dong Quang, director of the Department of Crop Production, said the three varieties can resist pest and herbicide as well as produce higher yields.

“GM corn will be used for animal feed only and thus, it does not require special labeling,” he said.

“Jailbreaking” yeast could amp up wine’s health benefits, reduce morning-after headaches

16 March, 2015. Source: University of Illinois – http://aces.illinois.edu/news/jailbreaking-yeast-could-amp-wines-health-benefits-reduce-morning-after-headaches

URBANA – University of Illinois scientists have engineered a “jailbreaking” yeast that could greatly increase the health benefits of wine while reducing the toxic byproducts that cause your morning-after headache.

“Fermented foods—such as beer, wine, and bread—are made with polyploid strains of yeast, which means they contain multiple copies of genes in the genome. Until now, it’s been very difficult to do genetic engineering in polyploid strains because if you altered a gene in one copy of the genome, an unaltered copy would correct the one that had been changed,” said Yong-Su Jin, a U of I associate professor of microbial genomics and principal investigator in the Energy Biosciences Institute.

Recently scientists have developed a “genome knife” that cuts across multiple copies of a target gene in the genome very precisely—until all copies are cut. Jin’s group has now used this enzyme, RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease, to do precise metabolic engineering of polyploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains that have been widely used in the wine, beer, and fermentation industries.

The possibilities for improved nutritive value in foods are staggering, he said. “Wine, for instance, contains the healthful component resveratrol. With engineered yeast, we could increase the amount of resveratrol in a variety of wine by 10 times or more. But we could also add metabolic pathways to introduce bioactive compounds from other foods, such as ginseng, into the wine yeast. Or we could put resveratrol-producing pathways into yeast strains used for beer, kefir, cheese, kimchee, or pickles—any food that uses yeast fermentation in its production.”

Another benefit is that winemakers can clone the enzyme to enhance malolactic fermentation, a secondary fermentation process that makes wine smooth. Improper malolactic fermentation generates the toxic byproducts that may cause hangover symptoms, he said…

The research was reported in a recent issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

23 March 2015. Source: www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/farmers-back-in-court-for-gm-canola-appeal-hearing/6335450

Two Western Australian grain farmers are back in court today for the appeal hearing for damages around the alleged loss of income due to genetically modified (GM) canola contamination.

The case attracted worldwide attention in the two week trial in February last year, refuelling the heated debate around the use of genetically modified crops and putting the small farming community of Kojonup, 260 kilometres south-east of Perth, in the spotlight.

Almost three quarters of Stephen Marsh’s organic farm, Eagles Rest, was decertified when genetically modified canola swaths were found in his wheat paddock, in late 2010.

Mr Marsh took his neighbour Michael Baxter to court for $80,000 compensation and a permanent injunction that would stop Baxter growing GM canola in the future.

WA Supreme Court judge Justice Kenneth Martin handed down the judgement in May 2014, comprehensively rejecting Mr Marsh’s claims.

The long-running court case has been hailed by supporters on both sides as a test case for the use of GM technology in farming.