05 June 2019. Source: The Leadership Newspaper (Nigeria)

Dr Issoufou Kollo Abdourhamane, the project manager of African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is interviewed on the health and environmental impact of GM crops and the economic importance of Pod-Borer Resistant (PBR) cowpea. The PBR Cowpea Project is a public private partnership coordinated by AATF to promote technological interventions that will optimise cowpea productivity and utilization in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

30 May 2019. Source: ISAAA

A healthy agricultural production system cannot exist without healthy soils. Aside from being the habitat of diverse organisms that contribute to carbon sequestration, the soil plays a vital role in food production as well as in climate change mitigation. With biotech products such as herbicide tolerant crops, conservation practices have been used not just to the farmers’ advantage, but also to preserve soil health.

21 May 2019. Source: Healthcare IT

The country’s regulations on gene technology are being updated to clarify the regulatory status of new genome editing techniques and provide additional benefits to cancer patients and the medical research community. The amendments will make it quicker and easier for medical researchers to do early proof of concept work and progress to clinical trials with patients, including work to identify genes involved in diseases. The regulation amendments had been made on behalf of the Legislative and Governance Forum on Gene Technology to make the legal position of genome editing clearer.

14 May 2019. Source: YouTube via Genetic Literacy Project.

Many Americans know the sad tale of how the American chestnut tree was driven almost to extinction in the 20th century. More important, chestnuts were food. An old rule of thumb was that the nuts from a single big chestnut tree could feed a family of four for a year. …The American Chestnut Foundation has been trying to revive the species since 1983 and plant scientists at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science & Forestry, in Syracuse, have used genetic engineering to splice a blight-resistance gene into American chestnut DNA. The result – a highly resistant American chestnut with many fewer “foreign” genes than the Chinese-American hybrids. These plants are intended to be released into forests as wild trees, so of course people want them to be as “natural” as possible. But agricultural chestnuts, meant to be grown in orchards, are another matter.

16 May 2019. Source: Big Ideas, ABC Radio National

Genetic changes can make food crops more resistant to drought, pests and disease but some consumers will go out of their way to avoid genetically modified produce.Despite reassurance from GM scientists, the debate about GM food goes on. Tasmania has a moratorium on GM crops which is up for review in November. A scientist, a lawyer and an environmental advocate debate the pros and cons of GM agriculture.

Source: American Council on Science and Health

In poor parts of the world, people may rely on a single staple crop to meet a substantial proportion of their energy requirements. Many denizens of Africa rely on cassava. The trouble with cassava, however, is that it is nutrient-poor. Partially as a result, iron and zinc deficiencies are common in Africa. Iron deficiency results in anemia, zinc deficiency in susceptibility to death by diarrhea, and each is also associated with impaired cognitive development. Breeding better varieties of cassava that absorb and store more of these nutrients is made difficult by a lack of genetic diversity. So, scientists have turned to biotechnology.

Source: Genetic Literacy Project

Genetically engineered (GE) crops producing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) (mainly Cry proteins) have become a major control tactic for a number of key lepidopteran and coleopteran pests, mainly in maize, cotton, and soybean.…Over the past 20+ years, extensive experience and insight have been gained through laboratory and field-based studies of the non-target effects of crops producing Cry proteins. Overall, the vast majority of studies demonstrates that the insecticidal proteins deployed today cause no unintended adverse effects to natural enemies.

Source: The Land

Fake news from powerful lobbies is thwarting the urgent access producers need to gene technologies to adapt to drought, flood and the myriad of other challenges climate change is throwing forward. This was the message delivered at a workshop of global economists and researchers dealing with agricultural and food policy, held in Melbourne. Dr Alison Van Eenennaam, from the University of California, said fear mongering around gene technologies was a far larger hindrance to the take-up of critical farming innovation than slow producer adoption.

Source: Farm Online

A move by the Greens in Western Australia to bring in legislation protecting farmers in the wake of contamination by GM crops, is unlikely to progress. A parliamentary inquiry in WA found the current mechanisms in place to deal with compensation claims for farmers who believe they have suffered economic loss caused by contamination by genetically modified material are adequate.

Source: Genetic Literacy Project

New disclosure requirements finalized by USDA for biotech foods will mandate the use of the term “bioengineered” while providing a key exemption for ingredients such as vegetable oils, sugar and other foods where the genetically altered DNA of the GMO crop can’t be detected. The requirements, which will be enforced starting in 2022, also will exempt foods that contain as much as 5 percent of a bioengineered ingredient that the manufacturer can prove was sourced as non-GMO. USDA released two symbols for bioengineered foods that companies can use on labels. One symbol is for products on which disclosure is required, while the other is for companies that want to label ingredients that are otherwise exempt from the rules. The symbols can be used in full color or black-and-white display.

For more, see: USDA Press Release

Source: BBC News

Scientists in the US have engineered tobacco plants that can grow up to 40% larger than normal in field trials. The researchers say they have found a way of overcoming natural restrictions in the process of photosynthesis that limit crop productivity. They believe the method could be used to significantly boost yields from important crops. The study has been published in the journal Science. The team is now hoping to use these findings to boost the yields of soybean, rice, potato and tomato plants. The research is being funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the UK’s Department for International Development.

Source: Cornell Alliance for Science

New research suggests that the type of yield gains made possible by genetic engineering (GE) will be needed to offset climate change impacts on agriculture.

The researchers said their study, published yesterday in Environmental Research Letters, has “important implications for regions lagging in the adoption of new technologies which could help offset the detrimental effects of climate change.”

Though agricultural productivity in Africa and Asia is predicted to be heavily impacted by climate change, political leaders in those regions have been slow to adopt GE technology in the face of intense opposition driven primarily by western-funded anti-GMO activists.

However, this new study suggests that nations may not have the luxury of avoiding new technology if they want to ensure food security in a warming world.

Source: ABC Landline

It’s being described as a possible game changer for farmers and even the pastoral industry in northern Australia — the resurgence of cotton.

The CSIRO has predicted that if 15,000 hectares of the crop were grown in the Ord region of the Kimberley, it would be worth $80 million.

If the same was done in Queensland, beef spin-offs would grow that figure to $340 million…

The turning point was the development of a genetically modified cotton variety called Bollard III in 2016.

It’s able to withstand the insects that can plague the northern wet season and was part of cotton’s demise last time.

Source: phys.org

Extreme drought is one of the effects of climate change that is already occurring. This year, the decrease in rainfall and the abnormally hot temperatures in northern and eastern Europe have caused large losses in cereals and potato crops and in other horticultural species. Experts have long warned that to ensure food security, it is becoming necessary to use plant varieties that are productive in drought conditions. Now, a team led by the researcher at the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) Ana Caño-Delgado has obtained plants with increased drought resistance by modifying the signaling of plant steroid hormones known as brassinosteroids. The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, is the first to find a strategy to increase hydric stress resistance without affecting overall plant growth.

Source: The Scientist

The US Department of Agriculture has announced it would deregulate a strain of cotton that university researchers had genetically engineered to carry low levels of poisonous gossypol in its seeds. The idea is that the modified cotton’s seeds could be grown for food.

Cotton is known for its white fibers that can be woven into soft fabrics. But for every pound of fluffy, white lint, the plant produces 1.6 pounds of peanut-size seeds. Those seeds contain high levels of gossypol, which protects the plant against pests and disease but makes cotton seeds inedible.

Texas A&M University’s Keerti Rathore and colleagues inserted DNA into the cotton plant to turn off the gene responsible for producing gossypol in the seeds. The genetically engineered strain still has protective levels of gossypol in its shoots and leaves, but reduced amounts in its oil- and protein-rich seeds, which could potentially be eaten by humans, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) announcement.