I think Bill may be a bit confused about Apple’s success…

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Leeds University has resumed field trials of genetically modified potatoes just a year after protesters tore up the previous crop.

400 potato plants are being grown to test their modified resistance to a microscopic parasitic worm called a nematode. The failure to inform the public has led to environmental groups claiming the project is ‘underhand’. However, the original three-year permission, granted by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is valid, so the crops can be replanted without having to provide further notice. The land has been protected by fencing and CCTV cameras surrounding the crop and by not telling the public the exact location of the potatoes. DEFRA also says that an independent advisory committee on releases to the environment has said that the experiment will not compromise human health or the environment. Plants on land alongside the research crop will be destroyed when the experiment has finished and the actual field will be left fallow to stop cross-pollination into subsequent crops.

Environmentalists fear contamination and cross-pollination

However, Friends of the Earth (FOE) has said that the potatoes could contaminate other plants near the research site and that farmers, gardeners and people living nearby should know about it the trials.

Food security drives experimentation

This is part of a much wider issue in which the British Government is being heavily lobbied by biotechnology companies who say that warnings of food shortages caused by population increase and climate change mean that biotechnology offers the best chance of food security for the future.

Potatoes courtesy of ColinD40 at Flickr under a creative commons licence

Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.

Physicians to consider the possible role of GM foods in the disease processes of the patients they treat and to document any changes in patient health when changing from GM food to non-GM food.

Our members, the medical community, and the independent scientific community to gather case studies potentially related to GM food consumption and health effects, begin epidemiological research to investigate the role of GM foods on human health, and conduct safe methods of determining the effect of GM foods on human health.

For a moratorium on GM food, implementation of immediate long term independent safety testing, and labeling of GM foods, which is necessary for the health and safety of consumers.

But why should GM producers like Monsanto be concerned with this? One Monsanto official told the New York Times that the corporation should not have to take responsibility for the safety of its food products.

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Two conferences reveal the nature of the problem

Between 15—19 May, a Vatican organised ‘study week’ looked at ‘Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development’ – a title that gives some idea of the expected outcome of a more pro-GMO stance, however there won’t be an official position statement on GMOs and both sides of the argument claim to have a degree of Papal support. In the no-to-GMO camp are quite a number of social justice activists who fear that native crops and native peoples could be dislodged by the cash-crop power of GMOs and they share an uneasy alliance with some bishops and theologians, whose view is that GMOs are both a threat to the environment and human health and a possible step on the path to usurping the role of God as Creator. On the opposite side are many agribusinesses, some other development campaigners and some other theologians, who see GMOs as the logical tool to destroy poverty, feed the hungry, and maintain stewardship of the environment.

Some watchers have said that several of the speakers at the conference have financial links to Monsanto, one of the world’s largest GMO producers. The counter-argument is that with GMOs being big agribusiness, it’s inevitable that most people working the field will have had funding or sponsorship from one of the very few companies at the top of the GMO tree.

Uganda seeks to change policy, and minds

And in Uganda, another conference is currently exploring  the production of GMO crops in Africa. The participants are looking at the gap between policy and research, and giving evidence on how investment in GM technology could benefit the continent. One claim being made at this event is that the widespread adoption of GMO agriculture could ‘significantly reduce’ the cost of food in developing countries by 2050. However, this could only be achieved if consumer preferences were changed, a transformation that has happened without protest in the USA and patchily and with massive protest, in much of Europe.

Vatican courtesy of David Paul Ohmer at Flickr under a creative commons licence

Before we get to said blogger I’d like to link this passage from Wikipedia, offering a very small taste of Monsanto’s activity in the US (I have linked to much more information after the cartoon).

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In a huge break for the United States’ anti-GMO movement, a federal judge ruled that the US Fish & Wildlife Service should not have allowed genetically modified crops to be planted within a Prime Hook, a national wildlife refuge in Delaware.

The suit, filed by the Center for Food Safety, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and the Audubon Society in Delaware, challenged that the US Fish & Wildlife Service knowingly put habitat at risk when it allowed farmers to plant GMO’s inside the 10,000-acre wildlife refuge. The results were better than anyone expected.

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All of the European Union nations, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries require the mandatory labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients–the U.S. does not.

As a result, food manufacturers in all those countries choose to use non-genetically engineered ingredients–the U.S. did not.

However, there is atleast one way to tell whether or not the fruit you eat is a GMO (Genetically Modified Organism)–the sticker. Yes, those colorful stickers we proudly wore on our shirts as kids actually serve a purpose–but you need to know how to decipher their code.

Don’t worry, it’s easy.

Got a pencil?

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This new kind of corn, in an ideal scenario, would allow the kernels to be used as food, while the (formerly) wasted part of the corn plant could be converted to biofuel. A gene from a cow’s stomach, one of the most effective digesters of plant sugars in the world, is implanted into a corn cell using genetic engineering, fundamentally changing the corn plant. As reported in Biofuels Journal:

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