By Gina Munsey •
June 3, 2009
Last month, Canada, the United States, and Australia announced unprecedented plans to join forces and commercialize genetically-engineered wheat, saying that biotechnology was crucial to the future of the wheat industry. The National Farmers Union of Canada, however, immediately refuted the tri-country claim, pointing out “the overwhelming majority of farmers in Canada are still opposed to the introduction of genetically-modified wheat.”
On June 1, fifteen organizations across Canada, the United States and Australia publicly confirmed that opposition with the release of “A Definitive Global Rejection of Genetically Engineered Wheat“, a powerful document speaking out against biotech wheat.
But the battle against GM wheat is not a simple one, nor is it restrained to select countries.
By Gina Munsey •
May 20, 2009
Over the course of a lifetime, the average American consumes over 87,000 slices of bread. Yes, you read that correctly — eighty seven thousand. That’s more than a loaf per week per person, not counting the additional 5,000 hot dog buns and 12,000 hamburger buns each American devours in his or her life.
All that wheat calculates out to a lifetime grand total of 21,947 loaves and buns. The National Geographic Society’s Human Footprint project has illustrated this shocking bread obsession in a stunning visual (see the video clip below). In the words of my little brother, who is no stranger to wheatless ways, “That is a totally nasty amount of bread.”
There’s no argument that bread is an American staple. Amber waves of grain are, after all, an American icon. But we can’t live by bread alone. So what are some wheatless alternatives?
By Gina Munsey •
May 15, 2009
We’ve talked a lot about genetically modified crops here at Eat. Drink. Better — the ongoing battle in the EU over Monsanto’s MON-810 maize, Obama’s refusal to halt genetic engineering in the US sugar-beet industry, and the politics behind it all.
But one frankenfood we haven’t discussed is wheat. Why? Well, mainly because it doesn’t exist. There simply aren’t any commercially-available strains of genetically modified wheat available.
The United States, Canada, and Australia want to change that. In an unprecedented joint statement released yesterday, top wheat organizations from the three countries announced that they intend to “work toward the goal of synchronized commercialization of biotech traits in our wheat crops…we believe it is in all of our best interests to introduce biotech wheat varieties in a coordinated fashion.”
By Kay Sexton •
February 19, 2009
In Kenya there’s a quiet disaster happening, and it’s reaching epidemic proportions …
By Nick Chambers •
October 27, 2008
In a new report, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) says the events of recent months clearly indicate that production of corn ethanol is not a major driving factor behind the continued high food prices at the supermarket.
In the report, “Will the Plunge in Grain Prices Mean Lower Food Prices at the Supermarket?,” the RFA points out that, while prices for agricultural staple commodities such as corn, wheat, and soybeans have all plummeted by about 50% in the last half year, food prices at the grocery store have remained highly elevated. At the same time, ethanol production has dramatically increased.
When the above factors are taken together, the link between grocery store food prices and corn ethanol production becomes dubious. Not only that, and also somewhat unintuitively, it seems that the diversion of relatively large portions of the US corn crop to ethanol production has very little effect on even the market price of corn.
By Meg Hamill •
October 18, 2008
A new amended law in Switzerland protects the dignity of vegetation.
A law protecting the dignity of plants? Laugh if you will. I’m down on my knees in respect and awe. At last the Western World is realizing the dire importance of taking other species into account.
Recently, the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to determine the meaning of dignity when it pertains to plants.
Lo and Behold, the team published a treatise on “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake.” The treatise established that vegetation has innate value and that it is morally wrong to partake in activities such as the “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.”
Over a decade ago, an amendment was added to the Swiss constitution in order to defend the dignity of all creatures — including vegetation — against unwanted repercussions of genetic engineering. The amendment was turned into law and is known as the Gene Technology Act. However the law itself didn’t say anything specific about plants, until recently, when the law was amended to include them.
The obvious question at hand: how does this new ruling affect the production of genetically modified organisms?
By Raz Godelnik •
September 2, 2008
This post was originally posted on Eco-Libris blog on August 30.
Today I read a very interesting article at by Rod Edwards (”Paper from Wheat, not Wood“), who reports from Canada about exciting developments in what seems as a very eco-friendly alternative to trees as the source of paper: wheat.
No, it’s not the case of corn here where a food crop is transferred into (what some think is) an alternative “green” product. We’re talking here about pure agricultural waste - wheat straw.
The issue comes up following the printing of the Canadian National Geographic magazine’s June issue, which was printed using 20% wheat straw. The rest of the paper was made of 40% post-consumer recycled paper and 40% virgin paper.
Well, the wheat straw pulp was imported from China (because straw-pulping facilities have yet to be retrofitted in Canada), and that’s not that eco-friendly, but the point was definitely made in terms of feasibility and quality of this alternative. And the potential is huge, as we can learn from the Canadian printer Dollco, which was part of this effort and explains in its news release what could be the impact of using wheat straw for printing paper in Canada:
By Gavin Hudson •
March 22, 2008
In a press conference on Thursday, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, shared his concern that greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere will lead to grain and water shortages in India and China as well as rising grain prices in the United States.
“The world has never faced such a massively predictable potential reduction in grain harvest as we are now looking at with the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau,” said Mr. Brown. “Keep in mind, this is not based off of a climate model with somewhat theoretical projections. This analysis is based on what is already happening–on a trend that’s very well established in both India and in China.”
