Ottawa | Reuters — Canada has asked for formal consultations with Mexico over its restrictions on genetically modified (GM) agricultural imports under the North American free-trade agreement, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Canada requested the talks on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg, a day after the U.S. requested formal trade consultations […] Read more
Canada reported seeking formal talks with Mexico on GMO rule
U.S. already seeking similar talks
Too much red tape in gene editing, says expert
That’s stifling advances and fuelling public skepticism, says American professor
Reading Time: 3 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – Regulations on gene editing of animals are fuelling negative public perceptions of the technology and stifling innovation in the livestock sector, according to an expert in animal genomics and biotechnology. “I predict there’s going to be a targeted activist campaign against gene editing in food production for a number of reasons,” Alison […] Read more
France backs non-GMO regulation for crop gene-editing in EU
Paris | Reuters — France sees crops developed using gene-editing techniques as different to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and opposes a European Union court decision to put them under strict GMO regulations, the country’s agriculture minister said. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in 2018 that mutagenesis, among so-called new breeding techniques (NBT) based […] Read more
Trump simplifies reviews of genetically modified farm products
Council Bluffs | Reuters — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing federal agencies to streamline the review process for agricultural biotechnology including genetically modified livestock and seeds. Trump signed the order during a visit to an ethanol plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The executive order, he said, would “speed up […] Read more
Cargill touts investment in ‘cultured meat’
Global giant says lab-grown beef will ‘complement’ its meat business
Reading Time: < 1 minute Cargill has bought a share of a company that claims it is “leading the slaughter-free meat revolution for a healthier world.” The Minneapolis company, one of the world’s largest beef processors, says it is investing in Aleph Farms, an Israeli startup that said in December it successfully created steak by using cultured bovine cells. “Aleph […] Read more
Where are the Canadian genome-editing startups?
Looser regulations give the U.S. an edge in GE product development, but Canadians are working on gene editing, too
Reading Time: 4 minutes Genome editing has made some major strides in the past year. Minnesota-based Calyxt struck a deal with a processor to make oil from its GE soybeans, in which the genes responsible for trans fats have been ‘turned off.’ And SU Canola (a sulfonyurea herbicide-resistant variety) was given its Canadian commercial release a year ago by […] Read more
U.S. to seek comprehensive ag access in EU trade talks
Washington | Reuters — The United States on Friday signaled it would not bow to the European Union’s request to keep agriculture out of this year’s planned U.S.-EU trade talks, publishing negotiating objectives that seek comprehensive EU access for American farm products. The objectives, required by Congress under the “fast-track” trade negotiating authority law, seek […] Read more
Where did GM wheat found in Alberta come from?
So far, there seems to be no logical explanation on how the GM wheat came to exist
Reading Time: 3 minutes The mystery over how seven plants of genetically modified wheat wound up growing next to an Alberta field access road will take some time to unravel. This high-tech whodunit has regulators scratching their heads to figure out how a known glyphosate-resistance gene from Monsanto got into an unknown variety of wheat hundreds of kilometres from […] Read more
The next frontier of plant breeding
Advocates say game-changing genome editing is completely different from genetic engineering — but will the public agree?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Farmers need to get in front of the messaging about genome editing technology — or risk seeing it suffer the same fate as GMOs in the court of public opinion. That’s the warning from the chair of Alberta Wheat’s research committee, who is one of many who fears genome editing is going to get lumped […] Read more
The rules are still being written for genome editing
Reading Time: < 1 minute Researchers are excited about genomic editing’s potential to develop new crop varieties without the controversial genetically modified label. However, the regulation of genome edited crop varieties is still up for debate. In March, the U.S. agriculture secretary said his officials won’t regulate plants that could otherwise have been developed through traditional breeding techniques. “With this […] Read more
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