Bayer blames farmers, 'act of God'
Washington Post, November 22, 2006 (USA)

Bayer CropScience, the company that created LL601, the experimental variety of GE rice found to have contaminated the US rice supply, contends that rice farmers and an "act of God" are to blame for the inadvertent release of the unapproved crop.
Denying any culpability, the Bayer response variously blames the escape of its gene-altered rice, on "unavoidable circumstances which could not have been prevented by anyone", and farmers' "own negligence, carelessness, and/or comparative fault." The day the contamination was announced, Bayer asked the government to approve the variety. Lawsuits have been filed on behalf of about 300 rice farmers.
Lawyers said they had expected Bayer to deny responsibility, but were offended by its attempt to blame farmers. The[y] said their clients had no reason to suspect the seeds they were planting in recent years were contaminated by LL601.
Bayer conducted field tests of LL601 from 1999 to 2001, then dropped the project without seeking government approval to market it.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/01.html

GE contaminated seeds allow[ed] into NZ
NZPA, December 1, 2006 (New Zealand)

A bungle at the border has let nearly two tonnes of sweet corn seed into the country to be planted even though it is "contaminated" with GE seeds.
A total of 1800kg - enough to plant 400ha - "were incorrectly cleared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry" even though documentation from the original batches of seeds showed the presence of GE content.
The documents accompanying the seeds gave no indication of which altered genes had been put into the seeds, or what production traits were being targeted.
"It is extremely disturbing to learn that our border is still not secure against GE contaminated seeds," the Green Party's spokeswoman on GE, co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said. "It is even worse that it has taken two months to discover that." The two-month delay meant most of the seed was likely to have been planted. "If positive contamination is found, it must be removed and destroyed and the farmers compensated," she said. Ms Fitzsimons said the bungle could be an indication that too many people in MAF still did not take the issue seriously.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/02.html

Chip makers oppose GM potato trial
Daily Telegraph, December 2, 2006 (UK)

The Government's decision to allow trials of a new strain of GM potato has been met with strong opposition by the potato industry and the country's largest maker of chips.
The British Potato Council said its refusal to endorse trials of a potato modified to be resistant to late blight was based on consumers' mistrust of GM technology.
The Government has given permission for five-acre plots of GM potatoes produced by the company BASF to be grown next year.
Bill Bartlett, the corporate affairs director of McCain Foods which is the largest manufacturer of chips in Britain, said: "McCain Foods is disappointed with this decision at a time when consumer attitudes do not support GM foods."
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/03.html

Hungary sets limits for GM crops
BBC News, November 28, 2006 (EU)

Hungary's parliament has overwhelmingly backed legislation which severely restricts the planting of GM crops.
Under the law, a buffer zone 400m wide will have to exist between any GMOs and adjacent fields. The written agreement of all landowners within that buffer zone will also be needed for planting to go ahead. The Act is seen as a way of pre-empting expected pressure from the European Commission to end [a] moratorium against one particular GM organism which is permitted elsewhere in the EU.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/04.html

Tight security for GM-crop tests
The Press, November 1, 2006 (New Zealand)

Security will be in place to protect field tests for GM vegetables in Canterbury if they go ahead next year.
The Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) yesterday received its first application in three years to field-test a GM crop at Lincoln. Crop and Food Research has applied to field-test vegetable including broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and forage kale at Lincoln for 10 years.
In 2002, protesters trashed three years of research on GM potatoes by Crop and Food Research.
Dr Elvira Dommisse, a former Crop and Research GM researcher, said the tests were unnecessary. "I think you've just got to put things in perspective and ask if there's actually a need for it, and there isn't a need for it."
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/05.html

GMO rice found safe, but trade still fettered
Reuters, November 28, 2006 (USA)

Last week, the US Department of Agriculture announced that LLRICE601, a strain of GM rice made by Bayer CropScience, was safe for the environment and could be grown and sold without government oversight.
USDA's ruling comes 3 months after the rice, never destined for supermarkets, somehow made its way into the food chain.
[This] move to sanction a strain of biotech rice may do little to soothe lingering doubts about the oversight of GM foods destined for export markets.
"This is a question of reputation," said Steve Suppan, senior policy analyst for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. If exporters can't guarantee the crops are GMO-free, "what is that going to do to the overall ability of US rice exporters?"
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/06.html

Monsanto posts bigger loss for 4th quarter
Reuters, October 11, 2006 (USA)

Monsanto Co. said it posted a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss due to lower revenues from its biotech seed technology, sending shares down 7 percent in early trading.
The St. Louis-based agricultural products company saw a drop of 56 percent in net sales of its soybean seeds and biotechnology traits and a 10 percent decline in other crop seeds and traits in its fourth quarter.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/07.html

Exporters flash GM rice alert
The Telegraph, November 1, 2006 (India)

Rice exporters have called for a freeze on field trials of GM rice in India, warning that any leakage into harvested rice could wreak economic havoc.
Citing the discovery earlier this year of trace levels of experimental GM rice in US commercial consignments and the subsequent backlash on US exports from the European Union and other countries, the exporters said India needed to draw lessons from the plight of US rice exporters.
"We have no ideological stand on GM crops. We're neither against GM nor for GM. But the economic reality is that a contamination of six grains in ten thousand can devastate exports," Srinivasan Seshadri, director of Tilda Riceland, a company exporting Indian rice said.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/08.html

GM crop breakthrough threat to Monsanto
The Financial Times, November 16, 2006 (USA)

A San Diego company, Cibus, which has been funded quietly for several years by a group of biotechnology investors in the US, will unveil a technology that can deliver the benefits of GM without inserting foreign genes into a crop in move that could transform the multibillion dollar agricultural biotech market.
"Essentially they are directing and greatly speeding up natural selection," says Guy Cardineau, a professor at Arizona State University.
Its Rapid Trait Development System will provide a less expensive alternative to GM seeds, Stephen Evans-Freke, the company's chairman says. [He] makes clear that Cibus will be gunning commercially for Monsanto, bête noire of environmental campaigners, whose herbicide-resistant crops dominate the GM business.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/09.html

Vitamin A fortified potato to combat blindness
New Vision (Kampala), November 7, 2006 (Uganda)

A team of researchers have come up with a Vitamin A fortified sweet potato. Vitamin A is essential for good eyesight.
Prof. Patrick Rubaihayo, a plant breeder, who led the team of researchers said the variety was not genetically modified, but a product of pure breeding done in line with the United Nations' Millenium Development Goals. "It is purely a product of normal breeding. We are now testing our product with farmers" he said.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/10.html

Mexico shuts the door on GM maize
Inter Press Service, October 28 2006 (Mexico)

On Oct. 16, Mexico's National Service for Agro-Food Safety and Quality refused - for the third time since 2005 - seven requests from the multinational agribusiness giants Monsanto, Dow Agrosciences and Pioneer for conducting experimental cultivation of GM maize seeds.
Mexico, the birthplace of maize, buys some six million tonnes of maize from the US - one-third of that is transgenic.
Full item: http://www.GEinfo.org.nz/112006/11.html