Word: gm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...labeling of genetically modified foods—arguing that it would harm sales. It has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization, claiming that consumers are so skeptical of the genetic manipulation of their food that simply adding a label stating that a particular product is GM, as the European Union is proposing, would constitute a severe “disruption of international trade...
...study tested natural soybeans that had been genetically altered by implanting a gene from Brazil nuts to increase their sulphur content. These soybeans, which had caused no allergic reaction previous to being genetically modified, now caused potentially fatal allergic reactions in those people with nut allergies. Since the GM soybeans are not labeled—they are not differentiated from natural soybeans at all—there is no way that people with nut allergies can even think of avoiding them. This danger was so great, that upon publication of this study the GM soybeans were immediately removed from...
...back to natural produce—and it may already be completely impossible. By 2000, farmers in the U.S. alone were planting over 75 million acres—18 percent of the total cropland and an area three times larger than the state of New York—with GM crops, and this figure is increasing at an almost exponential rate. More worryingly, though, these GM crops are not only spreading through increases in voluntary planting, but clandestinely by migrating to and establishing themselves in previously GM-free fields...
...almost all of North America it has now become almost impossible for farmers planting natural crops to avoid genetic pollution from migrating GM seeds. In Iowa in 2001, for example, only 1 percent of the fields were planted with genetically engineered wheat (the infamous StarLink variety, in this case), yet eventually 50 percent of Iowa’s wheat fields were contaminated. North of the border, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, organic farmers were so affected that they are in the process of filing a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto for making it impossible for them to grow GM...
...problem is not simply caused by weak regulation in North America: the British government has also acknowledged the danger. In December last year the National Institute for Agricultural Botany declared that no GM canola could be grown in England without contaminating the entire British crop, including the fields producing organic or non-GM produce. In addition, the British government asserted that natural canola could not be grown for at least a year on a field where engineered canola had been grown previously due to the contamination from residual genetically engineered canola seeds...