Category: Issues

  • Podcast: Synthetic Biology & Gene Drives – Should We Be Concerned?

    Podcast: Synthetic Biology & Gene Drives – Should We Be Concerned?

    “Genetic engineering is passé. Today, scientists aren’t just mapping genomes and manipulating genes, they’re building life from scratch – and they’re doing it in the absence of societal debate and regulatory oversight.” – Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group, whose mission is to access the consequences and impacts of new technologies. Listen to the […]

  • SynBio, Gene Editing and Other New Stuff: Same Concerns, Supersized

    SynBio, Gene Editing and Other New Stuff: Same Concerns, Supersized

    by Mary Lou McDonald (Safe Food Matters) New words like “synthetic biology”, “GMOs 2.0”, “CRISPR”, and “new biology” are being heard.  And new compounds are in our fragrances, flavourings, cosmetics and foods. The new words are for new techniques of genetic engineering. What are the techniques and their products, and should we be concerned? New […]

  • Gene Editing and Seed Stealing

    Gene Editing and Seed Stealing

    by Chee Yoke Ling and Edward Hammond (Project Syndicate) AUSTIN, TEXAS – Four hundred years ago, John Rolfe used tobacco seeds pilfered from the West Indies to develop Virginia’s first profitable export, undermining the tobacco trade of Spain’s Caribbean colonies. More than 200 years later, another Briton, Henry Wickham, took seeds for a rubber-bearing tree […]

  • A Collision Course with Unintended Consequences

    A Collision Course with Unintended Consequences

    by Melody Meyer (Organic Matters) In an early morning jaunt to Sacramento last week my car was rear ended.  I serve on the California Organic Products Advisory Committee (who by the way are looking for new members), and was on my way to attend a subcommittee meeting when boom—a fine young man rammed me in […]

  • GMO 2.0 Foods Coming Your Way: Will They Be Labeled?

    GMO 2.0 Foods Coming Your Way: Will They Be Labeled?

    by Stacy Malkan (HuffPost) Silenced genes, edited genes, algae engineered to produce compounds that taste like food: new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) made with these experimental techniques are making their way to your dinner plate. It’s the next wave of genetic engineering, or GMOs 2.0. Will we know if they’re in our food? The new […]

  • GMOs 2.0: A New Generation Of Fake Food And Fake Promises

    GMOs 2.0: A New Generation Of Fake Food And Fake Promises

    by Jim Thomas (HuffPost) Would you put these items on your shopping list? Gene-silenced apples that don’t rot; synthetic vanilla made with genetically engineered yeast; canola, DNA edited to resist pesticides. These are just a few of the new genetically engineered products already making their way to a store near you. We call them GMOs […]

  • The Monsanto–Bayer tie-up is just one of seven; Mega-Mergers and Big Data Domination Threaten Seeds, Food Security

    The Monsanto–Bayer tie-up is just one of seven; Mega-Mergers and Big Data Domination Threaten Seeds, Food Security

    by ETC Group Policymakers could still block the agribiz mergers; peasants and farmers will continue the fight for seeds and rights Wednesday’s confirmation that Monsanto and Bayer have agreed to a $66 billion merger is just the latest of four M&A announcements, but at least three more game-changing mergers are in play (and flying under […]

  • Watch: Gene Drives out of Hawaii Public Meeting

    Watch: Gene Drives out of Hawaii Public Meeting

    Watch the Livestream of Wednesday’s public meeting on Gene Drives in Hawaii, part of the series of events that took place to coincide with the ICUN conference. Hosted by Hawaii SEED. Host: Claire Cummings, journalist and author Speakers: Walter Ritte – Native Hawaiin activist, Hokolei Lindsey – Native Hawaiin legal scholar, Dana Perls – Friends […]

  • Gene Drives: Solution or Problem? Sacred or Synthetic?

    Gene Drives: Solution or Problem? Sacred or Synthetic?

    Events during IUCN World Conservation Congress September 1-10, 2016 in Oahu, Hawai’i Gene drives are a new biotechnology development that allows humans the unprecedented capability to profoundly alter or even drive to extinction entire populations or even whole species of organisms. Are they a valued tool for conservation or are they more likely to fail, […]

  • Reckless Driving: Gene drives and the end of nature

    Reckless Driving: Gene drives and the end of nature

    This is a new briefing from the Civil Society Working Group on Gene Drives which includes Biofuelwatch, Econexus, ETC Group, Friends of the Earth US, Hawai’i SEED and Navdanya. It can be downloaded as a pdf here (en español). Imagine that by releasing a single fly into the wild you could genetically alter all the […]