Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
the Union ministry of health and family welfare (moh&fw), on March 10, 2006, accepted the Indian Council for Medical Research's (icmr) recommendations on labelling genetically modified (gm) food. This is the first decisive move towards a gm food regime in the country. But the wisdom of the move has been …
the draft rules for labelling of genetically modified (gm) foods, formulated by the Union ministry of health and family welfare, has quietly paved the way for gm food's entry in India. The ministry claims this
Zimbabwe is importing unmilled, genetically modified (gm) maize from Argentina, despite a ban on it. According to Reuters, local traders said that Argentinean ships loaded with yellow maize (a gm crop), were making their way to Zimbabwean shores. Government officials, however, pleaded ignorance and said their policy against gm crops …
for the first time, regulators of genetically modified (gm) crops in India organised a workshop with state government officials to account for the requirements of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The workshop, held on February 27-28 in New Delhi, deliberated over the modifications required in the rules of handling gm …
The conflict between trade and environmental concerns was brought out in the open on the global stage in early February at a World Trade Organization (wto) ministerial. The European Union (eu) had banned some genetically modified organisms (gmos) from 1999 to 2003. The us, with Argentina and Canada, challenged this …
the World Trade Organization's (wto's) ruling that the European Union (eu) was not justified in blocking imports of genetically modified (gm) crops has created major problems for the international community. A panel set up under the dispute settlement mechanism of the organisation has sided with Canada, Argentina and the us. …
In an apparent setback to the genetically modified (gm) foods industry, Kenya has destroyed its first gm maize crop planted in open field trials. The move followed the detection that a technician had sprayed Furadan, a restricted pesticide, on the maize modified to resist attack by insects called stem borers. …
Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) is a cucurbitaceous vegetable for which India is the secondary center of diversity and endowed with rich variability especially in the fruit characters. The Regional Station of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NGPGR), located at Hyderabad, India has conducted several expeditions in the Telangana …
The genetically modified (gm) food industry has found a fresh ally in the form of the World Health Organization (who). Following a review of the available evidence on the impact of gm foods on health and development, who has given a clean chit to gm crops. In its report, "Modern …
The EU's efforts to increase the use of genetically modified (GM) food products in member nations have suffered a big blow. The European Commission (EC), EU's administrative wing, had proposed to order five member countries to lift their bans on certain GM products. But environment ministers of 22 of the …
transgenic crops may be more vulnerable to pests than believed. If plants carrying one foreign insecticidal gene are grown next to those with two such genes, insects can rapidly develop resistance to both, according to a study by scientists at Cornell University in the us. The scientists studied plants containing …
Controversy and genetically modified (gm) foods are inseparable. Science journal Nature reported on March 23, 2005 that biotech firm Syngenta International ag had inadvertently distributed an unauthorised variety of gm corn (b t10) in the us between 2001 and 2004. Syngenta says it informed us authorities of the matter as …
the advocates of transgenic crops recently received a big blow from the findings of the largest ever study into the ecological impact of these crops, published recently in Proceedings of the Royal Society B:Biological Sciences . The three-year study commissioned by the uk government suggests that some genetically modified crops …
The controversy over the use of genetically modified (gm) crops in Iran is set to accelerate, with the un Food and Agriculture Organization (fao) recently deciding to implement projects worth us $6 million in the country. fao country director Abdur Rashid was quoted as saying that the organisation will implement …
the Union government's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (geac) recently permitted the cultivation of six genetically modified (gm) cotton varieties in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. These are mrc -6301 and mrc -6304 of the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Limited (mahyco), rch -134 and rch -138 of Coimbatore-based Rasi Seeds Private Limited …
brazil, the world's largest food exporter with a ban on genetically modified (gm) crops, has decided to legalise these. The step is aimed at checking their expanding black market in the country. The move defeats years of efforts of environmental and consumer groups that have won several court cases against …
