The 2023 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor, a flagship publication of AKADEMIYA2063 and the International Food Policy Research Institute, provides an overview of trade in agriculture in Africa, including analysis of short- and long-term trends and drivers behind Africa’s global trade, intra-African trade, and trade within Africa’s regional economic communities. The …
history will be made on June 18, when the World Trade Organization (wto) is expected to officially declare that the subsidies given by the us to its cotton farmers are illegal. It will be the first time that a developing country
the more one reads about Bt cotton in India, the more confusing the issue gets. The latest in a series of claims and counterclaims is a survey of Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (mmb), which till recently was the only company that could sell genetically modified (gm) seeds in India. The survey …
Since the first transgenic plant was obtained, great progress has been achieved in GM crops. During the past seven years, the global area of GM crops has increased by more than 35-fold to over 58.7 million hectares (mha) in developed and developing countries. This trend is continuing.
in what is perhaps the first-of-its-kind crackdown on a transaction pertaining to illegally developed genetically modified (gm) seeds, three traders from Madhya Pradesh (mp) were arrested in Shahpur taluk of Karnataka's Gulbarga district. They were allegedly buying spuriously produced Bt cotton seeds from local trader Vijay Kumar. But Kumar, the …
The first day of a multilateral conference involving most of the world’s nations is usually spent on procedural matters. So it was at Cancun, Mexico, where the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held from September 11 to September 14, 2003. After the usual ceremonial inauguration, …
At Cancun (“snakepit” in Spanish), it was widely expected that negotiations on agriculture would make or break the talks. However, delegates were quick to point to two other issues as equally damaging: (a) the manner in which the Cotton Initiative was methodically dismissed by the US; and (b) the poisonous …
What kind of ripples were let loose by the breakdown of talks? Celso Amorim, Brazil's minister of external relations and leader of the G-22 group, felt that the lack of engagement (of developing nations) in the Singapore issues, which mirrored the lack of engagement (of the developed world) on agriculture, …
The term genetically modified (GM) is highly controversial. While the science of transferring desirable genetic traits from one organism to another has applications in several fields
The Dutch East India Company was formed c 1602. As the Dutch Armada set sail for the East Indies from Amsterdam, surgeons and apothecaries on the fleet were instructed by the great European renaissance botanist Carolus Clusius "to bring, laid between paper, branchless carrying leaves and fruits' foremost of commercially …
Illegal variants of GM seeds are threatening the future of cotton in India The biotech revolution in India has turned into a nightmare. At least in Gujarat, where cotton farmers are happily using illegal versions of genetically-modified (GM) cotton seeds. The so-called regulator set up by the environment ministry, the …
the quest to promote Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton may suffer a serious setback with scientists from the us-based University of Arizona discovering that the pink bollworm
a recent study could have broad implications for farmers' ability to stop pests from becoming resistant to pesticides. Scientists from the us-based North Carolina State University have found that in the us, cotton pests mature feeding on corn all summer before moving towards south to munch cotton in the autumn. …
I happened to be in Hirekur taluk in Haveri district of Karnataka to attend an Independence Day flag hoisting function this year. Farmers dominated the gathering. Not surprisingly, all talk seemed centred around the Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton experiment in the state. Pleased with my evident interest in their talk, …
just when the Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton row was showing signs of dissipating, the issue has resurfaced. And this time, a controversy is brewing in Karnataka. On August 9, 2002, thousands of farmers of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (krrs), a group of farmers' associations organised a massive rally in …
In a major blow to the us biotech industry, the European parliament recently approved one of the world’s most stringent regulations on labelling of genetically modified organisms (gmo). The parliament has also decided to retain the ongoing moratorium on the import of numerous gm products till the regulation comes into …
ANDHRA Pradesh, the state where more than 500 farmers committed suicide after a failed crop in 1998, is now set to officially explore the commercial viability of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton. Earlier this year, in March, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) cleared the commercial use of Bt cotton. Mahyco-Monsanto …
Genetically modified pink bollworms (Pectinophora gossypiella) have been released recently for the first time in a secret location in the cotton fields of Arizona. The bollworms have been modified by US scientists to be sterile so that they can mate with natural bollworms, which will not produce any offspring. Although …
