The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
on january 11, France decided to extend its October 2007 ban on a variety of gm maize. It decided to activate a European Union guideline that prohibits the cultivation of gm corn. The variety, Mon 810, developed by food multinational Monsanto, is the only gm crop that France is growing. …
The Supreme Court today asked the central government to co-opt two eminent scientists in the 29-member Genetic Engineering Approval Committee while granting permission for open field trials for genetically modified food items. The Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan named Nobel prize winner and agriculturist MS Swaminathan and former …
Katrain, HP, Feb 11 A new hybrid cabbage seed, developed here at the regional station of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), may be released next month for commercial cultivation, which will boost production by up to 40%. "We have developed the cabbage seed here at temperate climate, which can give …
There are attempts to attribute everything good with cotton cultivation to GM cotton and on those grounds, bring in other GM crops. Last year, an industry-sponsored study on Bt Cotton farming in India concluded that it is "transforming lives, softly'. The study "revealed' that children in Bt Cotton cultivating households …
Experience in scientific committees for the assessment of environmental and health risks of GMOs, and in biological, biostatistical research and medicine, allowed us to review and criticize mammalian feeding trials with GMOs, and make new proposals. Mammalian feeding trials have been usually performed for regulatory purposes, in order to obtain …
There is no stopping the Bt brinjal trials now. The supreme court on December 10 refused to stay Mahyco's (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company's) ongoing trials in various parts of the country. Social activists Aruna Rodrigues and P V Satheesh had filed a petition against the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee in …
The Indian Council of Medical Research along with Review Committee on Genetic Modification (RCGM) and Genetic Engineering Approval Committee is formulating protocols to assess the safety of food derived from genetically engineered crops. "The new set of protocols is aimed at the stage prior to the making of a GM …
Lysine corn, a genetically modified version designed by Monsanto as animal feed, can now be legally imported and sold in New Zealand. The Food Safety Authority says it is satisfied with tests showing that the corn is safe and is like any other conventional corn. Environmental groups and the opposition …
Farming contributes more to global warming than all the world's cars, trains, ships and planes put together. And the single biggest problem with farming is not carbon but nitrogen. From the maize fields of Kansas to the emerald rice paddies of China, today's bountiful harvests depend on generous applications of …
More than a decade after the first commercial plantings of genetically modified crops, the same old disagreement rumbles on. On one side stand agribiotech companies, arguing that crops engineered to produce insecticidal proteins or resist herbicides boost yields in an environmentally friendly way. Opposing them are advocacy groups who charge …
A recent FAO study report sums up that the flow of transgenes from plants derived from recombinant DNA techniques has specific or special impacts on biology, ecology, agriculture, society and culture. In the case of India and Bt Cotton, it is an established and known fact that commercial cotton produce …
Biotechnology proponents claim that genetically modified (GM) crops are good for consumers, farmers and the environment, and that they are growing in popularity around the world. This report attempt to provide a nuanced, fact-based assessment ofGMcrops around the world, and to clear up common misconceptions about their nature and impacts. …
Biotechnology proponents claim that genetically modified (GM) crops are good for consumers, farmers and the environment, and that they are growing in popularity around the world. Unfortunately, journalists often report such claims as fact, without first subjecting them to critical scrutiny. As in past editions of
on october 26, the supreme court asked the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (geac) of the union government to explain why it allowed fresh trials of gm crops. The direction comes on a petition which says the move violated previous rulings of the court on gm crops trial. The court has …
While the country is actively engaged in discussing the nuclear deal, there is little dialogue on another Indo- us deal, which is being quietly implemented. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had signed the Indo- us Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (kia) in 2005. Singh had called the pact the "harbinger of second …
