Guy Riba, the deputy director of the French national institute for agricultural research (INRA), highlights the many challenges the world will have to meet by 2050 if it wants to feed its nine-billion inhabitants without destroying its environment. He spoke to EurActiv ahead of a major conference by the French Presidency today (3 July) in Parliament. Read more….

Genetically modified crops will not solve the current food crisis, according to the head of one of the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology companies.

Martin Taylor, chairman of Syngenta, said the current industry focus on farmers in rich countries meant it would take 20 years to launch crop varieties designed to address the problems of the developing world. He told the Guardian: “GM won’t solve the food crisis, at least not in the short term.” Read more….

Malawi has finally opened its doors to genetically modified crops (GMOs) despite fears still lingering among consumer rights groups. Read more….

A research team including scientists from Plant Research International and Wageningen University has succeeded in further unravelling and manipulating the glycosylation of proteins in plants. This is the result of the research* soon to be published in the renowned scientific magazine The Plant Cell.

Africa needs a Green Revolution based on public investment in agricultural science and technology, including local research into genetically engineered crops, says Robert Paarlberg, in the Harvard International Review. Read more….

Before theories linking CCD to GM crops started swirling around, the National Geographic magazine ran an article entitled Mystery Bee Disappearances Sweeping U.S. The article is authoritative because it quoted known entomologists such as Maryann Frazier of Penn State University.

The article recalls that CCD dates back to 1896, not 1995 when the first genetically modified crop was commercialized. As to possible causes of CCD, the experts quoted in this article suspect that mites and poor management could’ve become virulent to the bees, and hence their disappearance.

Last week, I bumped onto an article entitled GMO Studies Fail to Produce Definitive Answers. The article reports a study, by Swiss’s Federal Environment Office experts, that found GM crops have nothing to do with bees’ disappearance. Actually, it went a step further to discount reports that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have negative impact on worms, snails or fly larvae.

This report only reinforces findings contained in another study reported in the journal Science in September 2007. The study found that “…the production of specific insecticidal proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in crops to control targeted caterpillar pests and beetles does not pose a risk to honeybees.” I recall commenting on this article early this year. It’s encouraging more studies about this phenomenon are being done. They’re necessary because they’re shedding more light on this issue.

The world’s biggest food company has called on European policymakers to reconsider their opposition to genetically modified crops, as soaring commodity prices put basic foodstuffs such as wheat and rice out of reach of the world’s poorest. Read more….

In the midst of the worst global grain shortage in decades, two lines of Australian biotech wheat have out-yielded current wheats by 20 percent - even under drought stress. Read more….

The European Union has launched a study into whether a large-scale expansion of genetically modified crops would curb soaring global food prices. Read more….