Selling seeds, selling out democracy: US State Department does biotech industry’s bidding Common Dreams By Jacob Chamberlain The U.S. State Department does the bidding of biotech giants like Monsanto around the world by “twisting the arms of countries” and engaging in vast public campaign schemes to push the sale of genetically modified seeds, according to a new report released Tuesday by Food & Water Watch. The report, Biotech Ambassadors: How the U.S. State Department Promotes

British scientists say they have developed a new type of wheat which could increase productivity by 30%.  The process was GMO-free. BBC The Cambridge-based National Institute of Agricultural Botany has combined an ancient ancestor of wheat with a modern variety to produce a new strain. In early trials, the resulting crop seemed bigger and stronger than the current modern wheat varieties. It will take at least five years of tests and regulatory approval before it

Wisconsin Farmer Vernon Hershberger Faces Jail for Feeding Community Trial of Vernon Hershberger set for May 20-24 in Baraboo, WI Customers and Other Supporters to Attend Court with Farmer Food rights activists from around North America will meet in Baraboo, WI at the Sauk County Courthouse May 20th – 24th to support Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger and food sovereignty. Hershberger, whose trial begins May 20, is charged with four criminal misdemeanors that could land

Shareholders of Abbott Laboratories voted April 26 on whether the company should adopt a non-GMO policy for its products, which include one of the nation’s leading infant formula brands, Similac. In the week prior to the vote, The Cornucopia Institute initiated a petition drive, in support of As You Sow, the shareholder activism group that filed the resolution, to collect signatures urging Abbott to remove GMOs from its infant formula. In just a week’s time,

Reuters By Carey Gillam (Reuters) – New efforts to force labeling of foods made with genetically modified crops, including a bill introduced by U.S. lawmakers Wednesday, have struck a nerve with biotech crop developers who say they are rushing to roll out a broad strategy to combat consumer concerns about their products. Executives from Monsanto Co., DuPont, and Dow Chemical, among the world’s largest developers of biotech crops and the chemicals used to help produce