Seventeen or more secret applications have been made to India's GMO regulators for trials and release of GM crops including rice, wheat, chickpeas, brinjal and mustard, write Colin Todhunter & Oliver Tickell. In a violation of the law regulators have released no information about the applications, raising fears that India's first GMOs will be released with no health, safety or environmental testing.
Organic farming produces more nutritious food than chemical agriculture, writes Colin Todhunter, while sustaining soils and building organic matter. And we know this from real, peer-reviewed scientific studies - unlike the pseudo-science touted at us by the self-interested advocates of industrial agribusiness.
In early March author Steven Druker challenged the Royal Society to justify its outspoken and partisan support of GMO crops, writes Colin Todhunter, and to correct any errors of fact in his book 'Altered Genes,Twisted Truths'. Three months later, the Royal Society remains silent. Is it frightened of genuine scientific debate?
Corporate lobbyists and their tame politicians love to present GMOs as being humanitarian in purpose, writes Colin Todhunter - as if they exist only to feed the starving millions. But if that's the case, why are they silent on genocidal land grabs, agrochemical poisonings and the destruction of efficient, productive smallholder farming?
The GMO industry has legitimised itself via a vast network of lobbyists and the assiduous capture of the politicians, regulators and scientists that should be holding it to account, writes Colin Todhunter. But as the failure of the GM revolution and its disastrous impacts become ever more evident, the industry's legitimacy is fast eroding away.