The European Commission has just cleared Monsanto's GM maize for use in the EU. Yet, as Jeffrey M Smith reveals, proper analysis of tests done to gain that approval suggest it should never have been given
Ravaged for decades by famine and war, Ethiopia is trying to eliminate hunger for good with organic farming. Robin Maynard met the man spearheading the campaign
New Mexico’s chilli farmers are under threat. The film 'Red, green of GE?' hears from those concerned about the potentially devastating effects GMO crops would have on the New Mexico chilli.
Marketed as a superfood with almost magical properties, soya protein is found in almost everything we eat. It’s a shame its health claims aren’t worth a bean, says Pat Thomas
Last year celebrity pig farmer Jimmy Doherty kept 1000 organically reared pigs, while this year apparently he's raised barely 200. But if Jimmy’s farm is on the skids, the same cannot be said of his career as a media celeb.
In the past decade, the sales pitch of the biotech companies has shifted with the climate of public opinion. Public scepticism has remained high, but politicians seem to have bought enthusiastically into the GM ‘solution’. In many ways this encapsulates where science has gone wrong – by inventing technologies without first deciding what problems need addressing. If GM crops are the answer, what exactly is the problem?
Can food crops really be engineered to thrive - and to yield more - under drought conditions? After 25 years we're still waiting for the flood of evidence, says Prof Jack Heinemann
The promise of more food from increased yields is driving the appeal for more GM crops, but that promise is theoretical and unfulfilled, argue Dr Ricarda A Steinbrecher and Antje Lorch
Recent reports of catastrophic declines in bee populations have had scientists buzzing around looking for a plausible explanation. Is it mites? Is it GM crops? Is it mobile phones or habitat loss? It's all of these things, says Pat Thomas, but it's also so much more than that.
It was a bad year for the biotech barons. At a conference in January 1999, the consulting firm Arthur Andersen revealed Monsanto executives’ vision of an ideal future – a world in which natural seeds were virtually all extinct and where commercial seeds were genetically modified (GM) and patented.
The US government has given he go-ahead for a test plot of genetically modified (GM) eucalyptus trees in Alabama. For the first time, these trees will be allowed to flower and set seed, opening the door to potential widespread contamination of the American South.
The GM industry is lobbying against EU directive which would make polluters pay for damage caused to biodiversity and Sites of Special Scientific Interest, a leading protester has revealed.
