January « 2010 « Biofortified

I Have a Dream

by Frank N. Foode on 18 January 2010

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great field trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow test plots. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for acreage left you battered by the storms of uninformed pundits and ripped out by the hands of Greenpeace brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that biotic and abiotic stresses are redemptive. Go back to Colorado, go back to Oregon, go back to Southeast Asia, go back to Africa, go back to Europe, go back to the broken greenhouses of Germany, and the burned buildings in Michigan and California, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the laboratory with despair, I say to you today, my Frank ‘N’ Friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Human dream.

I have a dream that one day the eaters will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all crops are bred equal.”

Talking about blogging

by Karl Haro von Mogel on 17 January 2010

At the 2009 Maize Genetics Conference, Anastasia and I took a moment to sit down and record a conversation about blogging about plant genetics and genetic engineering. We talked about the challenges ahead of us, what we’d like to do with the site, and how to figure out what to focus on first, and concerns about publicly expressing opinions on contentious topics, just to name a few things. But, it got buried as many

Organ Failure? Organ Damage? Cancer?!?

by Karl Haro von Mogel on 14 January 2010

If you have been paying attention to the blogosphere lately, you’ve heard about a study that came out in the International Journal of Biological Sciences called A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health, by Vendomois et al. It is a reanalysis of feeding trail data from Monsanto corn-fed rats. While its conclusions essentially call for “more research” because they claim to have found “signs of toxicity” they admit that they do not have proof of such toxicity.

Feature Request!

by Karl Haro von Mogel on 13 January 2010

It is time for a major update to the look and functionality of the Biofortified Blog. Prior to the Changemakers contest voting week and discussions, we added an integrated forum to the blog that I’m happy to say is getting well-used. It is helping us get an idea what issues readers want to discuss apart from what’s on the minds of the blog authors. This forum was one of our top priorities to put together, among several that Anastasia and I came up with during a telephone meeting a few months ago. What I would like to do is reiterate the things we would like to add to the blog, and see what other kinds of features readers and users would like to see.

Gordon Conway on Orgenics

by Karl Haro von Mogel on 13 January 2010

Mark Henderson at the Times Online has just published an article about Genetic Engineering and Organic Agriculture. Organic farmers must embrace GM crops if we are to feed the world, says scientist. The scientist is non other than Agricultural Ecologist Sir Gordon Conway, and he argues that Organic Ag should be open to GE crops, which we here like to call Orgenic agriculture.

Farmers, he said, should use the best aspects of organic methods and GM technology to maximise yields while limiting damage to ecosystems. He accepted that organic lobbyists would regard the idea as heresy, but said that genetic engineering could create better organic crops than those grown today with further environmental benefits.

“What frustrates me is there is a real potential for combining GM technology and organic approaches,” said Professor Conway, who stepped down last year as chief scientific adviser to the Department for International Development. “To say that is probably heretical, but there would be real benefits if we got over this notion that GM is somehow not organic.”

He continues, explaining how the pure philosophical basis and underlying assumptions may work against the overall goal.