by Karl Haro von Mogel on 31 March 2009 I just read yesterday that Monsanto has just started blogging, using WordPress too! (Shake of the ol’ tassel bag to Jeff at sustainablog)
Well, not just now, but about two months ago, the new Monsanto blog put up its first post, Monsanto according to Monsanto. Taking a jab with the title at a recent documentary The World According to Monsanto, they explain why the big bad biotech giant has started a blog:
Unfortunately there’s no shortage of people, particularly on the internet, who have taken it upon themselves to speak about Monsanto – what the company is, what it does, and why. Many of these folks have their own agendas. If anyone should speak to Monsanto’s vision of the world, it’s those of us who come to work here every day and collectively make this company what it is. This is the main reason for this blog.
(Funny note: the filmmaker that made The World According to Monsanto didn’t interview anyone from Monsanto at all.)
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 8 March 2009 Are you a backyard breeder? Do you want to be? Well with this video, now you can!
Well, I think if you are a plant breeding student, a breeder looking to train a new workforce, or someone who’s really just curious about how you can possibly make seeds to grow ‘seedless’ watermelons, you’ll like this video. Written and narrated by Yours Truly, and painstakingly stitched together by UW’s own Clark Thompson, with help from a whole array of resources and experts, I give you:
Pollination Methods: Cucurbits
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 5 February 2009 I’ve got a couple things to report. The first is that Pamela Ronald, who has just uploaded her first post at Biofortified, has been in the news lately. It isn’t often that plant breeding makes the news, and when she made top-of-the-wire headlines on CNN, I not only heard from colleagues back in Davis and Google News, but folks in my department were sending emails around about it.
Read Fighting Hunger with Flood-Tolerant Rice.
I hear from Pam that she’s not only finishing up on another grant proposal, but that she and her husband Raoul are heading to Hawaii inside a week to give talks about their book, which recently received Seed Magazine’s Best of 2008 distinction. (She’s been so busy she hasn’t blogged about the CNN article!)
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by Pamela Ronald on 31 January 2009 If GE crops are considered safe by most scientists, why not simply label the produce from these crops and let people decide for themselves? Most people like to know what they are eating and make their own choices.
I am a label reader. If there is an excess of added sugar or too many ingredients with names that I don’t recognize then I don’t buy the product. Not all information, however, is useful.
A few months ago our local food coop began posting red “consumer alert” signs that say, “Conventional foods that contain corn, soy, or canola may be genetically engineered.” I find these signs more annoying than helpful.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 30 January 2009  Last week, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It was a monumental inauguration for many reasons. Never in the history of this country has a non-white man held this high office.Never before has the internet played such a huge role in the election, transition, and future administration of a president. And at least in my memory, I haven’t seen a president so prepared to hit the ground running in a crisis. The last two times a president decided to do something about a crisis, he first had to cancel his vacation!
There are a lot of things on his list, and executive orders are flying out of the Oval Office. Some believe that among his list of things to do is to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods, but as I will demonstrate below, it is not on his list. First, a bit of background.
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