At the 2013 Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Conference, I had the unique opportunity to meet and interview Neal Carter, President of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, makers of the Arctic® Apple, and also attend a protest of the same apple organized by the Organic Consumers Association. I interviewed Mike Durshmid who was leading the protest, and asked him a number of questions. Both full interviews will be up and available soon, along with more footage of the protest, but now I have a special treat for you. I pitted the statements of the two conflicting sides against each other in a dramatic
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued their ruling on the Bowman v Monsanto case, siding unanimously in favor of Monsanto. The court rejected Bowman’s arguments that Monsanto’s patent “exhausted” when he purchased seeds from a grain elevator to plant on his farm, and affirmed that the act of growing a crop of seeds is “making” those seeds, and are still covered under patent law. It was a narrow ruling that applied only to seed patents, but it could have long-term implications for other self-replicating technologies.
There’s a new genetically engineered potato in town that doesn’t brown when cut or fried, nor does it make acrylamide. J. R. Simplot Company petitioned the USDA to deregulate their Innate™ potatoes, and the public comment period has just been opened up on that petition. We sent Simplot some questions about their new potatoes and the technology used to make them, and their Vice President of Plant Sciences, Haven Baker, was happy to respond. Here is that interview, and if you have more questions about it feel free to ask more, as we have asked Haven to stick around
KQED Quest, based in San Francisco, has just posted a half-hour special on GMOs called Next Meal: Engineering your Food, by Gabriela Quirós. In the wake of proposition 37 in California there has been a lot more public awareness of genetically engineered crops, but little public education about it. (Just think what those millions spent could have accomplished) So in this special KQED Quest takes a look at the science of plant breeding and genetic engineering, interviewing Peggy Lemaux from UC Berkeley, Eduardo Blumwald at UC Davis, along with a host of other farmers, writers, and activists. I have been
  News  BFI in the news, Food Politics, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, GMO, kqed, Media, Plant Breeding, Rice, science, tomatoes
A report from an activist group called Safe Food Foundation (SFF) came out last fall that caused a minor stir upon it’s first release. They claimed that they had unearthed an issue with GMO wheat being studied by the Australian CSIRO researchers. The wheat under investigation has shown to provide improvements in digestive health in animal studies and could potentially lower the glycemic index of foods. SFF threw a press conference, did a YouTube video, and managed to get some press about it. Here’s a New Zealand newspaper that picked up the claims. But as the story unfolded, it
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