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Contents
- Engineered alfalfa seed sales halt, but other field trials resume
- Bon Appétit switches to beef raised without antibiotics
- Nation's honeybees dying from mysterious disorder
- Glyphosate resistance popping up in weeds
- What you can do: Tell the FDA to be honest about irradiated food!
1. Engineered alfalfa seed sales halt, but other field trials resume
This month brings an update on two recent landmark court cases on engineered crops:
- The judge who ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) violated national environmental laws in allowing genetically engineered alfalfa to be planted has now ordered a temporary halt to sales of the engineered alfalfa seed—the first time ever for such a ruling. The judge will decide in late April whether to make the injunction permanent. Read more from The LA Times.
- Meanwhile, despite a separate ruling that the USDA was wrong to allow a field trial of engineered bentgrass without an environmental assessment—a decision that caused the agency to temporarily suspend all field trial approvals—the USDA has quietly started allowing field trials again. The USDA recently approved new trials of loblolly pine, wheat, alfalfa, and canola without requiring environmental assessments even though, as in the bentgrass case, some of these species have wild relatives with which they could hybridize growing near the chosen sites.
2. Bon Appétit switches to beef raised without antibiotics
Starting this month, hamburgers at Bon Appétit restaurants will be made with beef from cattle that were raised without antibiotics or growth hormones, fed vegetarian feed, and raised following humane guidelines. The Bon Appétit menu already features chicken and turkey from birds raised without the non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics. The company has joined public health organizations in opposing the Food and Drug Administration's plan to approve cefquinome, an antibiotic valuable in human medicine, for veterinary use. Bon Appétit has 400 restaurants and cafes nationwide. Read a company press release.
3. Nation's honeybees dying from mysterious disorder
Honeybees around the country are dying off in droves. Beekeepers on both coasts have lost 60-70 percent of their bees. The mysterious phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder, is the first time a honeybee ailment has reached national proportions and is being called "the AIDS of the bee industry," since the few survivors found in hives are typically suffering from multiple diseases and parasites, suggesting an immune system dysfunction. No one knows why this is happening, though theories include pesticides, viruses, fungi, poor nutrition, and stress. The economic value of commercial crop pollination by honeybees is around $14 billion. Read more from The New York Times.
4. Glyphosate resistance popping up in weeds
A decade after the introduction of crops genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup Ready crops), farmers are noticing glyphosate-resistant weeds in their fields. At first, farmers who planted herbicide-tolerant crops were able to kill weeds with a single application of glyphosate. But now, thanks to natural selection, even after repeated applications of glyphosate, herbicide-resistant weeds keep growing. Seven glyphosate-resistant weeds including marestail have now been documented in U.S. farm fields. As glyphosate fails, farmers are returning to older, more toxic pesticides like paraquat and 2,4-D that are linked to serious health problems. Read more from Delta Farm Press:
Article 1
Article 2
5. What you can do: Tell the FDA to be honest about irradiated food!
In a stunning turnabout, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to let food producers drop the "irradiated" label and radiation symbol from foods that have been treated with radiation, except when the treatment changes a product's material characteristics like taste, texture, or smell. Some irradiated foods may not be labeled at all; others may be labeled "pasteurized," a term that refers to heating to a high temperature, a process completely different from exposure to radiation. The proposed change will mislead and confuse consumers, making it impossible for them to avoid irradiated food. Tell the FDA to continue to require the term "irradiated" on irradiated food! Visit http://www.regulations.gov, enter docket ID FDA-2007-0189-0001, click on one of the two "Views" options to read more about the FDA's proposal, and click on the yellow balloon to add your comments.
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