GM papaya in China

November 2018

Papaya is a short-lived perennial crop. Under ideal conditions, the trees begin to bear fruit within months of planting and continue profitably for three years.  This provides a valuable non-stop harvest.

The greatest single threat to papaya production globally has long been considered papaya ringspot virus (PRSV).  This rapidly spreading disease devastates yield and fruit quality.  In the absence of any naturally-resistant strains for conventional breeders to tap into, genetic transformation is viewed as "the most effective approach to prevent and control PRSV".  The favoured GM trick is to insert a vital PRSV gene into the papaya which has the effect of silencing that vital gene in the virus.

The greening of unsold GM papaya?

July 2018

Shoe-horning your agriculture into the modern high-input, energy-hungry globalised system is particularly problematic for remote areas. Even Hawaii - American soil but a long way from the mainland - has realised it has an economic imperative for self-sufficient and sustainable resource management.

GM food through the back door

July 2012

Basmati rice. Photo by cookbookman17 on Flickr

Despite its almost total rejection of GM in food, feed and the environment, Europe is getting a lot of GM by the back door.

We all know about the GM animal feed widely used to produce our meat, eggs and dairy. Different UK supermarkets have confusingly different policies on what feed they allow, and consumers will rarely find a label to tell them what they're eating has been eating.

Non-GM is beautiful

December 2011

Photo by Matti Matila on Flickr

In October 2011, an article appeared in the US press which had all the hall-marks of the Monsanto PR pen.

The 'news' is that Monsanto is going to bring us fresh produce like we've never seen before. This it will do by “marrying conventional breeding methods with its vast technological resources to bring about changes in fruit and vegetables” and “relying on a strategy similar to the one it tapped to dominate the world of commodity crops: use technology to speed up the breeding process”. All this success is to be achieved using non-GM methods which the anti-GM movement has been asking for for years and which, surprise, surprise, Monsanto is very capable of.