Author: Catherine

A debate has raged around the potential risks and benefits of genetically modified (GM) foods for the last 20 years. Friends of the Earth says that although food from 12 GM crops has been approved for sale in the EU, most UK supermarkets and food manufacturers have removed GM ingredients from their produce. The arguments for GM Most existing genetically modified crops have been developed to improve yield through resistance to plant pests or increased tolerance to herbicides. Professor Jonathan Jones, a senior scientist at The Sainsbury Laboratory and an expert on how plants resist disease, was featured on the Panorama program. “Producing enough food is hard, and currently there's a lot of control of disease and pests by spraying agrochemicals,” he said. “GM opponents have...

The CSOs including Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Save Nigeria, Climate, Transformation and Energy Remediation Society (Climatters) and Women Environmental Programme (WEP) urged the National Assembly to outrightly ban the GMOs, stopped their field trails and transborder movement and ensure the labeling of the GM products if it has not been totally recalled The Director of HOMEF Nnimmo Bassey and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour who led the protest said that the activities of the GMOs are being curtailed in the United States, European and other countries and wondered why Nigeria is embracing what has been confirmed to be detrimental to Nigerians' health. Chairman, Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change Senator Bukar Abba Ibr...

Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University and two other Chinese colleges will carry out the survey, said Jin Jianbin, a professor at Tsinghua’s School of Journalism and Communication. The poll, sponsored by the government, will be carried out in tandem with a campaign on social media to broadcast basic knowledge on GMO technology, which is widely misunderstood in the country, Jin said. China is the world’s fourth-largest grower of GMO cotton and the top importer of soybeans, most of which are genetically modified and used for cooking oil and animal feed for pigs and chickens. But public concern over food safety issues and skepticism about the effects of consuming GMO foods have made the government reluctant to introduce the technology for staple crops. A 2012 trial of so-called Golde...