Where ethanol's influence on corn is currently taking the US corn belt.

Here a great feature from the great Amber Waves on where ethanol's influence on corn is currently taking the US.

Ethanol reshapes the corn market
May 12, 2006
Amber Waves
Allen Baker and Steven Zahniser

Work is underway to add over 2 billion gallons to the annual capacity of the U.S. ethanol sector. To meet the sector’s growing demand for corn, some U.S. corn is likely to be diverted from exports. In the future, corn may cease to be the main feedstock for U.S. ethanol production if cellulosic biomass is successfully developed as an alternative.

The year 2005 was marked by a flurry of construction activity in the Nation’s ethanol industry, as ground was broken on dozens of new plants throughout the U.S. Corn Belt and plans were drawn for even more facilities. As of February 2006, the annual capacity of the U.S. ethanol sector stood at 4.4 billion gallons, and plants under construction or expansion are likely to add another 2.1 billion gallons to this number (map). If this trend and the existing and anticipated policy incentives in support of ethanol continue, U.S. ethanol production could reach 7 billion gallons in 2010, 3.3 billion more than the amount produced in 2005.
The tremendous expansion of the ethanol sector raises a key question: Where will ethanol producers get the corn needed to increase their output? With a corn-to-ethanol conversion rate of 2.7 gallons per bushel (a rate that many state-of-the-art facilities are already surpassing), the U.S. ethanol sector will need 2.6 billion bushels per year by 2010—1.2 billion bushels more than it consumed in 2005. That’s a lot of corn, and how the market adapts to this increased demand is likely to be one of the major developments of the early 21st century in U.S. agriculture. The most recent USDA Baseline Projections suggest that much of the additional corn needed for ethanol production will be diverted from exports. However, if the United States successfully develops cellulosic biomass (wood fibers and crop residue) as an economical alternative feedstock for ethanol production, corn would become one of many crops and plant-based materials used to produce.

Note
The economics of animals feeds and fuels are intertwined: Meat Producers should view the prospects of Biodiesel Boom as better news than Ethanol.

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New Economics Report from the ERS of the USDA on GM crops: The First Decade.

The first decade of genetically engineered crops in the United States
April 2006
ERS Report Summary
Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo and Margriet Caswell, with contributions from Lorraine Mitchell, Elise Golan, and Fred Kuchler

Chapters are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

• Report summary,
• Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Summary,
• Introduction
• Rapid Change and Pace of R&D Activity Characterize the Seed Industry and Technology Providers
• Adoption of GE Crops by U.S. Farmers Increases Steadily
• Consumer Demand Affects R&D, Adoption, and Marketing of GE-Derived Products
• Adoption Offers Market Benefits to Many Stakeholders
• References
• Entire report as a single pdf

Over the past decade, developments in modern biotechnology have expanded the scope of biological innovations by providing new tools for increasing crop yields and agricultural productivity. The role that biotechnology will play in agriculture in the United States and globally will depend on a number of factors and uncertainties. What seems certain, however, is that the ultimate contribution of agricultural biotechnology will depend on our ability to identify and measure its potential benefits and risks.

What Is the Issue?
Ten years after the first generation of genetically engineered (GE) varieties of major crops became commercially available, adoption of these varieties by U.S. farmers has become widespread. U.S. consumers eat many products derived from these crops--including some cornmeal, oils, sugars, and other food products--largely unaware of their GE content. Despite the rapid increase in the adoption of GE corn, soybean, and cotton varieties by U.S. farmers, questions remain regarding the impact of agricultural biotechnology. These issues range from the economic and environmental impacts to consumer acceptance.

What Did the Study Find?
This study examined the three major stakeholders in agricultural biotechnology: seed suppliers and technology providers, farmers, and consumers. Seed suppliers/technology providers. Strengthening of intellectual property rights protection in the 1970s and 1980s increased returns to research and offered greater incentives for private companies to invest in seed development and crop biotechnology. Since 1987, seed producers have submitted nearly 11,600 applications to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for
field testing of GE varieties. More than 10,700 (92 percent) have been approved. Approvals peaked in 2002 with 1,190. Most approved applications involved major crops, with nearly 5,000 for corn alone, followed by soybeans, potatoes, and cotton. More than 6,600 of the approved applications included GE varieties with herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. Significant numbers of applications were approved for varieties with improved product quality, viral resistance, and enhanced agronomic properties such as drought resistance and fungal resistance.

Farmers.
Adoption of GE soybeans, corn, and cotton by U.S. farmers has increased most years since these varieties became commercially available in 1996. By 2005, herbicide-tolerant soybeans accounted for 87 percent of total U.S. soybean acreage, while herbicide-tolerant cotton accounted for about 60 percent of total cotton acreage. Adoption of insect-resistant crops is concentrated in areas with high levels of pest infestation and varies across States. Insect-resistant cotton was planted on 52 percent of cotton acreage in 2005—ranging from 13 percent in California to 85 percent in Louisiana. Insect-resistant corn accounted for 35 percent of the total acreage in 2005, following the introduction of a new variety to control the corn rootworm.
The economic impact of GE crops on producers varies by crop and technology. Herbicide-tolerant cotton and corn were associated with increased returns, as were insect-resistant cotton and corn when pest infestations were more prevalent. Despite the rapid adoption of herbicide-tolerant soybeans, there was little impact on net farm returns in 1997 and 1998. However, the adoption of herbicide-tolerant soybeans is associated with increased off-farm household income, suggesting that farmers adopt this technology because the simplicity and flexibility of the technology permit them to save management time, allowing them to benefit from additional income from off-farm activities.
Genetically engineered crops also seem to have environmental benefits. Overall pesticide use is lower for adopters of GE crops, and the adoption of herbicide-tolerant soybeans may indirectly benefit the environment by encouraging
the adoption of soil conservation practices.

Consumers.
Most surveys and consumer studies indicate consumers have at least some concerns about foods containing GE ingredients, but these concerns have not had a large impact on the market for these foods in the United States. Despite the concerns of U.S. consumers, “GE-free” labels on foods are not widely used in the United States.
Manufacturers have been active in creating a market for GE-free foods. Between 2000 and 2004, manufacturers introduced more than 3,500 products that had explicit non-GE labeling, most of them food products.
In the European Union and some other countries, however, consumer concerns have spurred a movement away from foods with GE ingredients. Despite the fact that some European consumers are willing to consume foods containing GE ingredients, very few of these foods are found on European grocery shelves.

How Was the Study Conducted?
This report examined the three major stakeholders of agricultural biotechnology: GE seed suppliers and technology providers (biotech firms), farmers, and consumers. To examine biotech and seed firms, we used information from the literature as well as from the database of USDA approvals of field testing for new GE varieties. To study seed users, we drew on ERS studies based on USDA farm surveys, and to review the consumer perspective, we summarized surveys of consumers’ attitudes from the literature.
See also The Full Monty on Agricultural Economics and Trade.

Alan Dick picked up on this ERS report in The Land 8th June 2006 with GM crops making cents in the US.

His report noted perceptively that GM soybeans lifted incomes of farming families not for obvious reasons such as higher yield, but because they allowed farmers to seek off-farm work, giving a marked increase in off-farm income. He also picked-up the big plus of greater promotion of conservation tillage practices.

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Arguments in favour of an Enviropig:GM to digest phytate and producing less pollution?

Lee Silver.

PIGS RAISED ON FARMS ARE dirty, smelly animals. Shunned by Jews and Muslims for millennia, they get no respect from most other people as well. It’s also not just our senses, though, that pig farms assault: it’s the environment. Pig manure is loaded with phosphorus.
A large sow can secrete from 18 to 20 kg per year, which runs off with rainwater into streams and lakes, where it causes oxygen depletion, algal blooms, dead fish, and greenhouse gases.

Ecological degradation has reached crisis levels in heavily populated areas of northern Europe, China, Korea, and Japan. The cost of dietary protein The problem is that – unlike cows, goats, and sheep – farmed pigs cannot extract sufficient phosphorus from the corn and other grains they are fed. Grains actually contain plenty of phosphorous, but it is mostly locked away in a large chemical called phytate, which is inaccessible to digestion by animal enzymes. Ruminants release the phosphorus during a lengthy digestive process in four stomachs, with the help of symbiotic bacteria.

...continues as a pdf here.

(Don't like Envirobacon? Then try Canadian barley.)

Then there always the lighter-side of pig humor:

Pigs Fed Up

There was a farmer who had a herd of pigs. One day an activist came to the farm and asked the farmer: "What do you feed your pigs?"

"Well," said the farmer, "It's important to feed them what's been scientifically shown to be the best diet. They get a mixture of corn meal, soy meal, milled oats and vitamin supplements. Why do you ask?"

Well," the activist said, "I represent a coalition of the Society for Precious Animals and Conscientious Educational Dedicationalism and the Organization for Universal Tribulation (SPACED-OUT) and I think you don't feed them like you should, they shouldn't eat agricultural waste products." The activist went to the local newspaper, and the headline of the article was, "Pigs Force-Fed Waste Products."... continued at link.

Read more!

Who tests GM foods? Only Monsanto, Right? No that's Wrong.

Who tests GM foods and feeds to see if they are safe?

Is it only done by Monsanto and Bayer and other large companies?

Well no.

There are a range of institutions doing the tests in different countries. They include University labs and government agencies.

Numerous different scientists are involved, from different countries. The countries in which tests are done include USA, the EU, Japan and China.

The following list gives numerous examples of recent scientific studies from the peer reviewed (professional) literature: more studies could be added.

Futher details in The Full Monty on animal testing of GM foods.

Clearly Mr Chance, the Agriculture Minister of WA, who claims no tests have been done is getting advice on this from unreliable or biased advisors.


Bt176 corn in poultry nutrition: physiological characteristics and fate of recombinant plant DNA in chickens.
Aeschbacher K, Messikommer R, Meile L, Wenk C.
Institute of Animal Sciences, Nutrition Biology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
karin.aeschbacher@ufag-laboratorien.ch

Use of quantitative real-time and conventional PCR to assess the stability of the cp4 epsps transgene from Roundup Ready canola in the intestinal, ruminal,
and fecal contents of sheep.
Alexander TW, Sharma R, Deng MY, Whetsell AJ, Jennings JC, Wang Y, Okine E,
Damgaard D, McAllister TA.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centre, P.O. Box 3000, Lethbridge,
Alta., Canada T1J 4B1.

Genetically modified feeds in animal nutrition. 1st communication: Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn in poultry, pig and ruminant nutrition.
Aulrich K, Bohme H, Daenicke R, Halle I, Flachowsky G.
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Federal Agricultural Research Centre Braunschweig
(FAL), Germany. karen.aulrich@fal.de

Genetically modified feeds in animal nutrition. 2nd communication: glufosinate tolerant sugar beets (roots and silage) and maize grains for ruminants and pigs.
Bohme H, Aulrich K, Daenicke R, Flachowsky G.
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL),
Braunschweig, Germany. hartwig.boehme@fal.de

Feeding value of corn silage estimated with sheep and dairy cows is not altered by genetic incorporation of Bt1376 resistance to Ostrinia nubilalis.
Barriere Y, Verite R, Brunschwig P, Surault F, Emile JC.
INRA, Unite de Genetique et d'Amelioration des Plantes Fourrageres, Lusignan,
France. barriere@lusignan.inra.fr

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to the technical staffs for their help in field and feeding value experiments. We are also grateful to the French Ministry of Agriculture, SEPROMA and AGPM for their financial support of this cooperative study. We are especially grateful to P Ahl Goy and S Pasteau for their help in literature research and helpful criticisms, and to US colleagues and reviewers
for their fruitful help in the improvement of the text.

Evaluation of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) corn on mouse testicular development by dual parameter flow cytometry.
Brake DG, Thaler R, Evenson DP.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, South Dakota State University,
Brookings, South Dakota 57007, USA.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We thank the employees of Foundation Seed, SDSU, Linda Goldberg-Heavil, Purina Mills, LLC, and special thanks to Lorna Jost for her generous and skillful technical assistance.

Evaluation of transgenic event 176 "Bt" corn in broiler chickens.
Brake J, Vlachos D.
Department of Poultry Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh
27695-7608, USA. jbrake@ncsu.edu

Evaluation of transgenic hybrid corn (VIP3A) in broiler chickens.
Brake J, Faust M, Stein J.
Department of Poultry Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, North
Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7608, USA.
jbrake@ncsu.edu

Evaluation of transgenic event Bt11 hybrid corn in broiler chickens.
Brake J, Faust MA, Stein J.
Department of Poultry Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, North
Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7608, USA.
jbrake@ncsu.edu

Animal nutrition with feeds from genetically modified plants.
Flachowsky G, Chesson A, Aulrich K.
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL),
Braunschweig, Germany. gerhard.flachowsky@fal.de

Catchpole, Gareth S., Manfred Beckmann, David P. Enot, Madhav Mondhe, Britta Zywicki, Janet Taylor, Nigel Hardy, Aileen Smith, Ross D. King, Douglas B. Kell, Oliver Fiehn and John Draper,(2005 ) Hierarchical metabolomics demonstrates substantial compositional similarity between genetically modified and conventional potato crops.
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, D-14424 Golm, Germany; and Institute of Biological Sciences and Department of Computer Science, University of Wales, Aberystwyth SY23 3DA, United Kingdom

We thank Bernd Hommel, Pia Roppel, and colleagues for designing and undertaking the field trials under Bundesanstalt für Land und Forstwirtschaft Project 0312632; Karin Koehl for study design; Arnd Heyer (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology) for generation and supply of transgenic material and helpful discussion; André van Laere and Wim van den Ende (Katholieke University, Leuven, Belgium) and Jerry Chatterton and Phil Harrison (Utah State University, Logan) for providing 2- to 4-DP fructan reference compounds; Jim Heald and Robert Darby for supporting LCT analysis; and Roy Goodacre and David Broadhurst for advice on data analysis. The metabolite analysis and statistical work was funded by the Food Standards Agency (London) as part of its G02006 [GenBank] project.

Fate of maize intrinsic and recombinant genes in calves fed genetically modified maize Bt11.
Chowdhury EH, Mikami O, Murata H, Sultana P, Shimada N, Yoshioka M, Guruge KS,
Yamamoto S, Miyazaki S, Yamanaka N, Nakajima Y.
Department of Safety Research, National Institute of Animal Health, Kannondai,
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0856 Japan.

Detection of Cry1Ab protein in gastrointestinal contents but not visceral organs
of genetically modified Bt11-fed calves.
Chowdhury EH, Shimada N, Murata H, Mikami O, Sultana P, Miyazaki S, Yoshioka M,
Yamanaka N, Hirai N, Nakajima Y.
Department of Safety Research, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba,
305-0856, Japan.

Nutritional evaluation of genetically modified maize corn performed on rats.
Chrenkova M, Sommer A, Ceresnakova Z, Nitrayova S, Prostredna M.
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Research Institute of Animal Production,
Hlohovska 2, 949 92 Nitra, Slovak Republic. chrenko@vuzv.sk

Effects of feeding silage and grain from glyphosate-tolerant or insect-protected corn hybrids on feed intake, ruminal digestion, and milk production in dairy cattle.
S. S. Donkin*, J. C. Velez*, A. K. Totten*, E. P Stanisiewski{dagger} and G. F. Hartnell{dagger}
* Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907
{dagger} Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO, 63167
sdonkin@purdue.edu


Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine.
Ewen SW, Pusztai A.

Influence of glyphosate-tolerant (event nk603) and corn rootworm protected (event MON863) corn silage and grain on feed consumption and milk production in Holstein cattle.
R. J. Grant*, K. C Fanning*, D. Kleinschmit*, E. P. Stanisiewski{dagger} and G. F. Hartnell{dagger}
* Department of Animal Science, University of Nebraska, Lincoln 68583-0908
{dagger} Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO 63167 rgrant1@unl.edu

Gregersen, Per L., Henrik Brinch-Pedersen and Preben B. Holm, (2005). A Microarray-Based Comparative Analysis of Gene Expression Profiles During Grain Development in Transgenic and Wild Type Wheat. Transgenic Research Volume 14, Number 6 December 2005. Pages: 887 - 905 DOI: 10.1007/s11248-005-1526-y

Department of Genetics and Biotechnology, Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Research Centre Flakkebjerg, Slagelse, Denmark

Acknowledgements
We wish to thank Ian Wilson and Keith Edwards, Bristol University, for very kindly making their 9K wheat unigene collection available to us; Per Horn and Jakob Hedegard from the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Dept. of Animal Breeding and Genetics for helping with the spotting of microarrays; Lis Bagenkop Holte and Ole Brad Hansen for skilful technical assistance and for taking care of plants; and Gordon Smyth, WEHI, Australia, for very helpful assistance in the statistical data analysis. This work was supported by the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, under the research programme Biotechnology in Food Research (BIOT99-13).

Quantitation of transgenic plant DNA in leachate water: real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis.
Gulden RH, Lerat S, Hart MM, Powell JR, Trevors JT, Pauls KP, Klironomos JN,
Swanton CJ.
Department of Plant Agriculture, Environmental Biology, and Integrative Biology,
University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1.

We thank the NSERC Strategic Grant Program (STPGP 258065-02) (Canada) for supporting this project.
Acknowledgment We thank L. England and M. Vincent for assistance and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Challenge Fund for infrastructure support.

Bollgard II cotton: compositional analysis and feeding studies of cottonseed from insect-protected cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) producing the Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab2 proteins.
Hamilton KA, Pyla PD, Breeze M, Olson T, Li M, Robinson E, Gallagher SP, Sorbet
R, Chen Y.
Monsanto Company, 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63167, USA.

An examination of the intestinal tract of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L., parr fed different varieties of soy and maize.
Sanden M, Berntssen MH, Krogdahl A, Hemre GI, Bakke-McKellep AM.
National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research (NIFES), Bergen, Norway.
monica.sanden@nifes.no

Performance of growing-finishing pigs fed diets containing Roundup Ready corn (event nk603), a nontransgenic genetically similar corn, or conventional corn lines.
Y. Hyun*, G. E. Bressner*, M. Ellis*,1, A. J. Lewis{dagger}, R. Fischer{dagger}, E. P. Stanisiewski{ddagger} and G. F. Hartnell{dagger}
* Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801; {dagger} Department of Animal Science, University of Nebraska, Lincoln 68583; and {ddagger} Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO 63167

Performance of lactating dairy cows fed corn as whole plant silage and grain produced from a glyphosate-tolerant hybrid (event NK603).
Ipharraguerre IR, Younker RS, Clark JH, Stanisiewski EP, Hartnell GF.
Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801, USA.

Determining whether transgenic and endogenous plant DNA and transgenic protein are detectable in muscle from swine fed Roundup Ready soybean meal.
Jennings JC, Kolwyck DC, Kays SB, Whetsell AJ, Surber JB, Cromwell GL, Lirette
RP, Glenn KC.
Monsanto Company, Chesterfield, MO 63017, USA. james.jennings@monsanto.com

Hierarchical metabolomics demonstrates substantial compositional similarity between genetically modified and conventional potato crops
Lehesranta, Satu J. , Howard V. Davies, Louise V.T. Shepherd, Naoise Nunan, Jim W. McNicol, Seppo Auriola, Kaisa M. Koistinen, Soile Suomalainen, Harri I. Kokko and Sirpa O. Kärenlampi
Institute of Applied Biotechnology (S.J.L., K.M.K., S.S., H.I.K., S.O.K.), and Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry (S.A.), University of Kuopio, FIN–70211 Kuopio, Finland; and Quality, Health and Nutrition Programme (H.V.D., L.V.T.S.), and Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (N.N., J.W.M.), Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA, Scotland, United Kingdom

This work was supported by GMOCARE (contract no. QLK1–1999–00765), by SAFE FOODS (contract no. Food–CT–2004–506446), by the European Commission (grant no. QLRT–1999–00765), by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD), and by the Finnish Cultural Foundation (grant to S.J.L.).

N.N.'s Present address: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire de Biogéochimie des Milieux Continentaux, Centre Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) de Versailles-Grignon, Bâtiment EGER, Aile B, F–78850 Thiverval-Grignon, France.

Degradation of Cry1Ab protein from genetically modified maize in the bovine gastrointestinal tract.
Lutz B, Wiedemann S, Einspanier R, Mayer J, Albrecht C.
Physiology Weihenstephan, Technical University Munich, Weihenstephaner Berg 3,
D-85350 Freising, Germany.

Ultrastructural morphometrical and immunocytochemical analyses of hepatocyte nuclei from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.
Malatesta M, Caporaloni C, Gavaudan S, Rocchi MB, Serafini S, Tiberi C,
Gazzanelli G.
Istituto di Istologia e Analisi di Laboratorio, via Zeppi s n, University of
Urbino, Italy. malatesta@uniurb.it

Sensitive PCR analysis of animal tissue samples for fragments of endogenous and transgenic plant DNA.
Nemeth A, Wurz A, Artim L, Charlton S, Dana G, Glenn K, Hunst P, Jennings J,
Shilito R, Song P.
GeneScan Analytics GmbH, Engesserstrasse 4, D-79108 Freiburg, Germany.

Detection of transgenic and endogenous plant DNA in rumen fluid, duodenal digesta, milk, blood, and feces of lactating dairy cows.
R. H. Phipps,* E. R. Deaville,†, and B. C. Maddison†
*Centre for Dairy Research, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development,
The University of Reading RG6 6AR, U.K.
†ADAS Nutritional Sciences Research Unit, Stratford-on-Avon CV37 9RQ, U.K.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the U.K. Food Standards Agency for funding the project and Monsanto Co. (St. Louis, MO) for providing free of charge the non-GM and GM soybean meal and ground maize and the provision of information concerning certain specific primers for the PCR analyses.

Effect of corn silage from an herbicide-tolerant genetically modified variety on milk production and absence of transgenic DNA in milk.
Phipps RH, Jones AK, Tingey AP, Abeyasekera S.
Centre for Dairy Research, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, The
University of Reading, RG6 6AR, UK. r.h.Phipps@reading.ac.uk

Investigations on genetically modified maize (Bt-maize) in pig nutrition: fattening performance and slaughtering results.
Reuter T, Aulrich K, Berk A.
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Federal Agricultural Research Centre Braunschweig
(FAL), Braunschweig, Germany. tim.reuter@fal.de

Investigations on genetically modified maize (Bt-maize) in pig nutrition: chemical composition and nutritional evaluation.
Reuter T, Aulrich K, Berk A, Flachowsky G.
Institute of Animal Nutrition, Federal Agricultural Research Centre Braunschweig
(FAL), Braunschweig, Germany. tim.reuter@fal.de

Comparison of the nutritional profile of glyphosate-tolerant corn event NK603 with that of conventional corn (Zea mays L.).
Ridley WP, Sidhu RS, Pyla PD, Nemeth MA, Breeze ML, Astwood JD.
Product Safety Center, Monsanto Company, 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard, St.
Louis, Missouri 63167, USA. william.p.ridley@monsanto.com

Effect of Bt corn on broiler growth performance and fate of feed-derived DNA in
the digestive tract.
Rossi F, Morlacchini M, Fusconi G, Pietri A, Mazza R, Piva G.
Istituto di Scienze degli Alimenti e della Nutrizione, Facolta di Agraria,
Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29100, Piacenza,
Italy. filippo.rossi@unicatt.it

Comparison of broiler performance when fed diets containing grain from YieldGard Rootworm (MON863), YieldGard Plus (MON810 x MON863), nontransgenic control, or commercial reference corn hybrids.
Taylor ML, Hyun Y, Hartnell GF, Riordan SG, Nemeth MA, Karunanandaa K, George B,
Astwood JD.
Monsanto Company, 800 N. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, Missouri 63167, USA.
mary.l.taylor@monsanto.com

Supplements of transgenic malt or grain containing (1,3-1,4)-beta-glucanase increase the nutritive value of barley-based broiler diets to that of maize.
Von Wettstein D, Warner J, Kannangara CG.
Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, School of Molecular Biosciences,
Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-6420, USA. diter@wsu.edu

Nutritional assessment and fate of DNA of soybean meal from roundup ready or conventional soybeans using rats.
Zhu Y, Li D, Wang F, Yin J, Jin H.
National Feed Engineering Technology Research Center, China Agricultural
University, Beijing, China.

Other GMO Pundit Posts on Ethics and Safety:
Biotechnology, bioethics and regulation.
Do you know what hunger is?

Read more!

BBC confirm WTO GM food case went against the EU in the finalised decision.

EU 'Broke Trade Rules' on GM Food

- BBC News, May 11, 2006

The BBC are reporting the World Trade Organization has ruled The European Union acted illegally in stopping imports of genetically modified foods. Diplomats have leaked details of the WTO's confidential final verdict, not due for public release until late June.

According to this report, the decision is "substantially" similar to a preliminary verdict issued in February. The case was instigated by the US, Canada and Argentina who were critical of an EU moratorium on GM food crops.

However, BBC say the verdict does not address the issue of whether GMOs are safe or if they can be compared to naturally occurring products.

Read more!

A GM wheat that prevents Altzheimer's disease?

The expression "French Paradox" refers to a well studied diet anomaly.

The French people , apparently, are much healthier and live longer than expected from simple ideas about how much fat and calories they eat.

Posssibly it's because if you drink red wine regularly, like the French do, you can stay young and thin into middle age.

The biochemical resveratrol in the wine is thought to be the explanation for this good news.

Better still, perhaps, to avoid the alcohol intake of wine (and risks of cancer and car accidents) and eat a new GM wheat instead.

It is now possible to get the grape chemical resveratrol in a new GM wheat, which should provide the health benefits of red wine without the bother.

Grain Biotech Australia, an agbiotech company based in WA , has developed an experimental GM wheat containing resveratrol that protects against cardiovascular disease despite a high-fat diet. This might be away to avoid the side effects of indulging in red wine to gain the benefits of the resveratrol.

But this GM wheat might also help ward off Alzheimer's related dementia too:

Resveratrol promotes clearance of Alzheimer's disease amyloid-beta peptides.

Several epidemiological studies indicate that moderate consumption of wine is associated with a lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Wine is enriched in antioxidant compounds with potential neuroprotective activities. However, the exact molecular mechanisms involved in the beneficial effects of wine intake on the neurodegenerative process in Alzheimer's disease brain remain to be clearly defined. Here we show that resveratrol (trans-3,4',5-trihydroxystilbene), a naturally occurring polyphenol mainly found in grapes and red wine, markedly lowers the levels of secreted and intracellular amyloid-beta (Abeta) peptides produced from different cell lines. Resveratrol does not inhibit Abeta production, because it has no effect on the Abeta-producing enzymes beta- and gamma-secretases, but promotes instead intracellular degradation of Abeta via a mechanism that involves the proteasome. Indeed, the resveratrol-induced decrease of Abeta could be prevented by several selective proteasome inhibitors and by siRNA-directed silencing of the proteasome subunit beta5. These findings demonstrate a proteasome-dependent anti-amyloidogenic activity of resveratrol and suggest that this natural compound has a therapeutic potential in Alzheimer's disease.

J Biol Chem. 2005 Nov 11;280(45):37377-82. Epub 2005 Sep 14.
Marambaud P, Zhao H, Davies P.

Litwin-Zucker Research Center for the Study of Alzheimer's Disease and Memory
Disorders, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Institute for Medical Research,
Manhasset, NY 11030, USA.

Read more!

WA's Ag. Minister Chance is full of Parliamentary errors: Exhibits 1, 2 and 3.

GMO Pundit, a few posts back, presented questions put in the West Australian parliament to The Hon Kim Chance, WA's Minister for Agriculture.

The parliamentary record of this Q & A session contained some remarkable assertions by Mr Chance.

In Pundit's judgement he's misled Parliament three times over.

His response the parliamentary questions raises curly and troublesome issues about the WA State government's proposed funding of GM food testing in Adelaide.

These Adelaide trials are to be carried a group called The Institute for Health and Environmental Research who have a web address and post office box number http://www.iher.org.au/, PO Box 155, Kensington Park SA, 5068 but are not listed in the South Australian telephone directory.

Part of Mr Chances remarks consisted of strong disparaging statements about a group of respected international scientists who had earlier written to WA Premier Gallop expressing their considered criticisms of the WA Governments GM Food Testing proposals.

This contestable part of Mr Chance's parliamentary statement is repeated below, with appropriate bolding, as Exhibit 1.

GMO Pundit is continuing discussing this issue to highlight substantial material errors in Mr Chance's parliamentary statement.

The original letter sent to Mr Gallop by the scientists who are disparaged by Mr Chance is given in full below as (Exhibit 2).

Note first the letter does not, as Mr Chance claims, say "what a terrible thing it was that we had appointed an independent person to carry out this work".
Chance thus misrepresents completely the issue the letter raised: letter primarily about questioned level of scientific competence and scientific disinterest of IHER - that is, its lack of independence was questioned.

There is Orwellian Double-Speak in action here by Mr Chance.

Chance also says of the letter writers "They are all recipients of grants from Monsanto, Bayer or another such company."

Dr Bruce Chassy, a letter signatory referred to here, responds to this assertion in a letter quoted below. Clearly Chance is absolutely wrong about Dr Chassey.

Chance's statement "Let us acknowledge, first, that no authority does any testing on food safety or GM food, and has never done in the history of Australia" is also grossly wrong. This Pundit follows through on this issue with paper citation and abstract lists lists at The Full Monty on animal feeding trials of GM foods.

(Others often say such tests are only done by big companies. GMO Pundit has a post listing the numerous agencies who do the tests. They are mostly University labs and government agencies. They are spread all over the globe: USA, Europe, China, Japan. [Update Sep 2008 At least 50 independent studies are published relating to GM food safety]

It should be noted that the WA Premier also received letters from three leading WA scientists, and the Minister chose to ignore these letters in his Parliamentary remarks. There were:

Prof Mike Jones – SABC , Murdoch University;
Prof Graeme Robertson – Curtin University (who the Minister knows extremely well); and
Prof Steve Powles (UWA)


Exhibit 1.Chance in WA Parliament:

Hon KIM CHANCE replied:

(1)-(2) What do I expect to achieve by undermining FSANZ and other regulatory authorities? I seem to recall, although it may not have been printed, that I took a bit of a pot shot at another regulatory authority.

Hon Ken Travers: They get their briefing notes from federal ministers, so they know nothing else.

Hon KIM CHANCE: That is true. Since the government announced it would fund quite a small animal feeding trial to determine the safety of genetically engineered foods, it has received this huge wave of protests from what amounted to eight or nine American scientists. They sent letters to the Premier and to me. They sent e-mails and a whole chain of information saying what a terrible thing it was that we had appointed an independent person to carry out this work. I thought those eight or nine people were obviously eminent scientists who had an issue, so I did some checking of their backgrounds. Every one of those eight or nine scientists is in the pocket of the GE companies. They are all recipients of grants from Monsanto, Bayer or another such company. Let us acknowledge, first, that no authority does any testing on food safety or GM food, and has never done in the history of Australia.

Exhibit 2 Scientist's Letter to Former Premier Gallop.

The Hon Dr Geoff Gallop, BEc MA MPhil DPhil MLA
Dear Dr. Gallop:

We were shocked and disappointed to see media reports that Agriculture Minister Kim Chance will fund a long-term animal feeding trial with the Institute for Health and Environmental Research in Adelaide. We note that Mr. Chance’s website confirms your government will fund an “independent’ study to gain data on the safety or otherwise of GM food crops.

There is universal support among all major scientific societies around the world for the safety of the regulatory system and all currently registered GM foods. Contrary to the assertions in Mr. Chance’s media release, these current food assessments (including those by Food Standards Australia New Zealand) do actively and intensively review the possibility that “when a gene is taken out of one organism and put into another, the protein expressed by that gene may be different."

There is substantial scientific evidence confirming the safety of currently approved biotech crops, and absent new questions, there is little or no basis for further animal studies. Nobody, of course, will object to properly conducted further studies if your government wishes to fund them. Our concern is that Mr. Chance has apparently decided to award funds for this research to a group with a well-known agenda against GM crops, and worse, apparently with no technical expertise, no reputable scientific track record and no facilities suitable for conducting the study!

In his media release, Mr. Chance expressed concern that adverse effects from a novel type of GM pea “had only come to light recently, despite 10 years of research and development.” The project has been underway for ten years precisely because GM research is undertaken in great detail and products are not rushed to market. Mr. Chance seems unaware that CSIRO has been conducting other safety tests on this crop for a number of years, including some in the 1990s in collaboration with anti-GM critic Arpad Pusztai; the detrimental effects found were minimal (citation below). The facts remain both that the current review process did find the problems in the GM peas and that no foods with this specific insecticide resistance gene are grown anywhere in the world other than in well-controlled, small-scale experiments.

Most of us became aware of the Institute for Health and Environmental Research (SA) (www.iher.org.au) in 2003, when their leading figure, Dr. Judy Carmen [sic], toured around with UK activist Dr Mae-Wan Ho to speak against GM crops and food safety. Ho has a relentlessly anti-science agenda against GM crops (and modern Darwinian theory) (www.i-sis.org.uk).

The Institute for Health and Environmental Research seems to consist of two other people in addition to Carmen [sic], and a website. None of them have scientific records in conducting or analyzing long term feeding studies, certainly no refereed papers in this area (or many in any other area of science), which is the usual measure of scientific quality. [See Exhibit 1a at end for the results of a publication search] Moreoever, the bios on the IHER website reveal the clear anti-biotech bias of all three.

We are sure that there are far better qualified and unprejudiced scientists in Australia, including in Western Australia, who could carry out this research. We are therefore alarmed at an apparent lack of adherence to scientific norms in awarding this project to the Institute for Health and Environmental Research. Following reports that Mr. Chance has previously declared that he would not eat GM food, we are deeply disturbed about the objectivity of the agenda being pursued by Mr. Chance.

In sum, Mr. Chance’s decision gives us great concern for the respect your government shows for scientific enquiry, peer review, international standards and the processes of competitively awarding research funds. We look forward to hearing from you that proper, internationally upheld standards will be observed in awarding this research competitively to qualified researchers, if the research is to be undertaken at all.

Sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Klaus Ammann, Honorary Professor University of Bern, Director of the Bern Botanic Garden
Professor Bruce M. Chassy, Campus Biotechnology Center, University of Illinois, Urbana
Professor Bruce D. Hammock, Distinguished Professor of Entomology & Cancer Research Center
Dr. Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Director University of California Systemwide
Biotechnology Research and Education Program, and Co-Director NIH Training Program in Biomolecular Technology
Professor Vivian Moses, CropGen, London
Dr. Alan McHughen, Biotechnology Specialist University of California, Riverside
Dr. Drew L. Kershen, Earl Sneed Centennial Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma
Dr. Tom DeGregori , Professor of Economics, University of Houston
Dr. Alex Avery, Director of Research, Center for Global Food Issues, Hudson Institute
Dr. Rick Roush, Director of University of California Integrated Pest Management and Sustainable Agriculture Programs

Exhibit 3.
Response (through Dr Roush) by Dr Chassey, Urbana, Illinois, to issues raised by Mr Chance.

Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 10:19 AM
From: Bruce Chassy
Rick

I do not consult for ag biotech companies, I have never had a grant or contract from ag. biotech companies, I have never worked for them, with them or collaborated with them. I do not own and have never owned stock in a biotech company. The mutual funds I own are part of my retirement and their investments are blinded to me. That is to say I have nothing whatever to do with ag. biotech companies now or ever.

I would be happy to have you pass this along. I am shocked, however, at the sleazy rhetoric of Kim Chance. He did not cite his sources or the nature of the evidence of us "being in the pocket". He in effect said " I asked my buds, and they told me this" Of course it is obvious he is talking to the activist groups who oppose biotech with no scientific basis so they feel comfortable in trying to disqualify us with no evidence. When you are wrong the only hope is to discredit the bearer of truth.

Kim Chance would be laughed out of a court of law with an assertion like that. Too bad he isn't equally responsible for accuracy in their Parliament.

It might also be wise to point out that it isn't just a handful of scientists which Chance asserts are in the pockets of the biotech companies. It is the overwhelming preponderance of the scientific community including some of it's leading members. It is the UN, OECD, FAO, WHO, The US National Academy of Science (along with the academies of many other nations), the Royal Society (London), a great number of medical societies, and a host of leading scientific societies around the world who have unanimously concluded that GMOs are as safe as or are safer than conventionally bred crops and that they pose no meaningful risks to consumers of the environment. What's more their profitability for farmers and benefits for consumers and the environment are a clear record of fact. There is thus no reason to Kim Chance and his cronies to have embarked on a superstitious ignorant witch hunt in the first place.

The fact that Chance needs to face is that it is his small group of radical extremist friends that are the aberration. They are wrong, they are ignorant, and they ought to be considered an embarrassment to the people of Western Australia. I can promise the people of WA one thing. If Kim Chance is as confused about (or is being as dishonest about) other issues as he is off base about GMOs, WA is in deep trouble.

This from a public sector scientist who has spent a 40 year career working for the US National Institutes of Health and, subsequently, The University of Illinois. A career 100% dedicated to science in the public service.

Regards
Bruce

=======================================================

Bruce M. Chassy
Executive Associate Director, Biotechnology Center
Assistant Dean, ACES/OR
40 NSRC
1101 West Peabody
Urbana, IL 61801 USA
217-244-7291 (office)
217-244-1707 (fax)

Update:
Exhibit 1a
Identifiable papers associated with IHER found through a PubMed literature search comprise the following:

Med J Aust. 2000 Aug 7;173(3):166-7.
Comment on:
Med J Aust. 2000 Feb 21;172(4):170-3.
Genetically modified foods--safety and regulatory issues.
Clinch-Jones CA.

This is a short letter describing what genetically engineered foods are. It claims genetically engineered crops have suffered staggering yield losses, citing non-peer reviewed books. It claims glyphosate increases the risk of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma but cites an article Hardell L 1999 that does not make that claim. Hardell 1999 refers to case-control studies on 4 NHL case and three control cases (OR 2.3 95% CI 0.4 to 13). IClinch-Jones 2000 refers to Brazil nut protein as an allergy risk (Nordlee J 1996) and Ewen and Pusztai 1999 for evidence that viral promoters may be hazardous.

There are no data of the author in the paper documenting their own experience with animal feeding tests.


Epidemiol Infect. 1998 Oct;121(2):409-18.
Viral haemorrhagic disease of rabbits and human health.
Carman JA, Garner MG, Catton MG, Thomas S, Westbury HA, Cannon RM, Collins BJ, Tribe IG.
Communicable Disease Control Branch, South Australian, Department of Human Services, Adelaide.

Viral haemorrhagic disease of rabbits (VHD), a potential biological control for wild rabbits in Australia and New Zealand, escaped from quarantined field trials on Wardang Island and spread to the mainland of Australia in October 1995. This study looked for any evidence of infection or illness in people occupationally exposed to the virus. Two hundred and sixty-nine people were interviewed and 259 blood samples were collected. Exposures to VHD-infected rabbits ranged from nil to very high. No VHD antibodies were detected in any of the 259 sera when tested by VHD competitive enzyme immunoassay, which had been validated with 1013 VHDV-specific antibody negative sera. A questionnaire designed to elicit symptoms of disease in a range of organ systems found no significant differences between illness in those exposed and those not exposed to VHD, nor could an association be found between exposure and subsequent episodes of illness. The findings are consistent with the view that exposure to VHD is not associated with infection or disease in humans.

Commun Dis Intell. 1997 Mar 6;21(5):61-2.
Concurrent outbreaks of Salmonella Typhimurium in South Australia.
Andrews R, Feldheim J, Givney R, Carman J, Murray C, Beers M, Lanser J, Nguyen M, Cameron S, Hall R.
Department of Health and Family Services, Canberra ACT.

The Communicable Disease Control Branch of the South Australian Health Commission received 45 laboratory notifications of Salmonella between 23 December 1996 and 17 January 1997. A rapid screening test, undertaken by the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Sciences, Adelaide, was the first indication that this was more than one outbreak, prompting the establishment of separate investigations. Three Salmonella Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) phage types were subsequently identified. Investigations are continuing into an outbreak of S. Typhimurium phage type (PT) 64, while investigations failed to identify any association between four cases of PT 44. As of 12 February 1997, 71 notifications had been confirmed as S. Typhimurium PT 135. Epidemiological investigations found this outbreak was associated with consumption of bread rolls with a meat filling distributed through local Asian grocery stores from a home-based manufacturer. The product was voluntarily withdrawn and there have been no new cases of PT 135.

Am J Clin Nutr. 1992 Nov;56(5):943-9.
Diet, prolactin, and breast cancer.
Baghurst PA, Carman JA, Syrette JA, Baghurst KI, Crocker JM.
Division of Human Nutrition, Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization, Adelaide, Australia.

Relationships between dietary nutrients and plasma prolactin concentration were studied in 249 women with a history of nonskin cancers among first-degree female relatives. For each quintile of nutrient density, the odds ratio (OR), relative to the lowest quintile, of having an elevated (above the median) prolactin concentration was estimated by logistic regression, taking into account parity, menopausal status, and current tobacco-smoking habits. For nutrient densities estimated from 24-h recall data there was a significant positive association between plasma prolactin concentration and increasing saturated fatty acid intake; the OR of elevated prolactin in the top quintile was 3.1 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2-8.1] and there was a negative association with vitamin C [OR in the top quintile 0.28, (95% CI 0.10-0.78)]. For usual nutrient densities (estimated by quantitative food frequency questionnaire) there was a statistically significant trend (P = 0.04) toward lower prolactin concentrations with increasing sodium density, and a marginally significant positive trend (P =0.07) with increasing dietary density of refined sugars.

(This is not a publication about animal feeding tests.)

Read more!

Tragedy of delaying the golden rice.

May 9, 2006
AgBioView at www.agbioworld.org
C. S. Prakash

Despite so much promise, the Golden Rice, a marvellous hope for the humanity, is stuck in the regulatory and bureaucratic pipeline. As I listened to a poignant lecture recently by Prof. Ingo Potrykus on the status of his invention, I couldn't help but notice the frustration and anguish in him. Many unnecessary roadblocks are preventing the golden rice from reaching people.
While thousands of children are going blind or dying because of the vitamin A deficiency, golden rice offers a simple, inexpensive but elegant solution to this problem. Mindless opposition and needless regulation is thwarting efforts by Potrykus to get his vitamin-enriched rice to the very people who can benefit most from this product.
Not a single golden rice plant has yet been grown in the Asian fields yet, although it has been nearly nine years since I first write about this ongoing project (http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/ aug9703.htm) and six years since his research was described in the Science magazine (See the collected articles on this topic at http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-info/topics/goldenrice/index.html ).
The newer version of the Golden Rice provides more than 100% RDA with 31 micrograms/g of provitamin A, a 20-fold increase from the original version which had only 1.6 micrograms/g. The improved rice will be distributed freely at no additional cost to the farmers.
Yet, silly regulations have delayed the project. For instance, past 2-3 years were spent in developing newer gene constructs to eliminate selectable marker, to streamline the gene integration and develop 'clean' events - all to satisfy the cumbersome and unscientific regulatory requirements.
Many more hurdles still lie ahead, and it may be another 5-6 six years before the golden rice gets into the hands of the Asian consumers. India, Bangladesh and Philippines are the target countries right now.
Potrykus shared yet unpublished research data from German scientists who have estimated the 'real' cost of delaying the golden rice. It was especially gut-wrenching for me to recognize that India alone could save between 5,500-39,700 lives by growing this rice, and all this for less than US$1 million investment.
When I remarked to Ingo that this is so tragic, he replied that it is not just tragic but a crime. I agree. Inept policies, anti-GM activists, GM-phobic Europe, and the compliant media -- all have contributed to this pathetic situation.
Safety is really not much of an issue here as no one can even come up with any hypothetical risk of using this fortified rice. The introduced genes are from rice and maize with thousands of years of history of safe consumption. There is no a priori reason to believe that these new proteins would be either toxic or allergenic. One cannot think of any environmental risks of growing this rice either. Genetically modified crops have been grown on a billion acres in the past ten years without even a hint of any problem so far.
Any potential risk in using this vitamin-enriched rice cannot be worse than the millions of children who are now dying or going blind because of the vitamin A deficiency.
Prof. Potrykus has kindly shared his presentation with me and has permitted me to post it on AgBioworld.
Download his presentation with a glorious picture of his yellow
rice grains and see the data on 'lives saved' pdf

David Tribe writes about Golden Rice at OLO:

The case for GM food
By David Tribe - posted Tuesday, 22 November 2005

Lack of vitamin A causes the death of about 6,000 children a day, worldwide, from infectious disease. This is a tangible health hazard of vast scope that dwarfs any hypothetical hazard attributed to genetically modified (GM) foods.

Recently, an affluent Australian lawyer living in London told me his social set deliberately avoided buying GM food products because, as they are produced to meet the needs of developing countries, they are too “downmarket” for discerning people.

This incident neatly encapsulates the vastly different context of food safety and choices available in the developed world compared with the developing world. In the developed world consumers have the luxury of worrying about hypothetical fears, while in the developing world people suffer and die from very real, preventable food hazards. Satisfying the concerns of wealthy Western Europeans can interfere with the provision of better nutrition for the rural poor in countries like India, Brazil and Bangladesh...continues at OLO

Read more!

Two updates on Oilseed Rape and on Wheat Genetics from ISB.

GENE FLOW FROM TRANSGENIC OILSEED RAPE
Tristan Funk, Peter Westermeier & Gerhard Wenzel

The main objective of this study was the examination of short distance outcrossing of transgenic oilseed rape in the nearest neighborhood. The experimental design allowed the detailed determination of the effects of distance and wind direction on pollination frequencies and distribution.
For regulations of co-existence of GM crop cultivation with conventional and organic farming, the relationship between distance and outcrossing is of major interest.

Complete article:




TRITICUM AESTIVUM L (WHEAT)--AN INCREDIBLY COMPLEX GENETIC SOUP
Tracy Sayler


The irony of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)--which some want to see spared from genetic manipulation through biotechnology--is that the genetic manipulation of this crop over thousands of years makes decoding and thus 'manipulating' the genes of bread wheat all the more difficult today.

Complete article:



INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY
ISB News Report
April 2006
Covering Agricultural And Environmental Biotechnology Developments

The entire ISB news report is available in these formats:
PDF version: http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2006/apr06.pdf
Web version:
http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2006/news06.apr.htm

Read more!

Cloning a way to stop Mad-Cow Disease?

Chinese clone BSE-resistant calf
Yahoo News Wednesday April 26, 01:18 PM
By Lester Haines

Yahoo News reported that Chinese scientists have successfully cloned a cow "with gene cells resistant to mad cow disease", reports Xinhua news agency via Reuters. The 55kg calf, born in the eastern province of Shandong, was cloned from cells of an adult cow and carries transplanted genetic material conferring the resistance to bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

The item names Professors Dong Yajuan and Bo Xuejin of Shandong's Laiyang Agro-Science Institute as collaborating with a Japanese university on the project. The new arrival is another breakthrough for the pair - back in 2001 they produced China's first cloned cow.

IT reports that Chinese state television does, however, did sound a note of warning with the statement that "further tests would be required on the calf as it grows to verify the effectiveness of the transplanted genes".

Read more!

USA and Brazil express fraternal affection over alcohol.

Text of Article on Ethanol by Ambassador Abdenur of Brazil and Sen. Richard Lugar

5/8/2006 5:48:00 PM

WASHINGTON, May 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is the text of an article on ethanol by Roberto Abdenur, Brazilian ambassador to the U.S., and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The article was originally published on May 6 in the Miami Herald and the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo:

U.S.-BRAZIL: Friends Working on Common Goals on Economy, Energy

By RICHARD G. LUGAR and ROBERTO ABDENUR

The United States and Brazil share many things: a hemisphere, a dedication to promoting democracy and human rights and the vigor that comes from being multiethnic societies. Those of us who have long wished that these two important countries of the Americas would establish a true partnership have seen encouraging signs recently. For instance, Brazil has sent troops to Haiti as the leading force of a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

Our two nations already have a strong economic relationship; ... the two governments agreed to substantially increase by 2010 the volume of their bilateral trade, from the current figure of $35 billion.

Our two countries need to accelerate their cooperation. The economic and political environment in the Americas is changing rapidly, creating new challenges for each that we can meet better if we do so together. Brazil has special influence in the region because of the size of its economy, population, land mass, natural resources and significant economic, political and cultural ties with neighbors. Brazil and the United States should combine their strengths to contribute to the region's economic, social and political development.

...

We both face challenges to our energy security from the sharply rising worldwide demand for energy. Higher world energy prices, greater vulnerability to energy shocks and increased potential for conflict are consequences that will affect all nations. But amid this new energy threat, we also have an opportunity to fashion a win-win response that could benefit both our countries.

The key is ethanol, which Brazil long ago saw as an important element of its energy strategy and now provides 18 percent of the country's automotive fuel, thanks to a booming sugar-cane-based ethanol industry. As a result, Brazil, which years ago had to import a large share of the petroleum needed for domestic consumption, recently reached complete self-sufficiency in oil. For its own energy security, the United States -- by far the world's largest oil importer -- similarly needs to break oil's near-monopoly on the transport sector by turning to ethanol for a much larger share of its auto fuel supply. Although the United States, using corn, produces nearly as much ethanol as Brazil and is expanding its annual production by 25 percent, the four billion gallons produced is still a tiny fraction of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.

...

One solution might be for the United States to import more Brazilian ethanol to blend on East Coast, where transportation costs significantly raise the price of Midwest ethanol. That would, however, require the politically difficult step of ending the protective tariffs on Brazilian ethanol that now shelters the U.S. industry. It makes strategic sense to import environmentally friendly ethanol from a reliable friend like Brazil in our own hemisphere. After all, the United States doesn't tax imported crude oil, which pollutes and often comes from unstable suppliers.

...

Together, the two countries could undertake an international joint action to globalize the production and utilization of ethanol, including by sharing their technology with potential producers of ethanol throughout the world, particularly in developing countries. We share common goals. We should start sharing common programs to achieve them.


Meanwhile back in Washington DC

Pressure builds to lower ethanol tariff
House GOP's Boehner: Cutting duty would lower gas prices
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:24 PM ET May 9, 2006
MarketWatch reports that a top House House Republican said that reducing a tariff on imported ethanol [that is Brazilian ethanol] could lead to lower prices at the gas pump, a top said Tuesday.

Market Watch say that demand for ethanol, which is primarily derived from corn, has risen with the phase-out of MTBE, a petroleum-based fuel additive. Congress last summer required that ethanol use rise to 4 billion gallons this year and 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters a temporary reduction in the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff would "ease the pressure that's out there, resulting in lower gasoline prices".

President Bush last week voiced support for temporarily lifting the tariff. But farm-state lawmakers have vowed to fight any efforts to lift the duty.

Read more!

Local Biofuels could help reduce our Fuel Import Bill says Nats Senator Boswell.

Australia, Tuesday, 9 May 2006

Senator Boswell, Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, said at the Ethanol 2006 conference in Brisbane that Australia’s increasing fuel trade deficit would be almost $10 billion dollars by the end of this year.

“A major contributor to this is the continuing decline in production of Australian oil, down from 31 billion litres in 2001, to just over 18 billion litres last year,” Senator Boswell said.

“We are spending billions of dollars importing oil from overseas, when we should be replacing a much greater percentage of it with home grown biofuels.

We are spending billions of dollars importing oil from overseas, when we should be replacing a much greater percentage of it with home-grown biofuels."

Between 2003 and 2006, Australia's trade deficit in fuel went from 13pc of our total trade deficit, to 55.6pc.

Read more!

West Australian Minister Questioned about his decision to test safety-test GM foods in South Australia.

Comments are being made in West Australian Parliament and media by Minister Chance in response to letters sent to him about his proposal to test GM foods in South Australia:

Extracts from Questions that were recorded in WA Parliament:

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS - ASSESSMENT

179.Hon ANTHONY FELS to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:

Last Saturday the minister was reported in The West Australian as attacking Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the national food watchdog, claiming that it does not adequately assess the health impacts of genetically modified crops.
Abstracts and citations of more than 60 independent scientific papers on GM animal feeding trials have been drawn to the minister’s attention.

(1)What does the minister expect to accomplish with a $92 000 budget in six months?

(2) What does the minister expect to accomplish by undermining public confidence in our country’s regulatory system, and does he realise that if each state were to start developing its own testing systems for GM products, business in Australia would become impossible?

Several members interjected.

The PRESIDENT: Order! With respect to members on my right, question time is due to be cut off at 5.00 pm sharp. Taking that into account, a number of members wish to ask questions.

Hon KIM CHANCE replied:

(1)-(2) What do I expect to achieve by undermining FSANZ and other regulatory authorities? I seem to recall, although it may not have been printed, that I took a bit of a pot shot at another regulatory authority.

Hon Ken Travers: They get their briefing notes from federal ministers, so they know nothing else.

Hon KIM CHANCE: That is true. Since the government announced it would fund quite a small animal feeding trial to determine the safety of genetically engineered foods, it has received this huge wave of protests from what amounted to eight or nine American scientists. They sent letters to the Premier and to me. They sent e-mails and a whole chain of information saying what a terrible thing it was that we had appointed an independent person to carry out this work. I thought those eight or nine people were obviously eminent scientists who had an issue, so I did some checking of their backgrounds. Every one of those eight or nine scientists is in the pocket of the GE companies. They are all recipients of grants from Monsanto, Bayer or another such company. Let us acknowledge, first, that no authority does any testing on food safety or GM food, and has never done in the history of Australia.

Hon Anthony Fels: What about your department?

Hon KIM CHANCE: Including my department. My department is not a public health agency. Those eight or nine scientists expected us to say that the people from the University of Adelaide, who are carrying out testing on our behalf, are not
independent; however, the people who do the testing, and upon whom FSANZ relies for the data on which it assesses food safety in Australia, are the proponents of the technology. The people who do the testing are from Bayer and Monsanto. It
means that they think Bayer and Monsanto are objective, but a university-based agency is not! Members might try to work that one out. Of course, when we test the objectivity of that handful of scientists - or nearly two handfuls - we find not one of them is in any sense objective. As to what we expect from the trial, it is a modestly funded trial, with $92 000 funding from the Western Australian government, but the agency at Adelaide University obviously has other sources of funds. We expect to achieve for the first time in Australia, and indeed one of the first times in the world, an animal feeding trial using exclusively GE foods, which is carried out objectively over a period of time. It has been done on only a handful of occasions around the world. On every other occasion when this kind of testing has been carried out, it has been carried out by the proponents of the technology.

The only way in which one could say that there is some middle ground is when the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which I do regard as objective, carries out testing on its own GE issues. When the CSIRO produced
a genetically engineered pea and carried out extensive animal feeding trials, it stopped its work on that GE pea because it caused lung dysfunction in the animals that were being fed. There are issues involved that need to be followed through. I do not know whether feeding GE food injures animals, but I do know that I would rather trust an independent person to carry out that testing than somebody who must make money out of it. In the political horserace, if there is a horse called self-interest, always be on it. It might not necessarily win, but we know it will be trying.

GMO Pundit:

The Minister is implying, it seems to the Pundit, that the University of Adelaide is sponsoring this study, that there are other sources of funds, and that he sets stringent standards about investigator independence.

This exchange raises several interesting questions:

In what way is the University of Adelaide supervising this study?
What is the source of the extra funds for this research?
Does the investigator(s) meet the high standards of independence demanded by the Minister?
What are the standards set for scientific nutritional expertise to be used in the planning of this study?
What will the IHER study establish that has not already been addressed by the numerous safety tests already done on GM foods and feeds?

More Just in about Mr Chance

In West Australian 9/05/2006
GM ban stalls biotech boom.

Cathy Bolt in this item announces that the developers and backers of a new salt-tolerant wheat have warned that further work on the breakthrough plants will grind to a hold because of WA's moratorium on genetically modified crops.

Grain Biotech Australia business development manager Alan Tough said the project's main backer, GRDC, was reluctant to commit to further trials when there was no clear path to market.

In the article quotes Mr Chance's response:

Mr Chance said that it was nonsense to say that the moratorium was a major obstacle to further development of GM wheat, given that no variety of wheat would be ready for release before the ban was due to expire in 2008.

The next question for Mr Chance is:
What sane investor would believe in 2006 that the WA ban would certainly expire in 2008, given the WA Governments record?

Read more!

Western Australia will be last to benefit from WA salt-tolerant wheat thanks to Mr Chance say PGA.

WA denied access to salt and frost tolerant wheat
Australia
Monday, 8 May 2006

This Farmonline article says that WA grains leader Leon Bradley has warned that local producers will be the last graingrowers in the world to benefit from new GM salt and frost tolerant wheat varieties developed in WA by Grain Biotech Australia.

Mr Bradley, chairman of the Western Graingrowers Committee of the Pastoralists and Graziers’ Association, said a WA moratorium on GM crops imposed by Agriculture Minister, Kim Chance, until 2008, would force GBA to market its new salt and frost tolerant wheat varieties overseas.

The varieties have produced 23pc higher seed weights than conventional wheats in trials on salt land at Corrigin, WA.


To follow up on this issue , here's some comments on how generally, salt tolerant plants ( perrenials thought) would be important tools for managing salinity.

Salinity: new knowledge with big implications
A transcript submitted to ABC Radio National for the Ockham's Razor progam

David Pannell

The first clear implication is that we need to be patient about achieving outcomes. We have tended to rush into using all the money to fund on-ground works, but given the limited range of treatment options currently available, this is clearly not the best approach. We are strongly reliant on R&D to provide new types of perennial trees, shrubs, pastures and crops, and this R&D is in its early stages. It will take some time to deliver...
Thirdly, the discussion about needing to wait for R&D begs the question, why not use some of our salinity program funds to accelerate the research that is developing new and better tools for management, including perennial plants that can be profitable while using all the available water, salt-tolerant plants, and improved engineering methods? At the moment, funding for this R&D is outside the salinity program, and is not secure, even though it is pivotal to our chances of dealing well with the problem.

Funding R&D to develop new salinity management tools is also important for ensuring that something can be done in the great majority of salt-affected areas that will not qualify for funding for on-ground works. Tight targeting of funds, while necessary for effective use of the resources, inevitably means that most agricultural areas will miss out. Developing new tools is the best way to empower farmers to take action for themselves. If we don’t do this, we can’t expect farmers to bear unrealistic costs, sweetened a little by grants that are generally too small to really make a difference.

Pundit Comment:
Salt tolerant GM wheat and canola are just first step in a range of potentially new salt tolerant plants. WA is not taking this first step.

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Discovery means trees could be made more compact for better growth in crowded cities, and berry bushes could be made taller for ease of harvesting.

No-Mow Grass May Be Coming to Your Yard Soon
Via Future Pundit who has extra comments

For anyone tethered to a lawnmower, the Holy Grail of horticultural accomplishment would be grass that never grows but is always green.

Now, that vision of suburban bliss—and more—seems plausible as scientists have mapped a critical hormone signaling pathway that regulates the stature of plants. In addition to lawns that rarely require mowing, the finding could also enable the development of sturdier, more fruitful crop plants such as rice, wheat, soybeans, and corn.

“We might be able to dwarf grass and keep it green by limiting brassinosteroids or increase the yield of rice by having more brassinosteroids in seeds.”
Joanne Chory

In a paper published in the May 4, 2006, issue of the journal Nature, Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists report they have deciphered the signaling pathway for a key class of steroid hormones that regulates growth and development in plants.

"By manipulating the steroid pathway…we think we can regulate plant stature and yield," said Joanne Chory, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and the senior author of the new report.

Manipulation of plant stature has been a longstanding goal in horticulture, agronomy, and forestry. The ability to precisely control plant size would have broad implications for everything from urban forestry to crop and garden plant development. Beyond perpetually short grass, trees could be made more compact for better growth in crowded cities, and berry bushes could be made taller for ease of harvesting.

To chart the pathway, Chory and colleague Grégory Vert of the Salk Institute's Plant Biology Laboratory examined the molecular influence of a family of plant hormones known as brassinosteroids. Scientists have found brassinosteroids in all plants where they have looked for them. As critical chemical messengers of plant development, they are found in low levels in virtually all plant cells, including seeds, flowers, roots, leaves, stems, pollen, and young vegetative tissue.

"Without them, plants are tiny dwarves, with reduced vasculature and roots, and are infertile," Chory explained. "They also regulate senescence or aging. Since brassinosteroids mainly regulate cell expansion, though, they are one of the most important hormones that regulate stature."

Knowing the molecular chain of command—how the hormone acts to influence genetic events that govern development at the cellular level—gives scientists a way to reshape the steroid pathway to develop plants that grow in specified ways.

"We might be able to dwarf grass and keep it green by limiting brassinosteroids or increase the yield of rice by having more brassinosteroids in seeds," Chory said. Another recent study by Makoto Matsuoka's group in Japan, she said, showed that limiting brassinosteroids in rice affected leaf angle and improved yield in densely planted fields.

Vert and Chory's work helps trace a molecular pathway that is ancient—perhaps more than a billion years old—in both plants and animals. "Remarkably, steroid biosynthetic enzymes are highly conserved from plants to metazoans (animals), suggesting that the use of steroids as hormones preceded the plant-animal split over a billion years ago," Chory explained.

In animals, the route steroid hormones use to exert their influence in the nucleus of a cell, where gene expression is regulated, is direct, through the use of nuclear receptors. Plants, said Chory, don't have nuclear receptors, which would provide more direct access to the nucleus. Rather, plant steroids are perceived outside the cell by the extracellular domain of a cell surface receptor. Perception then regulates genetic events in the nucleus in a more roundabout way, similar to a well-studied pathway in animals known as the Wnt signaling pathway. Wnt is a secreted molecule that influences the nucleus of a cell through cell surface receptors to regulate cell-to-cell interactions and many of the events of embryogenesis in metazoans.

"Because one of the brassinosteroid signaling components was similar to a protein found in the Wnt signaling pathway, we thought that the logic for brassinosteroid signaling (in plants) would be very much like the Wnt pathway," said Chory. "We were wrong."

Instead, brassinosteroid perception leads to a cascade of biochemical events that alter the ability of key proteins to dimerize and activate gene expression within a cell's nucleus. In plants, there are scores of genes involved in growth and development that can be influenced by brassinosteroids, Chory noted.

"Many of these genes are predicted to be involved in growth, like cell wall metabolism. Their up-expression would be predicted to promote cell expansion," according to Chory.

The work of other groups, she noted, has shown that brassinosteroids can negatively regulate their own expression as part of a feedback loop that, ultimately, determines the size of a plant. In nature, that feedback loop has served plants well, helping them adjust their height and size to fit the growing conditions of any environmental niche.

Through traditional methods of plant breeding, humans have been manipulating plant stature for thousands of years. In recent years, through the methods of genetic engineering, more precise methods for altering industrial plant strains have come into play.

But access to a pathway used by plant hormones to dictate size promises broader influence over the many genes involved in the process of growth. Levers that could be used to alter a hormone pathway to influence plant development and stature, according to Chory, include modifying the levels of the hormone, manipulating the chemical structures of hormones, and recoding the signals sent along the pathway.

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Zillionaires are getting excited about cellulosic ethanol urged on by both Al Gore and George Dubya

Buzz, backers, bucks for ethanol
Major investors and farmers alike hope this time is the charm

This Chicago Tribune item by Michael Oneal and Greg Burns touts zillionaire's interests in biofuel.

Of course, by lifting the tariff on imported ethanol, George W. Bush will have sugar-cane farmers whooping with joy from Townsville to Rio.

Published May 7, 2006

It announces Richard Branson, the globetrotting chief of Britain's Virgin Group Ltd., is a true believer. So is Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates, the world's richest man.

It goes on: Vinod Khosla, arguably Silicon Valley's most successful venture capitalist, is throwing his weight behind it. Investment powerhouse Goldman Sachs is right on his heels.

Then it goes for the killer punch:

Then there's Frank Mackaman, the mayor of little Pekin, Ill., a Corn Belt town with a giant ethanol plant on its outskirts.

"If ethanol is the latest gold rush, I'd like to be part of it," he said. "We are in the right place at the right time."

With oil sloshing past $70 a barrel and angst over global warming and national security at a fever pitch, ethanol is back. The buzz about the corn-based "biofuel" is crackling from Wall Street conference rooms to the 6 a.m. coffee klatches at your average downstate Denny's.

President Bush reopened the fractious debate about federal protections for the corn-based bio-fuel on Friday when he proposed lifting a 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol--a move that could take some of the air out of high-flying stocks like Decatur-based Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Pacific Ethanol Inc.

But next realism intrudes:

For anyone who has been seduced and disappointed by ethanol's siren song over the past 30 years, the question raised by all of this is obvious: Why is anything different this time?

But scientists are providing compelling evidence that ethanol may be approaching a crucial tipping point. And plenty of people are listening.

"The world is facing a self-inflicted catastrophe," said Branson, who devoted as much as $500 million to ethanol investments after a visit from former Vice President Al Gore. "At Virgin we're playing our own part with our planes and trains. We decided we have to do something about it."

Next comes the power of biotechnology. It's a no-brainer apparently.

Genetically modified organisms that can unlock the valuable sugars in everything from prairie grass and poplar trees to manure and wood chips promise to make ethanol production much more feasible, raising hopes that it could, indeed, help wean the U.S. from its troublesome dependence on Mideast oil.

"It's the power of biotechnology," said James McMillan, a top scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. "We're very close to this stuff being a no-brainer."

The article continues : Bernie Punt, the general manager of Iowa-based ethanol producer Siouxland Energy and Livestock Co-op, said the gusher has transformed his community. After collecting their fat distribution checks this past year, co-op members helped out needy neighbors, contributed to school systems and followed through on long-deferred equipment purchases, he said.

They're also coming back for more. Equity drives to fund expansion across the state are "packed" with farmers "writing out checks for $5,000, $10,000, $50,000, $100,000," he said. His co-op plans to expand 40 percent.

"That's how hungry farmers are for value-added," Punt said. "It's great for the economy. It's great for the farmer."

...

"The government needs to be an investor in the first plants," said Charles Wyman, a chemical engineer at the University of California, Riverside. "You won't get any benefit from this technology if you don't have a plant" to begin working up the industrial learning curve.

Pundit will buy into that argument. Learning curves are good.

What's clear is that the technology answers many of the questions that have dogged the industry for years. First of all, it cuts the cost of production dramatically because it allows producers to use junk, not food, for raw material. Not only does that make it more competitive, but it also makes up for the fact that ethanol gets fewer miles per gallon than gas, despite burning cleaner, with better octane.

Cellulosic technology also allows for more ethanol from less land, neatly hurdling the inflation argument. The U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture released a study last year showing that existing "agriculture lands can provide nearly 1 billion tons of dry biomass and continue to meet food, feed and export demands." That's enough, it concluded, to "displace 30 percent or more of the country's present petroleum consumption."

Third, production of cellulosic ethanol creates far fewer greenhouse gasses than either oil refining or regular ethanol production.

The reason: a by-product of the process is a non-fossil compound called lignan, which can be burned instead of natural gas to power the process. It's also true that most biomass doesn't require fertilizer, which also sucks up fossil fuels in production.

Ethanol aside, the potential of industrial biotech can be dazzling. Scientists point out that once you have sugars in abundance, you can replace any number of messy substances that are now contributing to the petroleum addiction.

DuPont has programmed an organism to produce enzymes that break sugars into a compound called Bio-PDO, which the company will use to make its Sorona-brand apparel fabric. Sorona is currently produced from a petroleum-based polymer, but DuPont sees Bio-PDO as the first of many future bio-replacements.

"The notion that a cell is a factory can move in a lot of directions," said Thomas Connelly, DuPont's chief science and technology officer. "The sugar is the feedstock, but the product doesn't have to be ethanol."

But be warned says GMO Pundit. Dupont hired him in the 1980 to do exactly these Bio-PDO type projects the last time oil-prices were sky-rocketing.

But promptly after Dupont bought Conoco Oil in the early 1980s, they gave up for another 20 years moving seriously into this "sustainable" or "Green Chemistry" direction , as the price of oil had dropped and chemical feedstock security within the company was satisfied by the Conoco deal. The real innovation were carried out in smaller risk-taking biotech ventures, who pushed to envelope with real innovation.

Trust me on this, says the Pundit. He knows. in the 1980s, the first time around, he was right there at the research coal-face, in Wilmington Delaware.

See also
World's first cellulosic ethanol plant in Spain.

Billionaire's can't be wrong on biofuel.

New cellulase catalyst from Genencor.

Sweet Willow, Sweet Willow, Sweet Willow.

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