Syngenta lawsuits considered for consolidation in US court

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  Syngenta corn lawsuits are being considered for possible consolidation in a U.S. District Court.

  From WATTAgNet:
  Syngenta corn lawsuits are being considered for possible consolidation in a U.S. District Court by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML).
  The lawsuits over Syngenta Viptera are on the schedule for oral arguments at the December hearing of the JPML in Charleston, South Carolina.
  According to court documents, plaintiffs advocating for Syngenta corn lawsuit multidistrict litigation allege that “corn farmers, grain elevator operators, and corn exporters have all suffered significant economic damages as a result of Syngenta’s release, promotion and commercialization of a certain genetically engineered corn trait – MIR162 – into the United States corn production system.”
  The suit says that, by promoting Viptera and Agrisure Durcade corn to farmers even though the genetically modified seeds had not been accepted for import by China, Syngenta is responsible for the collapse of the American corn market. The lawsuits allege that all corn farmers, not just those who planted Viptera seed, have sustained economic damages due to intermingling of the corn supply and the rejection of U.S. corn by China.
  Plaintiffs advocating for consolidation of the lawsuits suggest the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois as the best location for the multidistrict litigation. Syngenta agrees the lawsuits should be consolidated, but instead suggests the U.S. District Court in Minnesota as the location. 

Monsanto, Dow enter corn technology agreement

Dow AgroSciences LLC, a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, and Monsanto Company have entered into an agreement to create the next generation of advanced weed and insect control technology in corn. The financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Dow will license Monsanto's Corn Rootworm III, a third-generation corn rootworm technology that controls root-eating worms. Monsanto will license the use of Dow's new Enlist Weed Control System herbicide-tolerant trait in field corn, and will be the first licensee of the Enlist trait in corn.
The agreement provides an opportunity for next-generation products to build upon the current SmartStax platform for stacked-trait corn offerings, according to the companies. The technologies are expected to be introduced in sold competitively by both companies as next-generation weed and insect control products.
According to both Dow and Monsanto, the agreement paves the way for the U.S. introduction (pending regulatory approvals) of new next-generation SmartStax products by the end of the decade.

Dow delays genetically modified corn for US until 2014

A new Dow Chemical Co. genetically modified corn seed won't be available for U.S. farmers until at least 2014, according to the company which says it is still waiting for regulatory approval.
Dow Chemical's agriculture subsidiary, Dow AgroSciences, said it had hoped to sell the seed for 2013 planting. The technology, called Enlist, is genetically modified to withstand applications of the herbicide 2,4-D. It is part of an industry response to the emergence of weeds resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide used in tandem with genetically modified corn and soybean seeds from Monsanto.
Critics of the technology say it will lead to more herbicides being used and, eventually, weeds building up a resistance to these products, as well.

AFBF contests EU ban on GMOs

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) has requested that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative initiates steps to resolve the failure of the EU to accept GM grains. The AFBF contends that the EU has “failed to comply with its WTO obligations to provide for a science-based, timely and predictable process for regulatory review of agriculture and food technology products.”
GMOs in the EU have made progress though. According to the Animal Agri Business Policy Report, the EU recently approved six corn varieties incorporating genetic modification for both food and animal feed.

Monsanto can plant modified alfalfa in US

Monsanto can plant genetically modified alfalfa seeds under a new ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The New York Times reported the court overturned a lower court's ruling that prevented the company from planting the seeds.
In its first decision on genetically modified crops, the high court examined the ruling that required a study on how Roundup Ready seeds would affect nearby crops. A number of environmental groups and seed firms sued the U.S. Agriculture Department in 2006 after it had approved the seed, pending a full environmental study. Monsanto appealed to the Supreme Court.

USDA: Turkish biotech rules restrict poultry sector growth

A Turkish ban on genetically modified crops has caused feed prices to spike and is limiting poultry industry growth, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report cited on Agrimoney.com.
Turkey banned the import of genetically modified food and feed crops in October. By November, soybean prices rose 40% to $700 per tonne, according to the USDA report. Prices for corn gluten feed and distiller’s grains also increased.
Russia wants to increase its poultry imports from Turkey to fill a gap created when Moscow banned poultry shipments from the United States. But Turkish producers say they will be able to export only about 100,000 tonnes of poultry this year, falling far short of Russia’s 500,000-tonne order. Turkey exported a total of 115,000 tonnes in 2009, according to Agrimoney.com.
The USDA report said that Turkey will be unable to expand at the rate needed to meet Russia’s import demands as long as biotech crops are restricted. Turkey is expected to enact additional legislation in 2010 that would ban domestic production of genetically modified crops.

Britain heading for GM revolution?

Britain should embrace cutting-edge technologies, such as genetic modification and nanotechnology, to avoid catastrophic food shortages and future climate change, the government's chief scientist said in a paper presented to the Oxford Farming Conference.
"In the clearest public signal yet that the government wants a hi-tech farming revolution, Professor John Beddington [wrote that] U.K. scientists need to urgently develop 'a new and greener revolution' to increase food production in a world changed by global warming and expected to have an extra 3 billion people to feed by 2040," according to an article in The Guardian newspaper.
Development and environmental activists are expected to challenge the conclusion that new technology is the answer to the global food crisis.

New corn varieties to be used in Brazil

Brazil approved two new varieties of genetically modified corn, according to reports, engineered to be pest and glyphosate-based herbicide resistant.
Monsanto and Syngenta developed the products.
A third, insect-resistant variety was also approved, making nine GMO corn varieties approved in Brazil. Approximately 30 percent of Brazil's 2009/2010 summer corn crop will be grown from a genetically modified variety.

Monsanto unveils new strain of seeds

Farmers will have to pay about 42% more from 2010 for Monsanto Co.'s new genetically modified seeds Roundup Ready 2 Yield. These soybeans will cost farmers an average of $74 an acre, Bloomberg reported.
The original Roundup Ready soybeans will cost $52 an acre. Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybean seeds were planted on 1.5 million acres this year with acreage forecast to reach 8 million acres next year in the U.S.
SmartStax corn seeds, developed with Dow Chemical Co., will cost $130 an acre, 17% more than the YieldGard triple-stack seeds they will replace. SmartStax corn seed will be planted on as many as 4 million acres in 2010, its first year on the market.
The new seed boosts yields 5-10% compared with other products, partly by reducing the amount of land that must be planted with conventional corn to 5% from 20%, Monsanto said.