AgroPages-GM potato trial given the go-ahead in UK-Agricultural news

The Sainsbury Laboratory in the UK has gained government approval to conduct field trials of a GM potato, engineered to resist blight.

The usual absurd statements to the effect that there’s no evidence of ill health effects from GM crops.

Such statements ignore the sizeable body of evidence that GM foods have caused toxic and allergic-type effects in animals.

They also ignore the obvious fact, emphasised by the Soil Association’s Peter Melchett in the article below, that there have been no studies in humans to check for health effects of GM foods.

In reality, there is no need to take risks with GM potatoes, since non-GM potatoes that resist blight have long been available.

The leader of the GM potato project is Jonathan Jones. Jones co-founded a biotech firm, Mendel Biotechnology, that had Monsanto as its main customer for several years. Mendel owns GMO patents and has partnered with Monsanto and Bayer.

Astonishingly, given his background, Jones doesn’t seem to have heard about glyphosate-resistant superweeds in soybeans crops. He claims in the article below that GM “makes it a lot easier to control the weeds in a soy bean crop and get a decent performance”.

That might have been true in the early 2000s, but it certainly isn’t now. Even the recently published – and generally pro-GMO – report from the National Academy of Sciences admitted that glyphosate-resistant superweeds are a “major agricultural problem”.