No-nonsense, no-frills potato news stories from around the world
In recognition of January 2020 as National Biotechnology Month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched a Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation [on Jan. 9]. The Website streamlines information about the three regulatory agencies charged with overseeing agriculture biotechnology products and is part President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order on Modernizing the[Read More…]
Note to readers: This article was first published in February 2017 with authorization of Simplot Company Ltd, and the abstract below is a re-print of the original article. Editor, Potato News Today Three types of potatoes genetically engineered to resist late blight are safe for the environment and safe to eat, federal officials in the US have reportedly announced last[Read More…]
The World Potato Congress (WPC) is very pleased to be offering this first webinar in its 2020 series featuring Dr. David Douches. The Feed the Future – Biotechnology Potato Partnership (BPP) is a five-year, multi-institution cooperative agreement between MSU, USAID, Simplot Company and other global institutions to develop and bring to market improved potato products to low-income farmers in South East Asian countries.[Read More…]
The genetic revolution being ushered in by gene-editing promises to markedly improve our crops by making them resistant to drought, disease and insects, and by enhancing their nutritional content. At first blush, it might appear that foods engineered to address some of our nagging health issues would be widely embraced. Not so for the organizations that have demonized other GM[Read More…]
Opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops advanced by organic activist groups (and official organizations like the US National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) or the EU’s European Court of Justice) is based on the claim that recombinant DNA technology introduces genes from one species into another. That’s not natural, these critics contend. By this definition, though, gene-editing techniques like CRISPR/Cas9 are[Read More…]
When Norman Borlaug won the Nobel peace prize in 1970 for his life-saving work on plant breeding, he said: “you can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs”. With one in every nine people on the planet still considered hungry, Borlaug’s statement has never been more relevant. Using such statistics, biotechnology proponents have said many times that the world must produce more food in[Read More…]
(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. today announced that it has signed a research agreement with Boise, Idaho-based J. R. Simplot Company, to evaluate three novel yield traits in potato. Under the agreement with Yield10, Simplot plans to conduct research with these yield traits within its research and development program as a strategy to improve crop performance and sustainability. The[Read More…]
After being de-regulated during August 2018, the National Council of Technical and Scientific Research (CONICET) last week started the formal process to register the first transgenic potato cultivar in Argentina in the National Seed Institute’s register. In partnership with biotechnological company Sidus, the CONICET developed a potato with resistance to virus Y, called SPT TICAR. CEO of the Grupo Sidus,[Read More…]
Today, the new technology of gene editing is emerging as a real option in facing some of our world’s biggest challenges in food production, medicine, conservation and climate change, according to the CEO of Plant & Food Research in New Zealand, David Hughes. In a recent article published on Stuff, he says: “The Institute I lead, Plant & Food Research,[Read More…]
Rwanda is set to join other Eastern Africa countries in growing genetically modified (GM) potato varieties, a technology that has, in the past, attracted wide-ranging public scrutiny in the country. Dr. Patrick Karangwa, the Director General of the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), told participants at the African Potato Association (APA) in Kigali that the country will try a potato variety[Read More…]
At a July 23 breakfast briefing titled ”Saving Food, Fighting Food Waste,” Doug Cole, the senior manager of marketing and biotech affairs at Simplot Plant Sciences in Boise, Idaho, reportedly said Simplot has developed a potato that will not brown and therefore won’t be thrown away by retailers, restaurants or consumers. According to an article by jerry Hagstrom published in[Read More…]
The Feed the Future Biotechnology Potato Partnership says in its latest Quarterly Update that it is testing one of it’s two 3 R-gene late blight resistant potato varieties in field trials this summer. Private sector project partner, Simplot Plant Sciences transformed the Diamant variety and Michigan State University (MSU) propagated mini-tuber certified seed via nutrient film technique (NFT) and grew[Read More…]
For nearly 25 years, an allianceof high-profile environmental groups and organic food proponents have waged an effective scare campaign against transgenic (GMO) crops. Foods derived from these crops, the public was told, could cause food allergies, sterility, liver problems and even cancer. A 2016 report by the US National Academy of Sciences conclusively debunked such speculation, finding there is “no substantiated evidence of a[Read More…]
Since mid-June, local organic potatoes from Bavarian fields have been available to retailers, but larger quantities have only been offered since the beginning of the month. “The starting position could be a bit better, but we cannot complain. The demand is still somewhat subdued, but this is normal, because the actual main crop only comes on in early September,” says[Read More…]
A University of California, Berkeley professor stands at the front of the room, delivering her invited talk about the potential of genetic engineering. Her audience, full of organic farming advocates, listens uneasily. She notices a man get up from his seat and move toward the front of the room. Confused, the speaker pauses mid-sentence as she watches him bend over,[Read More…]
Despite repeated assurances from the mainstream science community that our food supply is safe, many consumers remain highly skeptical of conventional agriculture, mostly due to misinformation about GMO crops and pesticides perpetuated on social media. Farmers recognize how controversial their profession has become and have attempted to dialogue with consumers and assuage their concerns. On June 10, South Australian farmer John[Read More…]
There are several thousand different varieties of Solanum tuberosum, commonly known as the potato around the world. But this diversity obscures the fact that various genetic and biological factors make improvement by means of traditional breeding difficult. One of the reasons is that cultivated potatoes are tetraploid, meaning that their DNA contains four sets of chromosomes. By contrast, humans are[Read More…]
Thirty-one organic and environmental organisations have urged Michael Gove to reject plans by Cambridge scientists for a new open-air field trial of GM potatoes. Groups such as GM Freeze, Organic Research Centre and the Soil Association, are fighting the trial proposal, which they say could risk off-target effects and unintended impacts, such as the accidental spread of the GM crop[Read More…]
High yielding varieties of potato and ‘tosha paat (jute)’ will be introduced soon for commercial production as the National Seed Board (NSB) in Bangladesh has given its approval in this regard. According to sources, the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has developed the high yield potato variety ‘BARI Alu-81’, while the Bangladesh Jute Research Institute (BJRI) has developed the high[Read More…]
The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, has applied to Defra for consent to release genetically modified potatoes for trials work. According to a document submitted by the applicant and published on the Defra website, entitled ‘Part B Information about the release application to be included on the public register’, the potato plants have been genetically modified to improve different traits including resistance[Read More…]
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Molly Knudsen examines the disconnect between what science says and what people believe about GMO’s in a recent article titled GMOs are NOT ‘as seen on social media’. Knudsen writes that in the food world, GMOs (aka genetically modified organisms) are often depicted as the Mean Girls character Regina George. Claims appear on websites, blogs, social media,[Read More…]
In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that sugar and other highly refined products would not be subject to a mandatory genetically modified organism (GMO) labeling law, which caused a sigh of relief among those in the sugarbeet industry. “Because the beet is so heavily processed to be turned into pure sucrose, there’s no protein left,” said Rebecca Larson,[Read More…]
Despite widespread scientific agreement that genetically modified foods are safe to consume, the vast majority of Americans disagree and are unlikely to change their opinions unless they can first be convinced to open their minds, according to new research. A study published Jan. 17 in Nature Human Behavior revealed that more than 90% of the 2,000-plus US and European adults[Read More…]
Scientists are trying to revolutionise potatoes and, in the process, cure the tubers’ depression, the result of generations of in-breeding. Potato depression is obviously nothing like human depression, of course. Potatoes reproduce through cloning, so their genome is laden with mutations. Those mutations could result in things such as stunted growth or shorter lifespans. A team of Chinese scientists looked[Read More…]
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