Argentine farmers are expected to sow more corn than ever this season, while soybeans will fall to an all time 15-year minimum because of the export policy of the current administration and the lack of the regulatory framework for genetically modified, GM, seeds.
France is to use a new European opt-out scheme to ensure a ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the country remains in place. The European Union's largest grain grower and exporter has asked the European Commission for France to be excluded from some GM maize crop cultivation under the new scheme, the farm and environment ministries said in a joint statement.
Scotland is to ban the growing of genetically modified crops, the country's rural affairs secretary has announced. Richard Lochhead said the Scottish government was not prepared to gamble with the future of the country's £14bn food and drink sector.
In what is described as a major blow to genetic modification of crops, a variety of wheat developed in the UK to repel pests has failed in field trials. The variety engineered to produce an odor that repels aphids, failed in the field test after it was successfully tested in the lab, proving a wide gap between lab and commercial application of the process.