BIOTECH NEWS
Bayer and BASF face new lawsuits German chemical giants Bayer and BASF are facing new lawsuits over dicamba weedkiller, DTN reported on 4 June. Arkansas-based honey producer Coy’s Honey Farm filed a lawsuit against Bayer in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas on 25 May, claiming dicamba drift had destroyed vegetation the farm’s bees relied upon, reducing the farm’s honey production and bee populations since 2018, according to the report. Following this, a group of Texas wine grape growers filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County District Court in Texas on 4 June against both Bayer and BASF, alleging 57 vineyards had suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to their grapes from dicamba volatilisation and drift starting in 2016, DTN wrote. The new lawsuits came as both compa-
WORLD: US agricultural biotech company Cibus announced on 7 July that it was teaming up with Argentine soya research firm GDM to develop trait products for soyabean farmers. Cibus said the global planted area for soyabeans now exceeded 121M ha and farmers needed crop protection traits that could help control weeds, diseases and pests, while moving towards more sustainable farming practices. Cibus uses it own gene-editing technology, the Rapid Trait Development System, as a new breeding technique to accelerate crop trait development. GDM tests over 1.5M soyabean plots a year and has specialised in soya, wheat and maize in the last 40 years. Meanwhile, Argentine agriculture biotech start-up Bioheuris announced on 29 June that it had partnered with GDM to develop high yielding soyabeans. Bioheuris also uses gene editing and has worked on corn, soyabeans, cotton, rice, sorghum and alfalfa crops. 14 OFI – JULY/AUGUST 2021
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chemicals firm Monsanto (bought by Bayer for US$63bn in 2018) had released its dicamba-tolerant cropping system in 2016 and the accompanying herbicides had joined the market in 2017. Dicamba applications on surrounding cotton fields in the High Plains had since caused major damage to the grape-producing industry, the lawsuit alleged. In response, Bayer said it stood behind the safety and utility of its XtendiMax herbicide and there were many possible reasons why crop losses might occur including extreme winter weather conditions that could have particularly devastating effects on perennial crops like vineyards. BASF’s e-mailed statement to DTN also suggested that weather and other factors had been more to blame for the Texas grape growers’ losses.
Calyxt technology to create seedless hemp US biotech company Calyxt Inc announced further expansion of its hemp breeding platform on 8 July with the addition of triploid breeding technology to create seedless hemp. “Like seedless watermelon, seedless hemp can offer significant advantages in crop management and harvest potential,” the company said. “For hemp fibre production, a seedless crop can improve fibre quality and increase yield. “For hemp protein and oil derivatives, production can also be enhanced with a breeding programme based on controlled pollination, effectively eliminating the threat of rogue pollinators that can
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IN BRIEF
nies were fighting to overturn a US$265M jury verdict (later reduced to US$75M) against them for dicamba injury to a peach orchard in Missouri, the report said. Both companies have appealed the ruling. Meanwhile, Bayer was working through a settlement for injury to non-dicamba tolerant soyabean fields, according to DTN. The company had agreed to make US$400M available to resolve multi-district litigation in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri over dicamba injury claims to soyabean fields from 2015 to 2020, the report said. The claims period for that settlement had closed on 28 May. In the Texas lawsuit, four grape processors and 57 vineyards claimed that dicamba damage had never been an issue to the state’s grapevines until US agro-
Calyxt says seedless hemp offered improved yields and quality
sub-optimise yields.” Calyxt uses its TALEN gene editing technology to develop plants with improved traits. In its development pipeline
are high oleic, low linolenic soyabeans, low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) hemp, high fibre wheat, and alfalfa with improved digestibility.
Brazil set to import GM corn from USA for feed The Brazilian government is opening its doors to genetically modified (GM) corn imports from the USA as the failure of the country’s second corn crop raises concerns about domestic feed availability, AgriCensus reported the country’s agriculture minister Tereza Cristina as saying on 14 June. The import of the GM corn would need to be authorised by the country’s Biosecurity National Technical Commission as it was not grown in Brazil, according to AgriCensus. Reduced expected yields due to late planting and dry weather conditions had led Brazilian food agency Conab to downgrade corn production estimates by 10M tonnes, AgriCensus wrote,
raising concerns about a lack of animal feed against a backdrop of rising meat exports and domestic consumption. • Mexico is delaying import permits for GM corn saying it intends to apply a ban on GM grain used in animal feed, Reuters reported on 11 June. Among hundreds of permits awaiting a resolution were at least eight for GMO corn although the ban was not set to take effect for three years. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador issued an executive order last year phasing out GM corn and glyphosate by 2024, arguing that the country must attain food self-sufficiency without using toxic chemicals, Reuters wrote. www.ofimagazine.com
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