The Organic & Non-GMO Report Newsletter

Okja movie takes on GMOs, factory farms

Netflix production Okja is the story of a giant genetically modified pig and its owner, a young Korean girl named Mija. Produced by Netflix, The two are forced to leave their idyllic home in rural Korea and must battle a greedy corporation that wants to process Okja and other similar giant GMO pigs into meat products. Along the way, they are helped by animal activists. Okja is an indictment against factory farming and genetic engineering. Huffington Post says Okja “is the stuff summer blockbusters should be made of.” Both Huffington Post and the New York Times ranked Okja as one of the top 10 movies of 2017.

It’s a fact: “Peel Back the Label” is bound to fail

A new campaign, “Peel Back the Label,” is attacking companies that label their products as non-GMO. The campaign, which is similar to other PR created campaigns to support GMOs, is fighting inexorable consumer trends and is bound to fail.

EU votes to renew license for glyphosate herbicide for five years

The European Union recently voted to renew the license for glyphosate herbicide for five years. The decision was criticized by both glyphosate supporters, who wanted the herbicide renewed for the full 15 years, and opponents, who have called for a ban on the herbicide.

This Is How Badly Monsanto Wants Farmers to Spray Its Problematic Herbicide

In the wake of 2017’s dicamba herbicide drift disaster, which damaged 3.6 million acres of farmland, Monsanto will pay farmers a rebate of $6 per acre to spray its proprietary dicamba formula. The company aims to sell enough GMO dicamba resistant soybean seeds to cover 40 million acres in the U.S. this year. Several states including Arkansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and North Dakota are putting restrictions on the use of dicamba at certain times during the year to prevent the drift problems experienced by many farmers in 2017.

Gene editing: supporters hope it can it elude the GMO stigma, opponents say it is another GMO

A new technology is being rapidly deployed to create new plant traits, while avoiding government regulations that cover genetically modified plants. Supporters say the new technology offers great possibilities for creating new food plants, while opponents say it is another form of genetic engineering with similar risks.