Weekly Update from the Texas Seed Trade Association | |
EU unable to approve new gene-editing plans in current mandate
The approval of much-anticipated legislation relaxing the EU’s strict rules on New Genomic Techniques (NGTs), will have to wait until the next legislative mandate, Belgian Agriculture Minister David Clarinval confirmed in the margins of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH) on Tuesday’s (26 March).
“We do not have enough time left to finalise negotiations with the European Parliament,” said Clarinval in a press conference after the AGRIFISH meeting.
He stressed, however, that the Presidency would continue to work towards reaching a common position among EU countries during the remainder of its mandate.
These advanced scientific methods, frequently hailed as a sustainability breakthrough, enable targeted and fast changes to the genome of crops, with the potential to make them more resistant to extreme weather and pests, along with other uses.
But negotiations on the NGTs regulation, unveiled by the European Commission in July 2023, have been stuck at Council since December.
At the time, the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council failed to broker an agreement among member states, as concerns over traceability, labelling and patents of gene-edited food persisted.
The issue was raised during Tuesday’s ministerial meeting by Spain’s Agriculture Minister Luis Planas, a staunch advocate of NGTs for food and feed production.
During the discussion, Planas told his counterparts that NGTs could be the solution to the challenges currently faced by the bloc’s farmers, notably climate change, rising production costs and geopolitical instability.
“We need to have all the tools at our disposal [that] allow us to provide solutions to problems such as the lack of water, pressure from new diseases and pests…” he stressed, describing the Commission’s proposal as “scientifically sound.”
Some national representatives supported the Spanish stance, with the Dutch delegation calling for a launch of negotiations with the Parliament “as soon as possible.”
“Other countries outside the EU already have regulations in place for these plants or are in the process of developing, the risk of lagging behind is that [the EU] will lose its leading position,” stated the Dutch Agriculture Minister Piet Adema.
Remaining concerns
A blocking minority of member states – including Poland, Austria, Croatia and Slovakia – are still reluctant to endorse the legislation.
Among the most contested points is the patentability of NGTs, which some countries say should be banned to ensure equal access to breeding material among farmers.
Other key questions are the criteria to divide NGT-based products into two categories (NGT 1 and 2) and labelling requirements.
“The lack of labelling for products falling into NGT1 [would] represent a huge attack on the freedom to choose for our consumers,” said the Austrian delegation during the discussion in the Council.
Upcoming opinion
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is expected to give an opinion on the EU executive’s proposal, after the European Parliament sent a letter on 22 February, asking for an examination of a report published in December by the French health authority (ANSES).
ANSES’s study questioned some of the European Commission’s criteria for classifying plant varieties obtained with NGTs.
[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Rajnish Singh]
Editor's Note: Disappointing news. Perhaps approval will come in the near future.
| |
|
AVIAN FLU INFECTS MAN DAIRY WORKER IN TEXAS
by Rachel Schutte, Content Producer, Feedstuffs
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports a person in Texas tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, after exposure to dairy cattle presumed to be infected with HPAI.
The National Veterinary Service Lab confirmed the H5N1 strain of Influenza A caused recent outbreaks of avian influenza in dairy cattle across at least five U.S. states. This is the same strain contracted by the patient in Texas.
The patient describes eye redness as their only symptom and is recovering. The individual is being treated with an antiviral drug for flu while they isolate.
This is the second person with a confirmed HPAI case in the U.S. A previous human case occurred in Colorado in 2022 when an inmate contracted the virus during a work assignment with poultry. Human infections with avian flu are uncommon but have occurred sporadically worldwide.
Texas issued a public health alert Monday asking health care providers in the state to be on the lookout for people with symptoms of avian influenza who may have been exposed to an infected person or animal.
Preventive measures
Despite this infection, the CDC still considers the risk to the U.S. general public to be low. However, people with close or prolonged exposures to infected animals or to environments contaminated by infected animals are at greater risk.
The CDC encourages people to avoid exposure to sick or dead animals including birds, animal carcasses, raw milk, feces, litter or any other materials contaminated by animals with a suspected HPAI infection.
Farmers and workers should wear recommended personal protective equipment such as an N95 filtering facepiece respirator, eye protection and gloves when coming into contact with any exposure risks. Anyone exposed to HPAI infected birds or other animals should monitor themselves for symptoms, including eye redness, for 10 days following exposure.
The CDC notes that preliminary analysis of the virus suggests FDA-approved flu antiviral medications should be successful in treating H5N1 in humans. Seasonal flu vaccines do not provide protection against these viruses.
USDA states there are no concerns with the safety of the commercial milk supply because products are pasteurized before entering the market. Pasteurization has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk. In addition, milk from impacted animals is being diverted or destroyed so that it does not enter the human food supply.
Dr. Justin Smith, Kansas State Animal Health commissioner, says the confirmation of Influenza A in dairy cattle, itself, is unique. "Our ruminant animals don't tend to be affected by the influenza virus," he says. "They're one of our species that we frankly haven't had a lot of historical reports of influenza affecting cattle worldwide, let alone in the United States."
The main concern among dairy producers is "nose to nose" direct transmission of the virus between cattle. However, that does not appear to be the case. Smith says all the testing and reporting shows that the virus spreads through unpasteurized milk, likely via equipment in the parlor.
To read the entire article click here.
| |
|
The number of farms producing wheat for grain declined substantially from 2002 to 2022, according to new data from USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) 2022 Census of Agriculture. In 2022, the number of U.S. farms reporting wheat production was 97,014, a 43-percent decrease compared with the 2002 census, when 169,528 farms reported wheat production.
The reduction in the number of farms producing wheat was spread across all classes of wheat. The number of farms producing winter wheat--84 percent of U.S. wheat farms in 2022--dropped by nearly 60,000, or 42 percent, between the 2002 and 2022 censuses. Farms producing durum wheat decreased by the largest percentage, down 59 percent from 2002. The number of farms growing spring wheat (other than durum) declined 43 percent from 2002 to 2022. During the same time period, total volume of U.S. wheat produced trended down slightly, largely because of less acreage being harvested.
As the profitability of other crops rises, wheat is increasingly planted in rotation with more profitable corn or soybean crops. Among major wheat-producing States, Kansas, which accounts for 15 percent of all U.S. wheat farms, saw a reduction of 9,716 farms--a 40-percent decrease from 2002 to 2022. Texas and Oklahoma reported decreases of 54 and 47 percent, respectively, between 2002 and 2022.
Together, these 3 States harvested nearly 32 of percent of the volume of winter wheat produced in 2022, according to data reported by NASS in the Small Grains Annual report. For more details on the 2022 Census of Agriculture, see the NASS Census of Agriculture website.
Information on trends in the wheat production sector can be found in the special article, "U.S. Census of Agriculture: Highlighting Changing Trends in Wheat Farming" in USDA, Economic Research Service's March 2024 Wheat Outlook
| |
The articles, views, and opinions expressed in the Weekly Update do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Texas Seed Trade Association or the opinions of its members. | | | | |
