Genetic engineering is set to leave the farm for the forest. After over twenty years of growing genetically engineered (GE or genetically modified) crop plants in North America, researchers are now proposing to plant GE trees in the forests of eastern US and Canada. This is a precedent-setting request that asks us to accept, even embrace, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the wild. January 2021.

More genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) Atlantic salmon will soon be on the market in Canada. This is because the first ever Canadian-produced GM salmon will be ready for harvest in early January 2021, and the first US-produced GM salmon is being harvested right about now. The GM salmon will be sold unlabelled in Canada. November 2020.

Welcome to CBAN’s Year-End Catch-Up! Our Yule Blog is an occasion for us to share some of the important news and analysis that you may have missed this year, with some info or implications that we didn’t have a chance to share. All year long, we monitor a wide range...

Our experience with genetic engineering provides some important lessons about the impacts of focusing on the potential of techno-fixes. If we rely on corporations to develop the solutions to our problems, we will be buying our solutions, if they ever materialize. We can ill afford to wait for the perfect technology to solve our problems. This approach invites dependence and inertia. Winter 2019, British Columbia Organic Grower, The Journal for the Certified Organic Associations of BC (COABC). 

The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network provides you with this special year-end e-news to highlight critical new issues and recap some important stories you may have missed this year. 2018 was a year of mergers and escapes. Illegal rogue genetically modified (GM,...

Canadians are the first in the world to eat a genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) fish, thanks in part to over $8 million in federal government funding behind its development. The government is set to receive 10% royalties from sales relating to the GM...

Contamination from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a problem for some crop types. For example, most organic grain farmers in the Prairies stopped growing canola after GM contamination of seed became widespread, and Canada’s flax industry is still recovering from GM contamination that closed export markets. Contamination is a problem. But rather than take all measures possible to stop it, the federal government has responded by proposing a policy that accepts it as unavoidable. This Low-Level Presence (LLP) policy asserts that GM contamination is not the problem, but rather our unwillingness to accept it. (Spring 2018)

The editorial, “Health Canada is obligated to approve Golden Rice,” (WP, April 5), interprets the department’s decision as a “humanitarian gesture,” but that is an assumption — an incorrect assumption. Additionally, and more importantly, the release of Golden Rice is opposed by a significant number of large farmers’ networks across Asia. (April 2018)

The genetically modified (GM) fish company AquaBounty appears to have hit a major snag of its own making. It started construction of the world’s first GM fish factory at Rollo Bay, PEI but it doesn’t actually have permission to grow the GM fish there. (August 2, 2017)

Orchardists in BC, particularly organic growers, need to know where the GM apple is cultivated. CBAN investigates the status in Canada. (December 2016)