Secretary Luis Miguel Etchevehere of the Government of Agribusiness of the Nation in Argentinaannounced last  February 6, 2019 that they have authorized a new biotech cotton event. The announcement was made during the meeting of the Table of Competitiveness of the Cotton Chain.

This theme focuses on building a durable framework for enhanced food security that endeavors to provide smallholder rice farmers with reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable food and income. Improvements to agricultural productivity are achieved by identifying and exploiting integrated genetic and crop management solutions that realize synergistic benefits otherwise unattainable by a single strategy.

Heavy rains and cyclones have triggered a recent surge in Desert Locust populations, causing an outbreak to develop in Sudan and Eritrea that is rapidly spreading along both sides of the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, FAO warned today. The UN agency called on all the affected countries to step up vigilance and control measures to contain the destructive infestations and protect crops from the world's most dangerous migratory pest. 

The Netherlands Commission on Genetic Modification (COGEM) was asked to comment on the renewal of the license for import and processing GM maize event, Bt11. Bt11 was approved for import in 1998, which was renewed in 2010 and allowed for a period of 10 years. COGEM released positive comments on both applications.

A study found that young adults' attitudes towards GMO food was influenced by their referent individual, their location, and their gender. Published by PLOS One, the study by Stephen Brosig and Miroslava Bavarova had respondents from the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and Russia. Results showed that there is a positive association between the GM food attitudes of young adults and their referent person, particularly their mothers.

Authored by the Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines, Inc. (CAMP), SEARCA Biotechnology Information Center's (SEARCA BIC) second policy brief highlights the urgent need for a strong political support for biotechnology and biotech crops as well as streamlined biosafety regulations in the Philippines. The CAMP is a non-government organization composed of volunteers from agriculture, agribusiness, industry, academe,

Newly-released brand Ethos Chocolate has a line-up of irresistible chocolates that proudly bears a pro-GMO label. The brand boasts of its new label and aims to promote GMO farming as a sustainable solution to save the cacao tree, which scientists predict will be extinct as early as 2030 due to climate change and plant disease.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Nagoya University strengthened their partnership by signing an agreement to intensify cooperation in rice research and education.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Dr. Seiichi Matsuo, President of Nagoya University, and by Dr. Matthew Morell, Director General of IRRI, outlines the scientific and technical collaboration.

To keep track of the increasingly large amounts of data from studies conducted using new gene editingtools, researchers at the at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) developed the Plant Genome Editing Database (PGED) to be a central repository for efficiently managing plant mutant data, as well as to provide a platform for sharing the data and mutants with the research community.

Virtually the first thing a young population genetics student will learn is that changes in gene frequency can be caused by genetic drift, natural selection, and migration. However, quantifying the relative importance of these mechanisms on changes in a population’s genetic composition is a major challenge in any study system. In PNAS, Chen et al. (1) meet this challenge and describe a framework in which genetic change within a population can be tracked and understood.