The Plant Variety Protection (PVP) Act, 2014 was enacted by the Parliament of Uganda in 2013, and assented to by President Yoweri Museveni in 2014. The legislation was formulated to recognize and protect breeders' rights over the varieties they develop, and promote appropriate mechanisms for fair and equitable benefit sharing from the use of plant varieties, knowledge, and technologies. However, nearly four years on, the Act is yet to be operationalized.

Intervening early in countries predicted to be hit by natural disasters can prevent threats from becoming humanitarian emergencies, or can mitigate their impacts, according to a new report released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today. For every $1 FAO spent on early livestock interventions in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia in early 2017, as herders braced for another harsh drought, each family saw benefits worth up to $9 due to less animals dying of hunger and disease, and producing up to three times more milk.

IRRI is working together with Vietnam to accelerate the translation of innovations that support sustainable rice value chain upgrading through policy recommendations and high technology options. During the Vietnam Industry 4.0 Summit and Expo 2018, IRRI’s Head of the Agri-food Policy Platform, Dr. Jean Balie,  presented strategies and opportunities for the application of cutting edge technologies that support Vietnam’s vision of developing a smart agriculture sector.
 

The scheduled public consultations for the field trial of GR2E Golden Rice in the Philippines have been completed. The local government units of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija and San Mateo, Isabela have engaged the public in the consultation on July 18 and 19 to allow community members to ask questions about the proposed field trial and submit their comments to DA-BPI.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of Iran has obliged food producers and importers to label all food products, whether they contain ingredients derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This was announced by Gholam Reza Asghari, head of Iran's FDA. Asghari stated that GMO labels must be put to GM products such as soybean oil and corn oil starting July 23, which is the beginning of the current Iranian calendar month of Mordad

Global biotech seeds market is projected by industry experts to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.87% during the period 2018-2022, according to Absolute Report's Global Biotech Seeds Market 2018-2022 report. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global biotech seeds market.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system has been widely used for inducing targeted mutations in a variety of species. In Arabidopsis, CRISPR relies on the edited cells where the Cas9 protein does its activity to obtain heritable and stable mutated lines. Fudan University researchers designed an improved CRISPR-Cas9 system, named MSC (meiocyte-specific CRISPR-Cas9) system. In this system, the Cas9 expression is driven by an experimentally approved meiocyte-specific promoter.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO Panel) has published the Scientific Opinion on the safety of genetically modified (GM) herbicide‐tolerant and insect‐resistant maize Bt11 × MIR162 × 1507 × GA21 (referred to hereafter as ‘four‐event stack maize') and its subcombinations independently of their origin (referred to hereafter as ‘subcombinations').

Science and economics merged during The Economics of Biotech Crops: A Symposium to Promote Economic and Financial Literacy symposium held on July 17, 2018 at the SEARCA Umali Auditorium, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. The half-day event was a joint collaboration of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture through its Biotechnology Information Center (SEARCA BIC)

The Cornell Alliance for Science calls for supportive written comments and testimony for the field trial of Golden Rice in the Philippines. The public consultations are scheduled on July 18 and 19 in Nueva Ecija and Isabela provinces, respectively. Golden Rice is a beta-carotene enriched rice developed through genetic engineering to address vitamin A deficiency, a serious health problem faced by millions of children and pregnant women all over the world.