Ag Biotech News - on Twitter

Twitter sometimes gets panned for those who tweet about what they had for breakfast and other aspects of personal life that are best left unpublished to the world. The other side of twitter is the ability of people with shared interests to communicate news and ideas efficiently. This morning provided me with an example of this very valuable use of Twitter.

I follow both Dean Jim Chen and Professor Katharine Van Tassel on Twitter and appreciate their timely links to interesting news and commentary on agricultural and food law issues. Dean Chen tweeted "Non-GMO" labeling will challenge the FDA even as it seeks to buoy the market for natural and organic foods. http://bit.ly/4nqLQm. Similarly, Professor Van Tassel tweeted, "New Non-GMO seal, a butterfly perched on two blades of grass in the form of a check mark, will debut this fall. http://bit.ly/kpBO4"

Both link to a NY Times article, ‘Non-GMO’ Seal Identifies Foods Mostly Biotech-Free about a new industry group, the Non-GMO Project that is establishing a testing program and a label for products that comply with a standard of less than o.9% GMO products, a European threshold for labeling.

Professor Van Tassel tweeted on another article that I might have missed, New study: heat can produce a potentially toxic substance in high-fructose corn syrup that may kill honeybees.http://bit.ly/oWKEX. The link is to a Science Daily article that describes a new study with food safely and colony collapse disorder implications.


I admit that I still have trouble on Twitter wading through some of the personal tweets and deciding who to follow and what to post. Nevertheless, it serves to link me to my colleagues in a new way and to provide me with their insights in a very efficient manner.

Those interested in following Dean Chen's twitter account, J.C. Redbird can find it at chenx064. Professor Van Tassel's tweets can be followed at KVTPhoenix. Both blog on our sister blog in the Jurisdynamics network at BioLaw. And, by the way, there is the aglawllm twitter account for you to consider as well.