• European consumers demanding GM-free products in the supermarkets are about to be hoisted by their own petards as soybean producers in Brazil attach a significant premium to their own supposedly GM-free crop. Following a court judgment in September, Monsanto (St Louis, MO) must conduct a one-year environmental impact analysis before it can legally sell Roundup Ready soy in Brazil.

• Meanwhile, Brazil's most southern state, Rio Grande do Sul, is trying to stem what appears to be a black market in transgenic seeds flooding in across Brazil's southern border. The primary incentive for using the seed is economic, with farmers reportedly able to save $25–30 per hectare on chemical costs using Roundup Ready varieties. Officials have set up an 800 snitch line, "Dial Transgenics," allowing law abiding nontransgenic farmers to become anonymous informers on their technology-embracing neighbors. The police have been given powers to burn GM crops if they are found. The measures are in support of Brazil's strategic position on soy exports, say officials, which is that the country wants to be able to supply European demand for transgenic-free food.

• Among the latest commercial beneficiaries of the anti-GM mood that has swept through Britain's consumers and supermarkets is the Dundee-based firm, Alchemy Laboratories. The company has produced a device similar to a home pregnancy kit that can detect the Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal protein in soy and maize flour within a few seconds. This means it stands an extremely good chance of detecting the Bt protein in organically produced crops that have been treated with Bt as a bacterial preparation. The £1 ($1.5) device is based on an immunosorbent assay method. However, it is not quantitative and therefore would not be useful in assessing food containing permitted levels of GM components. Nevertheless, Alchemy claims its test is aimed at farmers, supermarkets, and food manufacturers in order to help them monitor the ingredients that they are processing. Inventor of the test and Alchemy's managing director, Richard Lamotte, was recently awarded the Tayside John Logie Baird award for the test, an award named in honor of the Scottish inventor of the mechanical television scanning system (an innovation, incidently, that was rapidly superseded by electronic scanning.)