GM tomatoes have been discovered in the produce sections of many stores owned by Loblaws in Ontario and Nova Scotia (Atlantic Superstore, The Real Canadian Superstore).

These tomatoes are not labelled as genetically engineered but carry the US mandatory logo for “bioengineered” food. The tomatoes are in a clear plastic box branded “Empress” from the Canadian company Red Sun Farms.

We need your immediate response.

Take Action Today

Tell Loblaws to remove GM tomatoes from the produce section.

If the company wants to sell genetically modified fruits and vegetables it should make a special section that is clearly labelled for customers.

• Write to the head office of Loblaws:Here is some possible wording: I am writing to ask Loblaws to stop selling genetically modified purple tomatoes from Red Sun Farms. Please commit to selling only non-GMO produce.
• Check your local store and report sightings to CBAN. Send us the location and your photos of the GM tomatoes, the price, and the outside of the store. Email Fionna at outreach@cban.ca
• Tell the produce manager you don’t want GM tomatoes in the store and ask them to tell the head office that a customer has complained.

This widespread, hidden GM product launch by Loblaw Companies is a serious threat to our food system. Companies are testing consumer tolerance for genetically modified (genetically engineered) produce. People across Canada need to let Loblaw know that GM fruits and vegetables are not acceptable in our produce sections.

Background

The genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) is the first GM tomato since Monsanto removed its Flavr Savr tomato from the market in 1997. It is also 
the first GM tomato approved for growing in Canada and the first GM seed available to home gardeners.

The GM purple tomato was genetically engineered by inserting two genes from snapdragon flowers, to increase the plant’s anthocyanin production which also gives the tomato its purple skin and flesh. Anthocyanins are a type of flavonoid that has antioxidant properties, and that give blueberries and eggplants their vibrant colours. There are already many non-GM purple tomato varieties on the market, that have been bred using conventional breeding methods to contain higher levels of anthocyanins.

Now, there are four genetically modified fruits and vegetables currently on the market in Canada, with a very marginal presence in grocery stores: GM purple tomatoes, GM sweet corn, GM papaya, and GM pink pineapple. Until now, genetic engineering in our diets has been dominated by processed food ingredients from GM corn, GM canola, GM soy and GM sugar beet, but this is set to change.

Until the GM purple tomatoes, the only genetically engineered vegetable grown in Canada has been GM sweet corn, with seeds sold only in quantities for large-scale growers.

For more information see our report , Updated December 2025.

Take action at

The post Urgent Action Alert: Loblaws is selling GM tomatoes appeared first on CSNN National Page.

The groups pointed out critical contradictions in recent government policy statements on genetic engineering and transparency.

When Health Canada announced its approval of a genetically engineered pig on January 23, 2026, it stated, “The company and Health Canada are committed to the highest level of transparency and will communicate to the public when this new technology enters the Canadian market.”

However, mandatory labelling is the highest level of transparency. Health Canada’s new pledge to inform the public when a genetically engineered pig enters our food system does not provide Canadians with product information to make informed choices in grocery stores. Instead, it would ask Canadians to start guessing.

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Your recent actions are having important impacts and are helping us to increase the pressure for mandatory labelling. Continue reading below for updates.
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Take action

Demand mandatory labelling. Send your quick letter to the Minister of Health from

Tell your Member of Parliament what you think about unlabelled genetically engineered foods. Your personal letter to your Member of Parliament is influential.

There are no currently produced or sold in Canada.

See more information at

Updates: Why now is the time to demand mandatory labelling

Many Members of Parliament are paying attention to the current public demand for labelling food from genetically engineered and cloned animals in particular, and there are many new developments that help make a strong argument for mandatory labelling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

At the end of last year, many of you signed our House of Commons e-petition 6768. On January 26, 2026, that included,

“While genetically engineered foods are considered as safe and nutritious as conventional foods, our government recognizes that information about genetic engineering is important. That is why we have been working with the Canadian General Standards Board since November on a public review of the National Standard for labelling and advertising of foods that are, and are not, products of genetic engineering. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency uses this Standard to provide its guidance to companies on the labelling of foods.”

While recognizing that information on genetic engineering “is important”, this Government refers to the voluntary labelling standard housed under the Canadian General Standards Board which is it is closing on April 1st, 2026.

After twenty years of experience with this existing standard, it is clear that companies are not volunteering to label their genetically engineered products. To our knowledge, no company has ever voluntarily labelled their food as genetically engineered.Ěý

In January, many of you wrote during the public comment period on this labelling standard to help make sure that the standard would not be changed to allow gene-edited GMOs to be labelled as non-GMO. The process to finalize the reviewed standard is not yet complete and there is only one month left before the Canadian General Standards Board is dismantled.

Thank you for your continued action.

The post Health Canada’s “highest level of transparency” appeared first on CSNN National Page.

We sent a letter to every new Member of Parliament, asking them to ensure safety and transparency. Ěý

Canada has removed government safety assessments for genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) seeds and foods if the GM plants have no foreign DNA. These regulatory exemptions will apply to most (but not all) GMOs created with the new genetic engineering techniques of gene editing. This means that many GMOs can now enter the market without being assessed for safety by government regulators and without any notification to the government or public.

There are no gene edited foods on the market yet in Canada. CBAN assisted the research of produced by the European Non-GMO Industry Association which finds only three gene-edited foods on the market globally: two GM transgenic corn and one GM tomato in Japan.

before a wave of unregulated, unidentified gene-edited foods and seeds enter our food system and environment.

Background

Because of recent government decisions, there is no pre-market regulation for most gene-edited seeds as well as the foods derived from these genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) plants. This means that some of these new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can enter the market without being assessed for safety by government regulators. Instead, companies can assess the food and environmental safety of their own gene-edited GMOs without government oversight, and without providing any notification to the government or public about market release. This regulatory exclusion of many gene-edited products enhances safety concerns and comes at the expense of transparency for Canadian farmers and consumers.

In 2022 and 2023, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) updated regulatory guidance on genetically engineered foods and seeds. The new guidance exempts plants from regulation if they have no foreign DNA. This exemption will apply to most but not all, GMOs created with the new genetic engineering techniques of genome editing, also called gene editing.

The federal government has handed safety assessments for these plants and foods over to product developers, with no government oversight.

The federal government is also not requiring companies to notify the government when these unregulated gene-edited foods and seeds are released onto the market.

Gene editing (genome editing) can result in a range of possible unintended effects. These unintended effects need to be detected and evaluated for their potential impacts on food and environmental safety. Narrowly focusing on the presence of foreign DNA as a trigger for government safety assessments is simplistic and overlooks many possible safety issues that could result from unexpected effects caused by the process of genome editing.

The regulatory exemptions are not science-based but, instead, assume the safety of GMOs that have no foreign DNA, including those produced by future genome editing processes that have yet to be developed.

For information on the regulatory exemptions see

For more information on gene editing see

The post Take action: New Parliament needs to reinstate GMO regulation appeared first on CSNN National Page.

US approves GM pig

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved a gene-edited pig for human consumption. The company’s Chief Operating Officer, Matt Culbertson, says that the GM pig could be on the market as soon as next year. However, it will likely be a few years before it is introduced, if at all. If the GM pigs are produced, the meat will not require labelling the US or Canada.

This GM pig was developed by the UK-based “Pig Improvement Company” or PIC which is owned by Genus, one of the biggest animal genetics companies in the world. The company says it is also seeking approval in Canada and in other US export markets such as Mexico, China and Japan.

The company has genetically engineered the pigs using the gene editing technique of CRISPR to make the pigs resistant to the common virus PRRS (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome). CRISPR was used to ‘knock out’/delete a section of DNA that produces a protein that the PRRS virus uses to enter and infect the pig: the CD163 receptor on pig cells. Read more below about how CRISPR-Cas can be used to delete genes.

The company claims that the GM pigs are resistant to most, but not all, strains of the PRRS virus circulating today. This means that infections in the genetically engineered pigs may continue. This RNA virus undergoes rapid and constant genetic change such that the success of current vaccines to

PRRS and other diseases thrive in the crowded conditions of large intensive livestock operations. Much like the development of the “”, many gene edited animals will be developed as attempted techno-fixes for problems caused by factory farms.

Other GM pigs

In 2020, the called the, for use in both medicine and food. Those pigs were genetically engineered to eliminate the sugar alpha-gal which makes pig organs unsuitable for transplantation into humans and can cause allergic reactions in some people. The company, Revivcor. does not sell the pigs as food but reportedly provides GM pig meat on request.

More patents on GM animals

Every year, the number of international patent applications for genetically engineered vertebrates intended for food is increasing. From 2020 to 2024, patent offices reviewed around 50 patent applications, and the European Patent Office granted at least three patents.

Most of these international patent applications were for genetically engineered fish (12) and poultry, pigs and ruminants (9 each). The objectives were to make changes in the reproductive capacity of the animals (14), the further development of gene editing processes and suitable stem cells (12), increased production (7) and resistance to pathogens (6).

The patent applications include:

• Fish – for sterility, faster growth, and fewer bones;
• Cattle, pigs and poultry – for sterility, sex determination, higher performance, and resistance to viruses;
• Elephants – for an appearance modelled on that of mammoths using Artificial Intelligence and gene editing.

In 2023, the Universities of Edinburgh, Maryland and Washington were granted a patent for pigs and cattle that do not produce their own sperm cells and instead are intended to inherit traits from other animals. For this purpose, corresponding germline cells can be transplanted into the animals.

Read more in the new report from Testbiotech (Germany), .

“Knocking out” genes

Gene editing offers powerful new tools for genetically engineering animals.

With CRISPR-Cas, gene scissors (nucleases) can be used to ‘knock out’ genes. To do this, the nuclease (Cas) causes a break in the DNA strand and then leaves it to the organism’s own cellular repair mechanisms to repair the damage. However, the nuclease can be used to prevent the repair processes from restoring the original gene function: genetic scissors that are ‘programmed’ to ‘cut’ a specific DNA sequence can also recognise the sequence and cut it again after successful repair, so that the repair becomes faulty and the original gene function is lost.

A DNA double-strand break (DSB) is a serious form of DNA damage in which both strands of the DNA double helix are severed. Cells have their own special internal repair mechanisms to repair DSBs. If only one strand of the DNA double helix is affected, the other (complementary) strand serves as a template for the repair. This is not the case with DSBs, which is why their repair is much more difficult. One possible consequence of DSBs is faulty repair, resulting in a new gene variant (mutation) at the target site in the genome. Depending on the location and result of the change, the biological effect – intentional or unintentional – can have very different consequences.

Read more in the new report from Testbiotech (Germany),

Read more in or see our webpage

The post GM pig approved in US, not yet on the market appeared first on CSNN National Page.

You may have seen the recent news that a US biotechnology company has brought an extinct wolf species back to life. This is not true. In reality, the company has genetically engineered a living wolf to resemble some characteristics of an extinct wolf species.

The company’s announcement is important because it is one of many proposals to use genetic engineering for nature “conservation.”

GMO wolves

In April, the US biotechnology company Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences announced it had used genetic engineering to achieve “de-extinction” of the dire wolf. The company claims it has “successfully restored a once-eradicated species” and says, “our team is proud to return the dire wolf to its rightful place in the ecosystem.” The dire wolf went extinct over 10,000 years ago.

In reality, these animals are genetically engineered gray wolves. The company used genome editing to make 20 “edits” to 14 genes in gray wolves to replicate some known genetic characteristics of dire wolves (a dire wolf’s genome is 2.5 million DNA base pairs, encoding about 19,000 genes). The company says the three living genetically engineered wolves are in a 2,000-acre secret location in the US, surrounded by a 10-foot fence.
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“We’re going to call them de-extinct dire wolves. You can call them proxy dire wolves or Colossal dire wolves. Or, you can call them gray wolves with 20 edits that recreate functional dire wolves in the ecosystems of today.” —

Global backlash in scientific and conservation circles triggered the company’s chief scientist, Dr. Beth Shapiro, to backtrack from the hype and defend “de-extinction science” : “Some of you are real mad about this…what exactly defines a species…The goal of this project is about restoring ecological functions and enhancing biodiversity…” Antionio Regaldo, Biomedicine Editor at MIT Technology Review, said, “This is the first Internet fauxpology for biotechnology I have ever seen.”

Colossal says it is also working to revive the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger and says, “We are elevating expectations for de-extinction by rebuilding species to be stronger and more resilient than their predecessors.”

• “” by Timothy Hearn, The Conversation, April 8, 2025

GMOs for conservation?

A moratorium on genetically engineering wild species in natural ecosystems will be .

“Synthetic biology and conservation are grounded in very different worldviews. Conservation at its best is rooted in protection – in safeguarding complexity, respecting ecological limits, in systemic thinking and proceeding with caution. Genetic technologies are rooted in control – in reprogramming life, optimizing ecosystems often in line with human imaginaries and for human ends, and views nature as flawed and problems as isolated from the whole system of ecological, social, ethical and economic interactions” –

• Read more analysis in the report from the German government’s conservation agency: , 2022
• Watch the recent webinar

See our new page

The post GMO wolves hyped as “de-extinction” appeared first on CSNN National Page.

CBAN has published a guide to asking your federal election candidates these important questions. Ask at the door or at all-candidate debates.

Why your action is needed

In 2022/2023, the federal government removed pre-market regulation for many new genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) plants and foods. These changes were designed by made up of representatives from the biotechnology and pesticide industry lobby group CropLife with other industry lobby groups and government officials.

Now, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will not assess the safety of most new gene-edited GM plants. Instead, companies will determine the safety of their own products, with no government oversight. These unregulated GMOs can be put on the market without notifying the government. Specifically, GM plants that have no foreign DNA – many of which would be produced through the new genetic engineering techniques of genome editing, also called gene editing – are . Companies can now sell unregulated, unreported, gene-edited foods and seeds.

Demand government safety assessments

• I want government safety assessments for all genetically modified foods, including those produced through the new genetic engineering techniques of gene editing.
• I don’t trust companies to regulate their own products. I don’t accept corporate safety assurances. I don’t trust unseen corporate safety assessments and corporate science.
• I want Health Canada and the CFIA to be independent regulators to ensure food and environmental safety. I want independent science.

Demand mandatory transparency

• I want mandatory labelling of all genetically modified foods.
• I want mandatory reporting. I want the government to require companies to report all their GMOs, instead of asking them to voluntarily report new gene-edited GMOs.
• I want real transparency in the food system, not what Health Canada calls “”.

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You can also organize an all-candidates debate about food issues. Join the Eat Think Vote campaign and

For more information visit

The post Election 2025: Ask your candidates for GMO safety regulation appeared first on CSNN National Page.

Mexico bans GM corn cultivation

The Federal Government of Mexico has enshrined a ban on genetically modified (GM) corn in its constitution.Ěý

“Corn is Mexico. We have to protect it for biodiversity but also culturally, because corn is what intrinsically links us to our origins, to the resistance of Indigenous peoples.” –

The constitutional reform, approved 97-16 in the Mexican Senate, declares native corn (maize) an element of national identity and bans the planting of genetically modified corn seeds. The ban follows a on the use of GM corn for food.

There has been a moratorium on planting GM corn in Mexico since 1998. This moratorium was lifted in 2009 but then reinstated in 2013 after a court challenge. In 2021, the Supreme Court rejected appeals from Bayer and the other biotechnology companies because of the credible threat that GM contamination poses to native corn biodiversity in Mexico.

Kenyan court temporarily reinstates ban on GMOs

The Court of Appeal in Kenya has blocked the growing and importing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), temporarily reinstating a ban that was established in 2012 but then lifted in 2022. The court injunction was sought by the Kenya Peasants League, Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya and 18 other parties, .

“We celebrate this ruling as a major victory for small-scale farmers across Kenya. GMOs are not the solution to food insecurity in our country. Instead, they deepen dependency on multinational agribusinesses, threaten biodiversity, and compromise farmers’ ability to control their food systems.” – David Otieno, Kenya Peasants League.

Corn (maize) is Kenya’s staple food, grown in 90% of all farms. It is used to prepare ugali, or maize meal, which is the country’s most eaten dish. Farming is the backbone of Kenya’s economy, employing 80% of the rural population.

The in the US, formerly the Cornell Alliance for Science, has been training journalists in Africa to report on the benefits of GMOs and is actively pushing GMOs in Kenya and other countries across Africa.
“We urge the government to invest in smallholder farmers, indigenous seed systems, and agroecological farming practices rather than pushing harmful technologies that serve corporate interests.” – Million Belay, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa.
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The post GMO Bans: Mexico & Kenya appeared first on CSNN National Page.

In the joint statement, groups are rejecting this closed-door event of screened participants, arguing that the meeting is geared towards those who stand to gain from biotechnology.

The outcome of the original Asilomar conference was a conclusion that scientists should guide the future of biotechnology. The conference 50 years ago was, largely, a meeting of molecular biologists, sparked by the possibility that their dangerous genetic research would trigger a demand for government regulation. The meeting was invitation-only and held behind closed doors, and it deliberately excluded broader ethical discussions and public participation. The conference reinforced the idea that scientists should be the primary arbiters of their own research boundaries and concluded that they could oversee their own research. The legacy of Asilomar is a dangerous system of self-regulation..

Today’s statement of protest calls for true democratic control over biotechnology: “We are at a point in human history when technological developments, including genetic engineering, bioweapons, virological research, synthetic biology and other technologies, carry existential threats to health, the environment, the economy and human society. Questions about how to regulate, restrict, or prohibit, these technologies to reduce risk require broad-based, open, transparent and honest debate involving all sectors of society.”

The statement warns that “enormous harms can derive from biotechnology and these can arise by many routes, both directly and indirectly and from commercial products or laboratory experiments equally” and that, “irrespective of a technology’s specifics, whoever controls it inevitably determines whether good or ill ultimately results.”

The statement also says that, “biotechnologists have shown, for example through hostility to the precautionary principle, cultural unwillingness to study or learn from past mistakes

While the groups stress the need for public regulation of biotechnology, they argue that current regulation and regulatory culture is woefully inadequate to the task: “regulation of biotechnology should ultimately be by governments acting in the best interests of society as a whole and using the precautionary principle; but this requires the regulator to have: the necessary political authority, financial independence and clearly defined responsibilities. Regulators who become cheerleaders for a technology, as commonly happens, have lost their way.” for most gene-edited plants and foods provide a dangerous example that needs to be reversed.

Our statement ends with the warning that, if society does not regulate biotechnology, biotechnology is regulating society.

Let us celebrate this 50th anniversary of Asilomar by relegating it to the past where it belongs and embracing the hard task of democratic renewal that lies before us.” – Prof Ben Hurlbut from the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and co-director of the Global Observatory on Genome Editing. Read more in his article in Science magazine,

The post Dire consequences of secretive biotech regulation: Response to Asilomar appeared first on CSNN National Page.

The campaign is off to a great start. Thank you to everyone who is bringing to their local Seedy Saturday events. Please contact Fionna at outreach@cban.ca to get flyers to distribute.

Join us to protect our produce and protect our seeds from genetic engineering.

See below for more actions you can take today, event notices and more information about the new campaign.

Upcoming Events

Film Screening & Fundraising Event. Sudbury, Ontario. February 5, 2025. Join CBAN and The Foodshed Project for a featuring the award-winning documentary Modified: A food lover’s journey into GMOs by Canadian filmmaker Aube Giroux.

Find CBAN at these upcoming Seedy events in Ontario. Come out and meet Fionna:

• : 10am-3pm, College Boreal, Sudbury, ON.
• : Saturday and Sunday, March 8 and 9, 9am-2pm, Evergreen Brick Works 550 Bayview Ave, Toronto, ON.
• : Saturday March 22, 2025 10am-3pm, 55 Wyndham Street North Guelph, ON.

Take Action

Take action in the new campaign to stop GM mustard greens and other GM fruits and vegetables:

• If you are a Seedy Saturday/Sunday volunteer: We have designed a . Pease share this flyer at your event and help stop this dangerous threat to seed sovereignty. Do you have space at your event where our flyer could be made available? Is there someone from your event-planning team who might be willing to be a main contact with CBAN in the lead up to the event (i.e. someone we can share the flyer with?) If so, please email Fionna at outreach@cban.ca.
• If you are a local seed company or seed producer: Are you attending any events (farmers’ markets, Seedy Saturday/Sunday events, etc.) this winter or spring where you can share ? If so, please email Fionna at outreach@cban.ca.
• If you are a market gardener, home gardener or greens producer: Make sure you are buying non-GM seeds. Buy non-GM Brassica juncea seeds and lettuce seeds/salad mixes. Now is the time to write to your seed company and ask them not to sell GMO salad greens.
• If you are a consumer who does not grow any vegetables: Write to the head office of your grocery store to ask them not to sell any GM salad greens or other GM vegetables.
• Everyone:

More information and updates are posted at our campaign webpage

GM Non-Mustardy Mustard Greens

These genetically modified leafy greens are the first gene-edited vegetable in North America (produced using CRISPR), and only the second genetically modified vegetable grown in Canada (after GM sweet corn). (For a list of all GM foods on the market see .)

Bayer told CBAN that two of the GM greens (Brassica juncea) varieties were in grower trials in the US in 2024 and that growers could start sending produce to US grocery stores soon. Bayer says that these GM greens could reach the Canadian market through these growers, or from Canadian growers, “in the near future”. They will likely be sold in packaged, ready-to-eat salad mixes and may be marketed as more nutritious than lettuce: The spicy mustard flavour was removed from the greens so they could be advertised as “leafy greens that don’t bite back! (a mustard green that eats like a lettuce).” These GM greens could be on the market as “mixed leaves, bunched, baby and teen leaf.” They will likely be grown and sold by a few large greens producers in the US and Canada. It is unlikely that companies will voluntarily label them as genetically engineered.

Bayer also says it is seeking a major home garden supplier to sell GM seeds to home gardeners and market gardeners. Targeting small growers with these GM seeds puts non-GMO plants at risk of contamination, threatening the tradition of seed-saving and the preservation of heritage seeds. GM contamination also threatens organic farmers’ livelihoods because organics prohibits the use of GMOs.

By introducing unlabelled, unregulated gene-edited vegetables intro grocery store produce sections and by selling the GM seeds to small gardeners, Bayer is testing the market to expand into other gene-edited fruits and vegetables.

More information and updates are posted at our new campaign webpage

Donate today to support our work. .

The post Join Seedy Events & Actions: No GMO Salad appeared first on CSNN National Page.

The panel has ruled that Mexico must lift restrictions on the use of GM corn in food but states,“The Panel accepts that Mexico is seeking to address genuine concerns in good faith”. The Mexican government says it will comply with the decision but maintains that its restrictions are in line with the principles of public health and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

“This decision offends International Human Rights law and the natural law of our communities, which understand seeds and plants as living beings, not commodities. Corn is our ancestor, mother, and life-giver, and we have tended to her for millennia—this is a serious threat to our people’s spiritual and physical health.” – Celeste Smith, Founder/Director of Cultural Seeds & Ga Gitigemi Gamik, North America Focal Point of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism at the Committee on World Food Security, and Co-Chair of the National Farmers Union International Program Committee.

Commitment and Call to Action

The Mexican campaign Sin MaĂ­z No Hay PaĂ­s (No Corn, No Country) has issued a press statement that includes their analysis of the decision and asks you to share their statement.

This is their commitment and call to action:

“The national ‘No Corn, No Country’ campaign reaffirms its commitment to continue the struggle against GM corn and in favor of food sovereignty, biodiversity and the defense of native corn. We urgently call on civil society organizations, collectives and the more than 100,000 people who have expressed their support for Mexico’s sovereign decision to protect its native corn and food, to disseminate this statement.

It is essential that we continue to demand that the Mexican government maintain its firm stance against GM maize in the face of transnational interests. We invite society in general to share this statement and to continue to raise our voices in defense of our sovereignty, our health and biocultural heritage.”

Read more information and responses at

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