70 / SEEDWORLD.COM JANUARY 2018 NATIONAL CDA ANNOUNCES COLORADO’S 2017 CDA-APPROVED CERTIFIED HEMP SEED VARIETIES The Colorado Department of Agriculture is announcing that four industrial hemp seed varieties have passed the statewide THC validation and observation trial and are now eligible to be grown by the Colorado Seed Growers Association for production of “CDA Approved Certified Seed.” This year, the CDA Approved Certified Hemp seed program trialed four varieties of hemp across Colorado’s diverse growing conditions to validate if they would prove to grow mature plants that fall within industrial hemp require- ments set by Amendment 64 in the Colorado constitution. Colorado state law requires that industrial hemp tests at or below 0.3 percent THC concentration on a dry weight basis. All varieties tested were accepted by the Colorado Seed Growers Association’s Variety Review Board and these varieties passed the THC validation trials. SYNGENTA RECEIVES CALIFORNIA REGISTRATION FOR ORONDIS® Syngenta has announced that the California Department of Pesticide Regulation has approved Orondis® Ultra fungicide for use in vegetables and other selected crops. “Orondis Ultra provides a novel mode of action that is new to the industry, giving California growers a founda- tional fungicide with outstanding con- trol of oomycete diseases,” said Bernd Druebbisch, fungicide product lead, Syngenta. INTERNATIONAL INDIA FINES MONSANTO FOR DELAYS IN ANSWERING QUESTIONS India’s anti-trust regulator has fined Monsanto Co 15 million rupees ($233,000) for being too slow in replying REGULATORY ROUNDUP Keeping you informed of legislative and regulatory changes at the state, national and international levels — from lawsuits to approvals to other regulatory issues affecting your business. to questions in a competition probe into the U.S. seeds company. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) last year ordered an investigation into whether Monsanto had abused its dominant posi- tion as a supplier of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds. The CCI, which is yet to complete its investigation, fined Monsanto for delays in filing replies, according to official documents reviewed by Reuters. Monsanto responded to CCI’s queries in August, but only after eight reminders issued between April 2016 and May this year, the watchdog’s November order showed.  CFIUS CLEARS BAYER’S PLANNED TAKEOVER OF MONSANTO Germany’s Bayer said that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) had no national security concerns about the drugmaker’s planned takeover of U.S. seeds group Monsanto, giving its go-ahead. Bayer and Monsanto will con- tinue to cooperate with other authorities to complete the transaction in early 2018, Bayer said in a statement. Three years too short to replace glyphosate, French farmers say President Emmanuel Macron’s promise to rid France of controversial weedkiller glyphosate within three years has left some farm- ers in the European Union’s largest grain producing country on edge. After intense debate, the EU this cleared U.S.- developed glyphosate for another five years despite concerns that the most widely used pesticide in the world can cause cancer. EU rules allow France to unilaterally ban the substance, however, an approach Macron has decided to take. He has given farmers and researchers three years to come up with an alterna- tive. SW