Genetically
Modified Wheat Isn't Supposed to Exist. So What Is It Doing in
Oregon?
30
May, 2013
Wheat
farmers, advocates of food safety, and pretty much anyone who eats
bread or noodles have turned their attention to Oregon, where a wheat
farmer found a genetically engineered strain of wheat in his
otherwise unmodified crop. He couldn’t kill it in any of the normal
ways, so he sent it to the lab for testing, which sounds like the
set-up for a farm-belt horror movie. The reality has caused alarm of
a different sort: Genetically modified wheat hasn’t been approved
by the Food and Drug Administration, and unlike corn and soy and
other so-called GMO foods, there isn’t supposed to be any
genetically modified wheat in the U.S. food supply at all.
There
are two reasons to care. Food safety folks lobby hard for labeling of
genetically modified foods, saying that the jury is out on the
long-term health and environmental effects and consumers deserve to
know what they’re buying. The companies that make the seeds say
they’re perfectly safe. And for wheat farmers and exporters, this
potentially cripples the export market: Many foreign buyers don’t
want genetically modified wheat and can switch their buying to
Russia, Ukraine, Australia, and other large exporters. Japan reacted
quickly, canceling an order today for nearly 25,000 tons of wheat,
Bloomberg News reported, and wheat futures dropped on the Chicago
Board of Trade.
The
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which is
responsible for keeping unapproved GMOs out of the food supply, has
begun testing the wheat. In a full-court PR press, the agency has
also released a Q&A (PDF) and video to address the issue. Here
are a few points to consider:
It’s
probably too late to do much about this.
The
U.S. has some 1,000 field trials for new gene-altered crops each
year, most in multiple sites. The protocols for containing those
genes are lax, argue such critics as the Center for Food Safety,
which wants a moratorium on field testing of gene-altered crops. ”I
would not be at all surprised if there are a number of experimental
genes that have contaminated and are happily being passed along at
low levels in the food supplies of various crops already, but
nobody’s testing,” says Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist
with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. “It’s
really a ‘don’t look, don’t tell’ situation. We just really
don’t know.”
After
all, this isn’t the first time.
In
2000, a strain of corn called StarLink, engineered by Aventis (SNY)
to kill caterpillars, was found in taco shells. In 2006, Bayer’s
(BAYN) LibertyLink experimental rice made its way into the food
supply, leading to lost exports. In 2012, the German company agreed
to pay $750 million to settle claims from 11,000 U.S. farmers in five
states. Restoring genetic purity to a crop is a very expensive
process and takes time.
Is
there a public safety issue?
That’s
a matter of debate. Regulators were quick to jump on the Oregon
discovery with a battery of tests and extensive investigations that
are under way now. Monsanto (MON) designed the Roundup Ready wheat to
withstand its Roundup herbicide used to keep fields free of pests,
and the gene isn’t considered harmful. “The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) confirmed the food and feed safety of Roundup
Ready wheat more than a decade ago,” Monsanto said in a May 29
statement.
Critics
of gene-altered food argue that the periodic crop discoveries
highlight a regulatory system that is woefully inadequate to monitor
the expansion of modified crops and to detect any dangerous genes
that could materialize. “The question is why APHIS does not tighten
its procedures for field trials. It’s incredibly lax, whatever
APHIS may try to say,” says Bill Freese, a science policy analyst
with the Center for Food Safety.
Hungary
destroys crops from Monsanto's GM seeds
27
May, 2013
This
week about 500 acres of corn crops were burned
Redebrasilatual.com,
24 May 2013
[Slightly
edited Google translation of Portuguese original]
Hungary
decided to eliminate all plantations using GMO seeds from Monsanto.
According to the Minister of Rural Development Lajos Bognar, around
500 hectares of corn crops were burned this week - equivalent to five
million square meters. The intention is that the country has no
produce originating from genetically modified material.
According
to the information portal Real Pharmacy yesterday (23 May), the
cornfields that were destroyed were scattered around the Hungarian
territory and had been recently planted. Thus, poisonous corn pollen
was not about to be dispersed in the air, and so there was no danger
to the population.
The
Hungarians were the first to take a forceful position in the European
Union in relation to the use of transgenic seeds. During recent
years, the government of Hungary has destroyed several plantations of
crops derived from Monsanto seed. Minister Bognar says the country's
producers are required to ensure they do not use genetically modified
seeds.
The
European Union has a policy of free movement of products within the
countries of the bloc. Thus Hungarian authorities cannot investigate
how the seeds reach their territory. However, said Lajos Bognar,
"That does not prevent us from investigating in depth the use of
these seeds in our territory."
According
to the Hungarian press, the country still has thousands of similarly
affected acres. Also according to the [news] portal Portugal Mundial,
farmers defended themselves against the charge of using genetically
modified material. They claim they did not know that the seeds were
Monsanto's.
As
the fertile period for plantations is already half over, it's too
late to plant new seeds. Thus, this year's harvest was completely
lost. And to make matters worse for farmers, the company that
distributed the GM seeds went bankrupt - which prevents them from
receiving compensation.
NOTE:
This is not the first time Hungary has destroyed crops containing GM
genes. In 2011 Hungary destroyed 1,000 acres of GM-contaminated corn.
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