Posted August 27, 2013
Over 150 farm and food businesses and organizations
signed a letter calling for USDA to improve its oversight of field trials
involving experimental genetically modified crops (GM), according to a Reuters
article, available here. The letter is a response to instability in
international markets after unapproved GM wheat was found growing in Oregon
this spring.
The letter, available here,
says that “USDA must fix its rubber-stamp approach to GE crops.” The groups also suggested that USDA take
action on several items including: ensuring a rigorous and transparent
investigation of how the GE wheat event occurred; implementing a moratorium on
GE wheat trials; establishing mandatory contamination prevention requirements;
disclosing locations of GE crop field trials to nearby farms; and evaluating
the market risks of new GE crops.
According to a press
release from the Organic Seed Alliance, the group recently met
with Secretary Vilsack asking “for a halt on GE wheat field trials.” Todd Leake, a conventional wheat grower from
North Dakota, said, “It’s extremely important that the USDA moves to protect
the conventional wheat industry from the threat of contamination.” Leake continued, GE wheat field trials “are
underway in North Dakota” and “export markets have zero tolerance for GE traits
in our wheat products.”
Japan recently lifted a two-month ban on U.S.
western-white wheat which was imposed after the discovery on the Oregon Farm,
according to a Bloomberg
article. Takaki
Shigemoto, an analyst at JSC Corp. in Tokyo said that a resumption of Japanese
purchases “may support wheat futures in Chicago, which have lost 15 percent
this year on prospects for abundant global production.” Japan depends on imports for almost 90
percent of its wheat.
Monsanto said it stopped tests with the experimental
wheat in 2004 or 2005 and does not know how the GM wheat came to be growing in
Oregon this year. USDA has said the
incident was isolated and there is no sign of contamination in the commercial
supply. A study by Washington State
University has found “no additional sign” of the GM wheat discovered in Oregon,
according to an AgriNews article, available here. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service also “found no other instances of the herbicide resistant crops beyond
that one Oregon farm.”
