Monsanto tested Roundup-resistant GMO wheat in Oregon and fifteen other states from 1998-2005 but never released it as a product. An Oregon farmer found some unusual wheat growing in a field, sprayed it with Roundup, but that didn’t kill it. He sent a sample to Oregon State University who determined it did indeed have the Round-up resistant gene.
This wheat should no be in the wild. It was never approved and in fact, no country anywhere permits GMO wheat.
The best case scenario is that rogue seeds were carried by wind from former test fields and by some inexplicable natural phenomena happened to land and grow just in this one field. A worse case scenario is that seeds have been carried intermittently over the years and wheat fields have been contaminated with small amounts of GM wheat undetected for up to a decade. Then there’s the worst case scenario, for Monsanto, certainly; GM seeds routinely mixed up with conventional seeds through human error.
Japan suspends wheat imports From Pacific Northwest.Oregon produces $500 million of wheat a year. Almost all of it is exported. The EU is recommending its 27 member states test some wheat shipments. They import 1.1 million tons of wheat a year from the US and have “zero tolerance” for GMO crops.
“The Commission is following carefully the presence of this non-authorized GM wheat in Oregon in order to ensure that European consumers are protected from any unauthorized GM presence and make sure that the EU zero tolerance for such GM events is implemented,” EU’s consumer protection office said.
No word yet from the cheerfully compromised poodles who mostly make up our federal regulatory agencies at the top levels as to whether the wheat will simply be stockpiled for internal consumption, on how they will kill this frankenwheat or how many states it is in, or if Monsanto will be held responsible.
My friend and oraginic farmer, Symbria Patterson, notes that if you spray paint designs on cars, no matter how beautiful and copyrighted they may be, if your overspray damages another car, you pay for the damage. Not so with GMOs – in some cases, Monsanto has actually sued the farmer whose crop was damaged by their overspray for “stealing” Monsanto’s technology.
Already one farmer has planted Roundup Ready alfalfa in our county. His fields are south of ours. With the prevailing wind out of the south, I can no longer be sure that our own grower, who doesn’t spray his fields and has no need of GMOs, hasn’t been cross-pollinated with the GMO alfalfa a few miles upwind. That means there is potential GMO contamination to our livestock, and their eggs and meat.
The damage from overspray is unpublicized but widespread. Organic seed is certified organic because it comes from certified organic farms. Yet a USDA inspector recently told a friend of mine that he believes that if organic corn seed (to name one example) was actually tested for GMOs, it would test positive. In other words, overspray of GMOs may actually be eliminating the possibility of growing organic crops. That, I suppose, suits Monsanto, whose customer base is larger agribusinesses not organic farms