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GMO Wheat Found Growing Wild In Oregon, Japan Suspends Import From U.S.

Posted by Soulskill on from the tired-of-putting-up-with-our-crop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NPR reports that an Oregon wheat farmer found a patch of wheat growing where he did not plant. After RoundUp failed to kill the plants, he sent them to a lab for testing. Turns out the wheat in question is a GMO strain created by Monsanto but never sent to market. Oregon field trials for the wheat ended in 2001. 'Nobody knows how this wheat got to this farm. ... After all such trials, the genetically engineered crops are supposed to be completely removed. Also, nobody knows how widely this genetically engineered wheat has spread, and whether it's been in fields of wheat that were harvested for food.' The USDA is currently investigating and says there is no health-risk. Meanwhile, Monsanto has released a statement and Japan has suspended some wheat imports from the U.S. 'The mystery could have implications on wheat trade. Many countries around the world will not accept imports of genetically modified foods, and the United States exports about half of its wheat crop.'"

11 of 679 comments (clear)

  1. Postapocoliptic Nightmare by localman57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Create Genetic Engineered Crops
    2. Crops perform better than natural crops, crowding them out both in the marketplace, and in the wild.
    3. Profit!
    4. Engineered crops later found not suitable for human consumption
    5. Famine.

    1. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now their wheat is growing in the wild. Is Monsanto going to sue the County it is growing in too, or just the farmer on whose land it is found?

      In this case, it's genuine contamination since it's a version they never released. So Monsanto did a field test, after which they were supposed to destroy all of the plants. Now a bunch of years they find that version out in the wild. I'm pretty sure in this case Monsanto couldn't sue.

      If this doesn't point to the fact that this stuff is going to contaminate everything, I don't know what will. I'm of the opinion that unless you grow this stuff under a friggin' dome, it's going to cross-contaminate stuff, simply because wind and insects have been pollinating plants for millions of years and are quite good at it.

      And then there's the whole using this shit as food aid and expecting starving farmers in Africa to not keep seeds for next year because of the license agreement they know nothing about.

      Hubris and "what could possibly go wrong".

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If so many other countries are banning GMO foods, why aren't we in the US seriously considering this? If nothing else, why don't we at least label foods as GMO, so the consumer can decide?

      Honest answer? I'd say the lobbyists who represent this industry have successfully convinced people not to, and a prevailing tendency to favor corporate profits over risks unless there is absolute proof of them (as in "it hasn't been proven dangerous, so we'll assume it isn't"). Kinda like agent orange or thalidomide.

      The companies who make GMOs don't want labeling for that, and have so far fought to prevent it being mandatory.

      The companies have far more clout with lawmakers, and have fought this kind of thing tooth and nail.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by kilfarsnar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now their wheat is growing in the wild. Is Monsanto going to sue the County it is growing in too, or just the farmer on whose land it is found?

      In this case, it's genuine contamination since it's a version they never released. So Monsanto did a field test, after which they were supposed to destroy all of the plants. Now a bunch of years they find that version out in the wild. I'm pretty sure in this case Monsanto couldn't sue.

      If this doesn't point to the fact that this stuff is going to contaminate everything, I don't know what will. I'm of the opinion that unless you grow this stuff under a friggin' dome, it's going to cross-contaminate stuff, simply because wind and insects have been pollinating plants for millions of years and are quite good at it.

      And then there's the whole using this shit as food aid and expecting starving farmers in Africa to not keep seeds for next year because of the license agreement they know nothing about.

      Hubris and "what could possibly go wrong".

      This is part of what bothers me about GM crops. Maybe they really are safe for consumption. The companies that make them tell me they are. But When they demonstrate that they can't keep their test crops contained, I start to worry about unintended consequences.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    4. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Think Monsanto should be sued for contaminating the environment with GM plants not approved for production.

    5. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I cannot speak for all Luddites. But I know that many are not worried about which god or goddess did or did not put an official OK on Monsanto's "exploit anything for profit" behavior.

      Some Luddites, as well as many who are not Luddites, are concerned that maybe the junior grade biologists at Monsanto are not pumping new genes into a specific species as they claim to be doing. Maybe, just maybe, the Universe is not actually built according to the abstract classification scheme of species, genus, order, class, family, phylum, kingdom that was set up in the 1750s and has been in a state of near constant revision ever since. Biology researchers (the true scientists, not Monsanto engineers) have found so many different and equally valid ways to define the taxonomy that the structure can at best be described as an arbitrary set of imaginary boxes that we can imagine will hold every living thing in just one box, with never a thing existing across the imaginary box walls.

      In truth, all that can be said is that Monsanto is introducing new genes into ecosystems. Not into an imaginary box in an imaginary classification scheme, but into something very real, very complex and as yet mostly not understood that can and does respond in ways that cannot be anticipated, considering the current state of our ignorance.

      Back in the day when DDT was the miracle that was going to put an end to malaria and many other god-given pests and diseases, no one anticipated that the ecosystem would respond to attacks on mosquitoes by incorporating DDT into the defense systems of grasshoppers and locusts, and making egg shells so thin that American eagles almost went extinct. The same kind of limited reasoning that led to spraying DDT on every marsh and pond in the country is behind the Monsanto effort to make a profit off of genetically modified crops.

      And that is what some Luddites, as well as many others who are not Luddites, are worried about.

      --
      Will
    6. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by ideonexus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Technical nit-pick. They are not "introducing new genes into the ecosystem," they are taking genes that already exist in the wild and adding them to a species' genome. Believe it or not, this happens all the time all over the place naturally thanks to viruses, bacteria, and allows for artificial transduction in laboratories. Most of the time, they aren't even doing this, instead they are knocking out existing genes, removing them from the genome to produce desired results.

      But on a broader level, I appreciate what you are trying to say, but your argument that GMOs are dangerous because we don't fully understand the ecosystem also applies to hybridization (which has been going on for 10,000 years), artificial selection, pharmaceuticals, any moden farming technique, any chemical we add to our environment--even as a byproduct of our lifestyles, and pretty much any technology anywhere. There is no rational reason to single GMOs out as Frankenstein's monster, especially with scientists all over the world monitoring their effects--which 25 years of research have found to be pretty benign.

      --
      i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
  2. Copyright? by MrMickS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, has the farmer been sued by Monsanto yet for copyright infringement?

    --
    You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
  3. good time to mention by slashmydots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This reminds me. To all you haters saying that the US does nothing but import and it's a suicidal economic structure, read that last line. We import cheap plastic crap and clothes and toys from China and export a gigantic supply of food around the world. Yeah, electronics' sourcing are a bit of a problem but other than that, our exports are quite important. That's why Monsanto should really stop fucking it up. I hope the government fines them the entirety of the lost sales.

  4. Re:It's still under investigation by coinreturn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    0/10. Wheat and wait do not remotely rhyme. Go away, karma whore.

    It's called a pun, dipshit.

  5. Re:It's still under investigation by sconeu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Beat me to it. The farmer is clearly violating Monsanto's patents, even though he didn't plant the stuff.

    [seriously now]
    This is why all the current court rulings on Monsanto's stuff are insane.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.