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GMO Wheat Found Growing Wild In Oregon, Japan Suspends Import From U.S.
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.'"
And, while the biotech industry has a serious lobby, the farm lobby is also pretty powerful. It would be interesting to watch evenly matched lobbies instead of the bloodbath we usually get.
The issue of regulation is already one of the biggest problems for GMO. If Monsanto invents a new type of crop they need to get it approved for growing and for human consumption in every market. In the US it isn't so bad because there is just the FDA, but even in Europe it takes much longer and you have to convince many different agencies that it is safe. Then you have to start doing the rest of the world country by country.
That's why Japan immediately halted these imports. Even if the FDA or whoever in the US says this stuff is okay to eat the are, of course, going to want to determine that for themselves.
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or those so called Luddites don't like Monsanto's sueing farmers for having their wheat in their fields when the farmers had nothing to do with that happening, causing all kinds of bad feelings for Monsanto from many in the farming communities. 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?
No, Oregon has a lawsuit against Monsanto. Was this wheat ever approved for consumption or was it just approved for growing? Either way Japan at least is not buying Oregon Wheat and the contamination is from a discontinued crop from *12 years ago*!?! Monsanto's fucked, Oregon is just the right mix of Portland Hippies and Rural Rednecks to kick those assholes square in the manjunk for this move - it's a bipartisan agreement. As much as I think people are irrationally scared of GMOs I definitely want to see them taken to task for this.
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?
Hell, Bloomberg and others want lables on every french fry that comes out of a fast food joint, why is there so much pushback on the more raw ingredient foodstuffs?
We're gonna start labeling meat from source to shelf, why not GMO foods?
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