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

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

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 31, 2013 @12:50AM 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.'"

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It's still under investigation by ranulf · 2013-05-31 00:54 · Score: 5, Funny

We'll have to wheat and see what their report says...
1. Re:It's still under investigation by bdleonard · 2013-05-31 01:10 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Italicize wheat?
2. Re:It's still under investigation by ranulf · 2013-05-31 01:14 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No, but it's an ingrained habit now...
3. Re:It's still under investigation by hamburger+lady · 2013-05-31 01:18 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  i can barley contain my laughter.
  
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  Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
4. Re:It's still under investigation by ranulf · 2013-05-31 01:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I seed what you did there... I'm all ears.
5. Re:It's still under investigation by Kavafy · 2013-05-31 01:40 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  You spelt that wrongly.
6. Re:It's still under investigation by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2013-05-31 01:49 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  This is rapidly going a-rye.
  
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  #DeleteChrome
7. Re:It's still under investigation by coinreturn · 2013-05-31 02:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  0/10. Wheat and wait do not remotely rhyme. Go away, karma whore.
  It's called a pun, dipshit.
8. Re:It's still under investigation by sconeu · 2013-05-31 04:20 · 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.
  
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  General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Postapocoliptic Nightmare by localman57 · 2013-05-31 00:55 · 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 SargentDU · 2013-05-31 01:07 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  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?
2. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by gstoddart · 2013-05-31 01:16 · 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".
  
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  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
3. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by cdrudge · 2013-05-31 01:18 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Obviously this farmer broke into a Monsanto lab, stole the seeds, and then planted it in his farm. This is the ONLY plausible scenario that could have happened.
  Signed,
  Monsanto Legal Dept.
4. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by cayenne8 · 2013-05-31 01:42 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  At the bare minimum...
  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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5. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by gstoddart · 2013-05-31 01:54 · 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.
  
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  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
6. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by kilfarsnar · 2013-05-31 01:58 · 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.
  
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  "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
7. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-31 02:08 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Think Monsanto should be sued for contaminating the environment with GM plants not approved for production.
8. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by Will.Woodhull · 2013-05-31 02:12 · 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.
  
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  Will
9. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by pnutjam · 2013-05-31 02:25 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  WHOA! Labeling a product for transparency in the market place? Are you some kind of commie, the free market should... wait... what?
  
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  Cheap storage VM.
10. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by paiute · 2013-05-31 03:25 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I see you conveniently side-stepped the fact that we now have zombie wheat, a staple of a healthy zombie diet.
  GRRAAIINNNSSS!!!!!!
  
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11. Re:Postapocoliptic Nightmare by ideonexus · 2013-05-31 03:33 · 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.
  
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  i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Copyright? by MrMickS · 2013-05-31 00:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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Re:Market forces at work... by jythie · 2013-05-31 01:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
Re:Market forces at work... by AmiMoJo · 2013-05-31 01:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

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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good time to mention by slashmydots · 2013-05-31 01:13 · 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.
Re:Re-heh by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-31 01:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
Re:Five minutes after Monsanto Protection Act sign by Sarten-X · 2013-05-31 01:36 · Score: 5, Informative

But as it stands Monsanto is imune from liability.
Except that's not actually what the legislation does, but hey... FUD is always good, right?
Really, section 735 just stops the judicial system from interfering with the regulatory process. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the courts can't stop farmers from planting questionable crops. On the other hand, the courts can't be abused by farm-sponsored activists to slow down approval for crops that are tested and shown to be perfectly safe. Unfortunately, both of these situations happen routinely.
The article you linked says that the provision "grossly protects biotech corporations such as the Missouri-based Monsanto Company from litigation". However, this statement is incredibly misleading. The provision protects Monsanto from the delays of litigation affecting their product's approval. They're still liable for anything they were last week, but now the court can't say "We don't know what's going on, so we're overruling the experts and banning the scary technology".

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Re:Market forces at work... by CowTipperGore · 2013-05-31 02:31 · Score: 5, Informative

Japan's reaction is ridiculous, and blatant protectionism. A tiny amount of GMO contamination in 2 billion bushels isn't a crisis.
How exactly is this blatant protectionism? Japan is the world's sixth largest importer of wheat and one of the US's largest customers. Japan's domestic wheat market accounts for 10% of their usage and there isn't much they can do to increase that. Your statement makes no sense.
Not even the US has approved GMO wheat. Despite Monsanto's press release claiming that this particular gene has been tested and approved, this is not true in the organism in which it was found in Oregon. Monsanto's GMO wheat trials were canceled largely due to the world's largest wheat importers making clear that they would not accept GMO wheat.The EU has said it will begin testing US wheat and will reject any found to contain GMOs. Many nations still refuse to accept any GMO food imports.