By Carey Gillam and Julie Ingwersen
May 31 (Reuters) – For global consumers now on high alert
over a rogue strain of genetically modified wheat found in
Oregon, the question is simple: How could this happen? For a
cadre of critics of biotech crops, the question is different:
How could it not?
The questions arose after the U.S. Department of Agriculture
announced Wednesday that it was investigating the mysterious
appearance of experimental, unapproved genetically engineered
wheat plants on a farm in Oregon. The wheat was developed years
ago by Monsanto Co to tolerate its Roundup herbicide,
but the world’s largest seed company scrapped the project and
ended all field trials in 2004.
The incident joins a score of episodes in which biotech
crops have eluded efforts to segregate them from conventional
varieties. But it marks the first time that a test strain of
wheat, which has no genetically modified varieties on the
market, has escaped the protocols set up by U.S. regulators to
control it.
“These requirements are leaky and there is just no doubt
about that. There is a fundamental problem with the system,”
said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a scientist at the Union of Concerned
Scientists who served on a biotech advisory subcommittee for the
Food and Drug Administration from 2002 to 2005.
The discovery instantly roiled export markets, with Japan
canceling a major shipment of wheat, a quick reminder of what is
at stake – an $8 billion U.S. wheat export business.
Many fear the wheat most likely has been mixed in with
conventional wheat for some time, but there are no valid
commercial tests to verify whether wheat contains the biotech
Roundup Ready gene.
“A lot of people are on high alert now,” said Mike Flowers,
a cereal specialist at Oregon State University. “We can’t really
say if it is or isn’t in other fields. We don’t know.”
A month has passed since U.S. authorities first were alerted
to the suspect plants in Oregon, yet it remains unclear how the
strain developed. Monsanto officials said it is likely the
presence of the Roundup Ready genetic trait in wheat supplies is
“very limited.” The company is conducting “a rigorous
investigation” to find out how much, if any, wheat has been
contaminated by their biotech variety. U.S. regulators are also
investigating.
Bob Zemetra, one of the Oregon State University wheat
researchers who first tested the mystery wheat when an unnamed
farmer mailed a plant sample, said there is no easy way to
explain the sudden appearance of the strain years after field
tests ended.
Cross-pollination seems unlikely, Zemetra said, because the
field where the plants were discovered was growing winter wheat,
while Monsanto had field tested spring wheat. There hadn’t been
any test sites in the area since at least 2004, making it
unlikely the new genetic strain would have been carried on the
wind.
“I don’t know that we are ever going to get a straight
answer, or a satisfactory answer, on how it got there,” Zemetra
said.
‘RIGOROUS TESTING PROTOCOL’
Government records show Monsanto conducted at least 279
field tests of herbicide-resistant wheat on over 4,000 acres in
at least 16 states from 1994 until the company abandoned its
field testing of wheat in 2004.
Zemetra participated in Monsanto wheat trials a decade ago,
while working as a wheat breeder at the University of Idaho.
When Monsanto decided to halt the testing, he said, the company
had strict rules about handling test materials.
“Pretty much all that seed, and any program that was using
it, either buried it, burned it or shipped it back to Monsanto,
as part of the instructions for doing the field testing,” he
said. “It was a very rigorous testing protocol.”
Researchers were requested to watch the plots for
“volunteer” growth for at least two years after conclusion of
the tests, Zemetra added.
Zemetra first became aware of the wheat found in Oregon when
a farmer brought in what he described as several isolated wheat
plants that had emerged after he sprayed Roundup on a fallow
field in eastern Oregon. The farmer had last harvested a crop of
white winter wheat from the field in 2012.
A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in
2008 highlighted several gaps in regulations designed to prevent
genetically altered crops from escaping test plots.
The report’s conclusions were based on USDA data that there
were 712 violations of its regulations from 2003 to 2007,
including 98 that could lead to a possible release of
unauthorized crops.
The GAO study said the USDA lacked the resources to conduct
routine testing on areas adjacent to the GMO crops. Instead, the
report found, the government relied on biotechnology companies
to voluntarily provide test results.
A 2005 report by the Office of Inspector General for the
USDA was critical of government oversight of field tests of GMO
crops. The report said there was a risk “that regulated
genetically engineered organisms… will inadvertently persist
in the environment before they are deemed safe to grow without
regulation.”
While the reports noted problems with government oversight,
USDA itself lists 21 “major incidents of noncompliance” from
1995 through 2011. Five of those involved Monsanto and included
a failure by the company to properly monitor test fields, a
failure to follow certain test planting protocols and a failure
to properly notify regulators about test activities.
‘CAN’T GET RID OF IT’
Developers of biotech crops say testing shows they are safe
for humans, animals and the environment, and farmers like
Roundup Ready corn, soybeans and other crops because genetic
alterations enable them to survive dousings of the herbicide.
But critics of the so-called “Franken foods” point to
scientific studies that claim links to health problems, while
raising other environmental concerns connected to biotech crops
that require close scrutiny.
Many international buyers will not accept genetically
modified grain, and several U.S. food companies also reject
GMOs. When Monsanto in 2004 shelved its Roundup Ready wheat
research, the move came amid a backlash from foreign buyers who
said they would reject U.S. wheat if DNA-altered wheat was
commercialized.
Still, Alan Tracy, president of U.S. Wheat Associates, said
despite the contamination problem, the wheat industry was
supportive of continued research into biotech traits for wheat.
Farmers are planting less wheat and more of other crops that
have been genetically altered in ways that can help farmers grow
more grain, Tracy said.
“Our industry remains strongly supportive of continued
research and development of biotech traits for wheat,” he said.
But finding ways for conventional grain and biotech grain to
co-exist will continue to fall short if regulators don’t force
crop developers to contain their products, critics said.
“This whole idea of co-existence, that has been the No. 1
theme at USDA. But you can’t have co-existence when you can’t
control contamination,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director
at the Center for Food Safety, which has sued the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to try to force tighter regulation of
genetically modified crops.
In the meantime, the search is on for the source of the
mystery wheat.
Jim Shroyer, a wheat agronomy expert at Kansas State
University, said it was likely the Roundup Ready wheat has grown
for years in eastern Oregon only to be discovered recently.
“Probably what happened is it got mixed in with a farmer’s
field eight years ago and has been there ever since,” Shroyer
said. “That is the main reason we here in the top wheat state
did not want Roundup Ready. You can’t get rid of it.
