Monsanto Says Rogue Wheat in Oregon May Be Sabotage

[Soulfly]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/monsanto-says-rogue-wheat-didn-t-contaminate-oregon-seed.html

Monsanto Co. (MON), the world’s largest seed company, said experimental wheat engineered to survive Roundup weedkiller may have gotten into an Oregon field through an “accidental or purposeful” act.
Monsanto and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are investigating how genetically modified wheat that hasn’t been approved for commercial planting was found growing on an Oregon farm eight years after nationwide field tests ended.
Monsanto’s genetic analyses found the variety hasn’t contaminated the types of seed planted on the Oregon farm or the wheat seed typically grown in Oregon and Washington state, Chief Technology Officer Robb Fraley said today on a call with reporters. The unapproved wheat was found growing on less than 1 percent of the farmer’s 125-acre (51-hectare) field, Fraley said.
“It seems likely to be a random, isolated occurrence more consistent with the accidental or purposeful mixing of a small amount of seed during the planting, harvesting or during the fallow cycle in an individual field,” Fraley said on the call.
Asked whether the St. Louis-based company is suggesting the incident could be an act of sabotage, Fraley said, “That is certainly one of the options we are looking at.”
Fraley said he doesn’t mean to suggest the farmer who made the discovery is responsible.

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[Cairenn]

My thought all along has been that it was planted there by the anti GM folks. To small an amount and no reasonable way it could have shown up there and not elsewhere.

 

[Joe]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/monsanto-says-rogue-wheat-didn-t-contaminate-oregon-seed.html

Monsanto Co. (MON), the world’s largest seed company, said experimental wheat engineered to survive Roundup weedkiller may have gotten into an Oregon field through an “accidental or purposeful” act.
Monsanto and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are investigating how genetically modified wheat that hasn’t been approved for commercial planting was found growing on an Oregon farm eight years after nationwide field tests ended.
Monsanto’s genetic analyses found the variety hasn’t contaminated the types of seed planted on the Oregon farm or the wheat seed typically grown in Oregon and Washington state, Chief Technology Officer Robb Fraley said today on a call with reporters. The unapproved wheat was found growing on less than 1 percent of the farmer’s 125-acre (51-hectare) field, Fraley said.
“It seems likely to be a random, isolated occurrence more consistent with the accidental or purposeful mixing of a small amount of seed during the planting, harvesting or during the fallow cycle in an individual field,” Fraley said on the call.
Asked whether the St. Louis-based company is suggesting the incident could be an act of sabotage, Fraley said, “That is certainly one of the options we are looking at.”
Fraley said he doesn’t mean to suggest the farmer who made the discovery is responsible.

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Sabotage LOL

 

[Cairenn]

Explain how it could have gotten there any other way? He wasn't even raising wheat. Sort of like the police dept that found pot growing in flowerbed in front of the station.

 

[Joe]

Explain how it could have gotten there any other way? He wasn't even raising wheat. Sort of like the police dept that found pot growing in flowerbed in front of the station.

maybe its growing all over America ? Im Anti GMO Its a Pesticide not a food product

 

[Pete Tar]

Wasn't the wheat an experimental strain? So access to it would be limited and controlled presumably.
I can see activists deliberately doing something dishonest for the 'greater cause', but I can also see Monsanto trying to limit their culpability by suggesting this scenario. Was there a specific reason to claim this?

"Maybe this is growing all over America?" Obviously if it was growing all America it would have been noticed, the same way this small incident has been. Think.

 

[Soulfly]

There are no commercially available gm wheat varieties on the market.

 

[Joe]

Wasn't the wheat an experimental strain? So access to it would be limited and controlled presumably.
I can see activists deliberately doing something dishonest for the 'greater cause', but I can also see Monsanto trying to limit their culpability by suggesting this scenario. Was there a specific reason to claim this?

"Maybe this is growing all over America?" Obviously if it was growing all America it would have been noticed, the same way this small incident has been. Think.

Could you tell the difference between GMO wheat and Non GMO Wheat ? Can the average farmer ? Yea think with a open mind

 

[Soulfly]

maybe its growing all over America ? Im Anti GMO Its a Pesticide not a food product

The wheat in question doesn't have a pesticide trait, it has a resistance to herbicide (round-up) trait.

 

[Joe]

in 1999 scientists in thailand claimed they discovered glyphosate-resistant wheat in a grain shipment from the pacific northwest of the united states, even though transgenic wheat had never been approved for sale and was only ever grown in test plots. No one could explain how the transgenic wheat got into the food suppl

hmm ?

 

[Cairenn]

I understand that the farmer sprayed his crop with Roundup and the wheat survived it. The wheat was a weed to him.

 

[Soulfly]

hmm ?

Source?

 

[Joe]

The wheat in question doesn't have a pesticide trait, it has a resistance to herbicide (round-up) trait.

A laboratory study published in 1992 indicated that glyphosate formulations could harm earthworms[​ and beneficial insects.

 

[Soulfly]

I understand that the farmer sprayed his crop with Roundup and the wheat survived it. The wheat was a weed to him.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/29/genetically-modified-wheat/2370533/

USDA said the unidentified farmer discovered the modified wheat when farm workers were trying to kill some wheat plants that popped up between harvests. The farmer used the herbicide glyphosate to kill the plants, but they did not die, prompting the tests at Oregon State to find out if the crops were genetically engineered to resist herbicides.

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[Joe]

Source?

here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_wheat

 

[Cairenn]

It seems that some how some of the test wheat got mixed in to a shipment. That was 1999, no sign of it till now. That seems odd to me.

"This test report surprised us as much as it surprised our customer," said Dawn Forsythe, a spokeswoman for U.S. Wheat Associates, a national wheat marketing agency.

The agency knows only that the wheat was grown in the Northwest and shipped from Portland.

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture hasn't approved transgenic wheat for commercial sale, a small number of acres of genetically modified grain was planted in Washington, Idaho and Oregon this year.

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[Soulfly]

A laboratory study published in 1992 indicated that glyphosate formulations could harm earthworms[​ and beneficial insects.

Glyphosate is not just used on gm crops, it is used on most conventional farms too. Has been for a long time. Can you post something more relevant and not 14 to 20 years old? If gm wheat was out there then it would have been found a long time ago. There are chances for seed to get mixed and accidentally put out, that is why Monsanto didn't rule that out.

 

[Soulfly]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...gue-wheat-didn-t-contaminate-oregon-seed.html

Fraley said today about 1,200 genetic tests show the two seed varieties planted on the Oregon farm aren’t contaminated with wheat modified to tolerate Roundup weedkiller, known as Roundup Ready wheat. Tests of 30,000 seeds from 50 varieties of white wheat sold in Oregon and Washington also showed no contamination, he said.

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30,000 tests, that seems pretty thorough.

 

[Cairenn]

That was a very interesting article.

Some Monsanto opponents may have planted seeds they illegally saved from a field trial to cause trade disruptions and build opposition to gene-altered food, said Val Giddings, a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit think tank. Field trials of modified crops are often destroyed by activists in Europe, he said.

“What we are starting to do is knock down all the competing possibilities, and one of those that remain standing, the sore thumb sticking up, involves something deliberate,” Giddings, who helped regulate engineered crops at the USDA for eight years in the 1990s, said today by phone. “It’s a really ugly hypothesis because you don’t like to think people can do something that evil and malicious.”
Two Years

Fraley ruled out the possibility that Roundup Ready wheat migrated from field trials to the Oregon field. Monsanto ended the trials nationwide in 2005 and in Oregon more than 12 years ago. The seed would remain viable in the Oregon soil for no more than two years, and wheat pollen remains viable for one second, with 99 percent of pollen traveling no more than 30 feet (9.1 meters), he said.

False positives for Roundup Ready wheat are common in genetic testing unless investigators use a Monsanto-designed test that distinguishes the experimental wheat variety from residue that can be left by other Roundup Ready crops such as corn and soybeans, Fraley said.

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[David Fraser]

Wasn't the wheat an experimental strain? So access to it would be limited and controlled presumably.
I can see activists deliberately doing something dishonest for the 'greater cause', but I can also see Monsanto trying to limit their culpability by suggesting this scenario. Was there a specific reason to claim this?

"Maybe this is growing all over America?" Obviously if it was growing all America it would have been noticed, the same way this small incident has been. Think.

It had been trialled in the past and the fields they usually trial are not exactly under a constant armed guard. Someone MAY have got some seed from newly grown wheat then. I presume Mondanto hold a seed bank so MAYBE a disgruntled employee? Maybe the farmer in a previuos trial has held seed? Is it a false flag by Monsanto to discredit anti GM?

Given the viability of both seed and pollen in the wild if there were contamination during the trial one would be expecting to see a much greater number of these events. Also if it was a case that it is drift from a trial I wonder as to the dominance if the Round Up resistant gene. After at least 7 seasons I wonder if that would not be diluted somewhat.

What is needed is transparency between Monsanto and the USDA in their testing and I presume there is going to be a paper trail miles long.

 

[Cairenn]

The timing is odd. It shows up right after the march and in a field that it seems was between crops.

Being a false flag, does not really make sense, since it has world wide ramifications .

 

[Jay Reynolds]

A laboratory study published in 1992 indicated that glyphosate formulations could harm earthworms[​ and beneficial insects.

Joe, you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of the issue.

Even if the herbicide glyphosate could harm some insects, the glyphosate resistant wheat would not have potential as a pesticide. Glyphosate resistance in a plant does not confer the plant with an ability to produce glyphosate, it only confers resistance in the plant against the herbicide glyphosate.

[...]

 

[scombrid]

Im Anti GMO Its a Pesticide not a food product

You do not understand the difference between herbicide resistence and pesticide production?

 

[scombrid]

A laboratory study published in 1992 indicated that glyphosate formulations could harm earthworms[​ and beneficial insects.

You want to ban glyphosate?

The stuff is nearly ubiquitous in farming, forest plant managment, floating aquatic plant management, etc...
Farmers like the Round-up Ready crops because they actually use less total chemicals and glyphosate is benign compared to the soil sterilants and such that are applied prior to planting in fields that are not planted with glyphosate resistent crops.

Anyway, if you are really concerned about the safety of glyphosate then you need to cast a wider net than GMO crops.

 

[pseacraft]

I would be curious to know if the field in question was ever used for any of the field trials years ago. It is very common to have residual crop growth (lacking the proper term) from spillage and harvester loss due to inefficiency over the years. I use Round-Up/Glophosate in my rice fields to prevent this as it is not a good thing to mix Jasmine Rice with Glutinous Rice. The darned Rice Cartel screws us enough with the price they pay for our grain and I don't need to give the pricks another reason to lower my income.

 

[Soulfly]

Fraley ruled out the possibility that Roundup Ready wheat migrated from field trials to the Oregon field. Monsanto ended the trials nationwide in 2005 and in Oregon more than 12 years ago. The seed would remain viable in the Oregon soil for no more than two years, and wheat pollen remains viable for one second, with 99 percent of pollen traveling no more than 30 feet (9.1 meters), he said.False positives for Roundup Ready wheat are common in genetic testing unless investigators use a Monsanto-designed test that distinguishes the experimental wheat variety from residue that can be left by other Roundup Ready crops such as corn and soybeans, Fraley said.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...gue-wheat-didn-t-contaminate-oregon-seed.html

 

[lotek]

because antigmo/enviromentalist activists have never trampled fields, killed animals, destroyed decades of devoted work, started fires, endangered humans, spread infectious disease, made, purchased, and set off bombs, used persistent organic pollutants to kill GM test fields, sprayed automotive paint on swaths of crops, used pesticides at levels hundreds of times over proper application levels to kill crops, held non combatant workers hostage, or anything else remotely along the lines of intentionally planting a tiny amount of something just to point their finger and scream...

So far as im concerned the ilk who participate in that sort of stuff are more than apt for this kind of thing. Just a month or so ago a group took hostage a testing lab and demanded the release of hundreds of mice infected with pandemic class pathogens and thousands of mice that would die if taken off their care regimen.. to free them... they are not the type to think out their actions....

Protip: after putting on hazmat suits and spraying automotive paint all over crops, take pictures, then post them around the internet and be sure to say "Look! If GMO is safe why is monsanto wearing suits while working around them?" -greenpeace

^^not a joke


soulfly, thanks for the link, but you know anyone rejecting GE will say the monsanto only test proves its a conspiracy!

Im not gunna get into this too deep here. ive dipped off the site as of late so i could deal with this issue(GE) and this issue alone elsewhere so im rather burnt by now however id like to provide you the following link to help a little bit. there's tons of usefull bits in there as ive tried to save recurring themes ;] enjoy the tree

http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-fa=80...8469&N-p=77671537&N-s=1_8099412&N-f=1_8099412

 

[David Fraser]

because antigmo/enviromentalist activists have never trampled fields, killed animals, destroyed decades of devoted work, started fires, endangered humans, spread infectious disease, made, purchased, and set off bombs, used persistent organic pollutants to kill GM test fields, sprayed automotive paint on swaths of crops, used pesticides at levels hundreds of times over proper application levels to kill crops, held non combatant workers hostage, or anything else remotely along the lines of intentionally planting a tiny amount of something just to point their finger and scream...

So far as im concerned the ilk who participate in that sort of stuff are more than apt for this kind of thing. Just a month or so ago a group took hostage a testing lab and demanded the release of hundreds of mice infected with pandemic class pathogens and thousands of mice that would die if taken off their care regimen.. to free them... they are not the type to think out their actions....

Protip: after putting on hazmat suits and spraying automotive paint all over crops, take pictures, then post them around the internet and be sure to say "Look! If GMO is safe why is monsanto wearing suits while working around them?" -greenpeace

^^not a joke


soulfly, thanks for the link, but you know anyone rejecting GE will say the monsanto only test proves its a conspiracy!

Im not gunna get into this too deep here. ive dipped off the site as of late so i could deal with this issue(GE) and this issue alone elsewhere so im rather burnt by now however id like to provide you the following link to help a little bit. there's tons of usefull bits in there as ive tried to save recurring themes ;] enjoy the tree

http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-fa=80...8469&N-p=77671537&N-s=1_8099412&N-f=1_8099412

Welcome to the world of extremism. I have admitted that I did my fair share of stomping crops with Greenpeace back in the day. To me it seemed things were going too fast and needed more control and transparency. At the end of the day the UK got controls and labelling. It was then many of us said "right, now lets look at the science and impacts". However the party line was one of anti GM and anti capitalism mainly because they would have to backtrack in their earlier claims. Under no circumstances are GM crops to be allowed irrespective of what their products will be and who produces them. Many will go to any lengths to back their claims even making stuff up. That has been even shown in another thread with the claims from Boston when he tells us Monsanto forced a scientist to withold data from his discredited experiment when that was not the case.

 

[Cairenn]

I got this reply from someone on a post from a Bloomberg study

There are many different "events" or transgenic lines of Bt maize that have been developed and released. As a point of fact, some have promoters which cause in Cry protein expression in the kernels, in addition to the stalks and leaves. There is a database here: http://cera-gmc.org/ which has an exhaustive list of the transgenic events which have been developed for markets in the US as well as abroad; there is a plethora of information there with a lot of detailed science and descriptions. Check it out!

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http://cera-gmc.org/

At first glance they look to not be an non biased source.

 

[lotek]

lol so? cry isnt even toxic to the bug until it is combined with enzymes in the stomach of the bug. even then its not sketch to people. all foods are FULL of toxic proteins if they were not, no food would live long enough to root, veg, flower, fruit, or seed. we just are not sensitive to each poison. See maysin for a good example. corn is full of the shit..

reminds me of the people(id guess >15%) who dont think there is DNA in their food and that DNA is bad... plants have immune systems guys... we are full of our own toxic shit... ugg. books. read them.

 

[Soulfly]

Mammals that eat food off the ground have been eating Bt for a long long time. Unless they somehow wash off all the dirt first.

 

[Cairenn]

There is a guy on Bloomberg that asked the common question. "If GM products are safe, why is there an objection to labeling them?"

I keep asking him if he would buy apple juice, if it had a label " Contains Malic acid" He has attacked me and refuses to answer the question

 

[Grieves]

Malic acid is naturally present in apples, and not an additive necessary in apple-juice, so to label apple juice as containing malic acid when it's not being used as an additive would be redundant. It would be like putting 'carbon' on label of... well... everything. However, if malic acid is refined from apple-juice and then used as an additive in other products, those products most certainly bear 'malic acid' on their label. I buy and consume products with 'malic acid' on the label pretty frequently. I buy and consume products with much more fucked up sounding things than that on the label as well, but if someone else sees those strange ingedients and decides they don't like the sound of them, they can make the right choice and not buy it, while I happily scarf down my monoexosodium barbituate bar.

If someone doesn't want to eat a GM product, they should have that choice, for whatever reason they wan't to make it. That's how this whole 'capitalism' thing is supposed to balance out, right? Vote with dollars, and such? If citizens can't make an informed choice about what they're buying, they can't really make an informed choice about what they're voting for, can they? Or is the previously essential need for this capitalist style of democracy suddenly trumped by how essential it is that GMO's save the world from starvation... that fair competition through an informed individual buyer has to fall by the wayside for the greater needs of all humanity?
Can you give me a good reason why GMO's shouldn't be labeled as such? Why a consumer shouldn't have the right to choose not to buy them?

 

[Mick West]

There is a guy on Bloomberg that asked the common question. "If GM products are safe, why is there an objection to labeling them?"

I keep asking him if he would buy apple juice, if it had a label " Contains Malic acid" He has attacked me and refuses to answer the question

I suspect he might say: "You are conflating two entirely different things. Malic acid is just part of apple juice, which has been safely consumed by humans for thousands of years, nobody is concerned about it, and nobody wants it labeled, nobody even knows what it is. GM Products have not been proven safe, and the long term effects are unknown, and millions of people are concerned about it, and want GM food labeled. The fact that labeling GM products will decrease sales is irrelevant".

 

[Mick West]

Or, what Grieves said

I voted for labeling. Even though the proposed law was badly written, the propaganda against the law was deliberately misleading. But I don't think GM Food is dangerous at all, nor do I think organic is better for you.

 

[lotek]

So far as the public is concerned, labeling GE food is like giving a 5 year old a lit blow torch...

My proof? people think the organic label means anything.

 

[Cairenn]

It is sort of like the 'Beware of Dog' or 'Caution; Dog' sign. Folks put these up let folks know that they have a dog. However they have been used to show that the homeowner KNEW that their dog was dangerous. There have been cases where the dog was ordered destroyed without any other evidence of prior attacks, other than the one that landed them in court.

Do you remember when BGH was being used and folks refused to buy milk from anyone that didn't DECLARE their milk free of it.

I could support labeling of this type, May contain GM products as long as it is listed on the back with ingredients. NO big warning panel.

I approve of consumer safety laws, but sometimes the folks writing them don't do a good job of research. I believe that California has or has had a law about lead in children's jewelry. It was designed to prevent the sale of cheap metal jewelry from China that had lead in it. It's wording however, also meant that Swarovski crystals could no longer be used, because they do contain a small amount of lead in the glass. Lead in glass is not a threat unless it is in contact with an acid for a long time. That is one reason you don't store wine in an antique leaded crystal decanter.

Right after that, Swarovski stopped mentioning that their crystals, for jewelry were leaded. They came out with their 'Elements' line. I think that they had to take the lead out of their crystals. The new ones are not as brilliant as the old ones were. I can get 99% of the same effect with Chinese crystals that are a fraction of the price.

 

[Joe]

You do not understand the difference between herbicide resistence and pesticide production?

I will admit it not my field so why would I know . Im not like some on here that think they are an expert on everything

 

[Joe]

Joe, you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of the issue.

Even if the herbicide glyphosate could harm some insects, the glyphosate resistant wheat would not have potential as a pesticide. Glyphosate resistance in a plant does not confer the plant with an ability to produce glyphosate, it only confers resistance in the plant against the herbicide glyphosate.

[...]

Maybe you can repeat what Mick edited ? Or you can send me a private message and repeat you insult ? Im curious why Im always get banned for 24 hrs while others just have their comments edited ? Monsanto treats farmers like shit . I dont trust them at all along with many other Americans .

 

[Soulfly]

Maybe you can repeat what Mick edited ? Or you can send me a private message and repeat you insult ? Im curious why Im always get banned for 24 hrs while others just have their comments edited ? Monsanto treats farmers like shit . I dont trust them at all along with many other Americans .

If Monsanto treats its customers like shit then why do they keep purchasing from them?
Maybe you can site an example of them treating someone unfairly.