GMO wheat news

Series of news stories and news Releases about GMO crops, especially wheat

(I'm sorry, but this has grown to be a huge file. It documents the last month or two of debate about Roundup Ready Wheat in the Dakotas, culminating in Monsanto's decision, in early May 2004, not to market it in the near future.)

Dakota Resource Council, News Release

Bismarck Office Dickinson Office Fargo Office

P.O. Box 1715 P.O. Box 1095 118 Broadway, Suite 801
Bismarck, ND 58502-1715 Dickinson, ND 58602-1095 Fargo, ND 58102
Phone: (701) 224-8587 Phone: (701) 483-2851 Phone: (701) 298-9044
Fax: (701) 224-0198 Fax: (701) 483-2854 Fax: (701) 298-9044

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Contact: Todd Leake – (701) 594-4275; Theresa Podoll – (701) 883-4304; David Moeller – (651) 223-5400

North Dakota State University facing liability with genetically modified crops

Bismarck, ND – Farm and community advocacy groups expressed concern today to North Dakota State University President Joseph Chapman in a letter describing potential liability issues facing the university if it is the release mechanism of genetically modified herbicide tolerant wheat.

NDSU, through RoughRider Genetics, has already released Roundup Ready soybeans and is contemplating releasing Roundup Ready wheat as well.

Farmers Legal Action Group sent the letter explaining NDSU’s potential legal liability in releasing genetically modified wheat, to President Chapman and other university and state officials at the request of Dakota Resource Council (DRC) and Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society (NPSAS).

"The issues raised in our letter," said David Moeller, lawyer with Farmers Legal Action Group, a nonprofit law center dedicated to providing legal services to family farmers and their rural communities in order to help keep family farmers on the land, "are serious considerations with the potential of doing dramatic financial harm to NDSU and the state of North Dakota if genetically modified wheat is released prematurely or at all."

"NDSU is facing serious liability issues," said Todd Leake, a farmer from Emerado and chair of the DRC’s food safety task force, "And the University is too important to farmers in North Dakota to ignore the potential problems. Genetically modified wheat is very different from the glyphosate tolerant soybeans NDSU now sells if for no other reason than it is an export commodity and our export customers do not want it. They have the ability to keep it out.”

"There is serious potential for liability and harm with releasing genetically modified wheat," said Theresa Podoll, executive director of NPSAS, North Dakota's largest sustainable agriculture organization, "not just for farmers, grain dealers, and the economy of North Dakota but for the entity responsible for the decision to release the first genetically modified wheat. And in the case of the Roundup Ready wheat being developed by NDSU and Monsanto, NDSU holds the power to release. NDSU is the decision maker.”

National Public Radio (NPR) SHOW: Morning Edition (10:00 AM
ET) - NPR March 10, 2004 Wednesday LENGTH: 1242 words
HEADLINE: Debate over biotech wheat ANCHORS: BOB EDWARDS
REPORTERS: GREG ALLEN BODY:

BOB EDWARDS, host: After having
success marketing biotech varieties of corn and soybeans,
the Monsanto company is running into resistance to its
plans to introduce its next big product, genetically
modified wheat. Many growers and processors are concerned
the new wheat variety may undercut their sales in Asia and
Europe. Those foreign markets are leery of genetically
modified food products. In North Dakota, one of the
nation's top wheat states, a group of farmers is working to
stop Monsanto from introducing biotech wheat until growers
and the markets say they want it. NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN reporting: North Dakota is a farm state with a
long tradition of raising wheat.

Mr. JIM KUSLER (Farmer):
That's where my grandfather homesteaded, right up there. He
homesteaded there in 1904.

ALLEN: Jim Kusler's farm is a
lot bigger than it was in his grandfather's day. In a
pickup, he drives over some of the 2,800 acres where yellow
fields of wheat stubble poke through a fresh blanket of
snow. Kusler grew up here in Beulah, but left for a time
when he went to college and then for 16 years while he
served as state senator and then as North Dakota's
secretary of State. But like a lot of people in North
Dakota, he's always kept one foot on the farm.

Mr. KUSLER:
Well, when I think back, I think I've missed one spring
planting in the course of my lifetime. You made it back for
spring planting and you made it back for harvest.

ALLEN:
When Kusler took over the farm from his father in 1996, he
took a look at the finances and did what he says made the
most sense economically. He began growing spring wheat
organically. He's not alone. North Dakota is one of the
nation's largest organic wheat states with more than 30,000
acres under cultivation. Kusler's wheat is milled into
organic flour and shipped to Japan, where it commands a
premium price. But he's worried if Monsanto carries through
on its plans to begin selling a new biotech variety of
spring wheat to North Dakota farmers, it could ruin his
business.

Mr. KUSLER: There's a serious economic loss to me
if for some reason one of my near or distant neighbors
would plant biotech wheat and that wheat in turn would end
up cross-pollinating with my organic wheat. By definition,
my organic wheat would no longer be organic, and I would
lose my customer instantly.

ALLEN: Kusler and some other
growers are working to get a voter referendum on the
ballot. If approved, it would give the agriculture
commissioner authority to veto the use of biotech wheat if
he believes its introduction would be harmful to the
state's farmers. At least here in North Dakota, the debate
is not about safety, it's about export markets. About half
of the state's wheat is sold overseas and it's a tough
market with cutthroat competition from growers in Canada
and Australia. The question for North Dakota growers is
whether customers abroad want biotech wheat. Roger Johnson,
the state's agriculture commissioner, says at least for the
time being the answer is clearly no.

Mr. ROGER JOHNSON
(Agriculture Commissioner): I've probably met with
representatives of 30 or so different countries in the last
couple years. And with only one exception, virtually the
first word out of their mouth is about biotech wheat and
how they don't want it. And often that's the only question
we ever talk about, because they just can't get beyond it.

ALLEN: Monsanto is seeking federal approval in the US, as
well as permission in Canada and Japan to begin marketing
genetically modified Roundup Ready wheat. It's been several
years now since Monsanto introduced other Roundup Ready
seed varieties, including corn, soybeans, cotton and
canola. Monsanto's biotech soybeans are now sold around the
world and dominate the market. But countries in Europe and
Asia that routinely buy genetically modified soybeans are
balking at biotech wheat, which after milling goes almost
directly to the table. Because of the resistance it's
encountering, Monsanto spokesman Michael Doan says his
company won't introduce Roundup Ready wheat until it's
identified farmers who want to grow it and markets that
want to buy it.

Mr. MICHAEL DOAN (Monsanto Spokesman): The
first step is to assure consumers around the world that
this product is safe, that it's good for the environment,
that for farmers, it's a better tool for them. After that
process has been completed, then I think we would certainly
expect customers to begin to declare their preference for
biotech wheat or non-biotech wheat.

ALLEN: But it's not
just farmers and consumers who are concerned about biotech
wheat. (Soundbite of grain elevator)

ALLEN: Several miles
down the road from Jim Kusler's farm, Mike McNamee runs a
small grain elevator. A waterfall of golden Durham wheat
pours out of a chute. Dust fills the air.

Mr. MIKE McNAMEE
(Grain Elevator Operator): This is a pretty basic old- time
country elevator. Receive the grain here, we're cleaning
the grain, and then we load it in a rail car.

ALLEN:
McNamee is in no hurry to see biotech wheat introduced in
North Dakota. He's on the board of the North Dakota Grain
Dealers Association, a group that has asked Monsanto at
least for now not to introduce its new wheat variety. The
problem as he sees it is that once biotech wheat is
introduced, no wheat in North Dakota will be truly
biotech-free. It's widely agreed that whether in the
fields, in the grain elevators or in rail cars, some
intermixing of biotech and non- biotech varieties is
inevitable. Given the customer resistance to genetically
modified wheat, McNamee says grain dealers are worried that
could leave them with a big problem.

Mr. McNAMEE: If we
ship a trainload of wheat or something like that and it
gets to destination or gets to the ports or wherever and it
tests positive, you know, then what? Then there would be a
liability as far as either shipping that train back or
taking a big discount on it.

ALLEN: The debate over
Monsanto's new product has split North Dakota's wheat
industry in half. On one side are growers and processors
who worry biotech wheat will hurt exports. On the other
side are farmers who believe the new technology will give
them a competitive edge. Lance Hagen is with the North
Dakota Grain Growers Association, a group that's decidedly
pro- biotech. He says yields, the amount of wheat produced
per acre, have stayed flat for the past 25 years. New
biotech varieties, he believes, could dramatically boost
North Dakota's wheat production, something he says the
state has already seen with soybeans.

Mr. LANCE HAGEN
(North Dakota Grain Growers Association): We've seen
increases in yields in my county from 65 bushels in 1986 to
progressively up to--I think we averaged like 125 bushels an
acre over a four-year time span. And that's all due to
technology. ALLEN: But much of the real promise of biotech
wheat is still down the road. Roundup Ready wheat makes
weed control easier, but many farmers say weed control is
not that big of a problem. Other varieties of biotech wheat
under development are resistant to costly crop diseases.

One variety would be digestible by people with gluten
intolerance. Many in the industry say those benefits would
do a lot to overcome the resistance biotech wheat is
encountering from wary growers. Greg Allen, NPR News.

EDWARDS: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Bob
Edwards. LOAD-DATE: March 10, 2004 [Entered March 11, 2004]

Monsanto apply to have GE wheat allowed in NZ food
Wednesday, 17 March 2004, 4:26 pm
Press Release: Greenpeace New Zealand

Monsanto apply to have GE wheat allowed in NZ food

Monsanto has applied to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to allow genetically engineered wheat to be introduced into the New Zealand food chain.

GE wheat has not been approved for human consumption anywhere in the world, although similar applications have been made in Canada and the United States.

Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" wheat is engineered to resist Monsanto's own brand of herbicide "Roundup". Major concerns have been raised over its environmental impact and the difficulty of segregating GE from conventional wheat varieties. Other herbicide resistant crops n such as soy n have led to increases in herbicide use and contamination of GE free crops.

This GE wheat application is part of Monsanto's push to plant GE wheat in Canada and the USA. Widespread opposition to Roundup Ready wheat in these countries has delayed Monsanto's plans for commercial planting until at least 2005. The Canadian Wheat Board is the biggest wheat and barley marketer in the world and they claim that 82% of their international buyers don't want GE wheat.

Wheat has special significance as a staple in the New Zealand diet. It is not just present in foods such as breads, cereals and pastas, but in a wide range of processed foods as a thickener.

Even FSANZ says that the use of GE wheat goes against consumer choice. According to FSANZ documents, a likely impact of approving GE wheat will be.

"Cost to consumers wishing to avoid GM food by a potential restriction of choice of products, or increased prices for non GM food"

Unfortunately, the way FSANZ assess the risks of GE foods is to basically assume they are safe unless proven otherwise. This is the exact opposite of a precautionary approach! FSANZ relies far too heavily on the information provided by the biotech companies themselves.

Despite widespread opposition from consumers, FSANZ has already approved 21 GE crops for human consumption with a further five assessments pending. However, many of these foods are not even on the market and many food companies don't use GE foods because of public opposition.

Information on how to make a submissions is available on: http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/campaigns/ge/wheat_subs.asp

So much for Monsanto's promises!

Monsanto raises idea of U.S.-only GMO wheat release
Tue March 16, 2004 04:47 PM ET

By Carey Gillam
KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 16 (Reuters) - Monsanto Co. (MON.N: Quote, Profile,
Research) is discussing with the U.S. wheat industry whether it should be
held to its promise not to release biotech wheat in the United States unless
it can simultaneously market it in Canada, wheat industry officials said
Tuesday.

Monsanto told top officials from wheat growers and wheat marketing
organizations over the weekend that it was facing stiff opposition to its
biotech wheat product in Canada.

In a written presentation prepared for the meeting, the company raised the
possibility of "alternative strategies" to the simultaneous U.S.-Canadian
release it has pledged to the wheat industry for more than a year.

U.S. wheat growers do not want Monsanto's biotech wheat -- a spring wheat
variety that would be the world's first genetically modified wheat --
introduced only in this country. They fear foreign buyers opposed to biotech
food products would shift their purchases to Canada, the United States' top
competitor for hard red spring wheat sales.

Monsanto spokesman Michael Doane would not discuss details of the weekend
meeting, and stressed that the company remained focused on releasing the
controversial new wheat after approvals were granted in both countries.
" Today we stay with our commitments," he said. But wheat industry leaders
confirmed Monsanto was putting on the table the option of going ahead
without Canadian approval as regulatory clearances any time soon in Canada
appeared uncertain.

"The reason people are starting to talk about this scenario is it looks like
it might run into serious opposition in Canada," said National Association
of Wheat Growers CEO Daren Coppock.

"We have not flat out told them we will not discuss alternatives, but it is
our extremely strong preference we remain on that track," he said.

U.S. Wheat Associates, which handles global marketing issues for the U.S.
wheat industry, said a U.S.-only release would give the Canadians a
distinct advantage.

"If we introduce and the Canadians do not that would make it easier for
countries to continue to insist on buying from a country that is GM-free
and it would give Canada a distinct marketing advantage," said U.S. Wheat
President Alan Tracy.

Marketers like the Canadian Wheat Board have said export buyers would reject
Canadian wheat if Ottawa grants approval to Monsanto's genetically modified
wheat.

Canadian regulators do not currently consider market impact in approving new
crops, but the federal agriculture department there is considering whether
or not to widen its view.

Monsanto's plans to introduce its biotech wheat, which is resistant to the
company's Roundup herbicide, have sparked debate across the industry. While
many farmers fear they would lose sales to buyers unwilling to take biotech
crops, they want to take advantage of, and encourage future development of,
technology that could help them reap more bountiful harvests.

The issue gained urgency after Monsanto in January told industry leaders
they must fully embrace the project and help gain market acceptance or
Monsanto may abandon research into other wheat technologies.

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Tue March 16, 2004 04:47 PM ET

Monsanto told top officials from wheat growers and wheat marketing
organizations over the weekend that it was facing stiff opposition to its
biotech wheat product in Canada.

"The reason people are starting to talk about this scenario is it looks like
it might run into serious opposition in Canada," said National Association
of Wheat Growers CEO Daren Coppock.

"We have not flat out told them we will not discuss alternatives, but it is
our extremely strong preference we remain on that track," he said.

U.S. Wheat Associates, which handles global marketing issues for the U.S.
wheat industry, said a U.S.-only release would give the Canadians a
distinct advantage.

Marketers like the Canadian Wheat Board have said export buyers would reject
Canadian wheat if Ottawa grants approval to Monsanto's genetically modified
wheat.

Canadian regulators do not currently consider market impact in approving new
crops, but the federal agriculture department there is considering whether
or not to widen its view.

# # #

Vermont Senate Votes to Hold Biotech Firms Liable (ENS 3/12)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2004/2004-03-12-09.asp#anchor1

Vermont Senators voted 28-0 to support the Farmer Protection Act (S 164), a bill to hold biotech corporations liable for unintended contamination of conventional or organic crops by genetically engineered plant materials. The debate revolved around patent laws that allow biotech corporations like Monsanto to sue farmers for patent infringement whose fields are contaminated with genetically modified pollen or plant materials. The vote comes after 79 Vermont towns have passed Town Meeting measures calling on lawmakers in Montpelier and Washington to enact a moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and 10 percent of Vermont's conventional dairy farmers have pledged not to plant the crops. "The Farmer Protection Act is a preemptive strike to stop predatory lawsuits against Vermont's family farmers by biotech companies like Monsanto," said Ben Davis of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG). "Today the Vermont Senate took the first step to defend family farmers from these kinds of intimidation suits and the hazards of genetically engineered crops." For more information on how states are dealing with GMOs, see: http://www.serconline.org/geneticallyEngineeredFood.html.

GMO-induced pesticide use in Argentina causing declining yields
New Statesman
March 1, 2004

When even Monsanto has doubts; Argentina went overboard for GM crops. Now
its farmers face a decline in production, reports Sue Branford
BY Sue Branford

British ministers, having given the go-ahead for the experimental planting
of GM crops, ought to be able to look to Argentina for inspiration. This
is the country that has embraced GM technology most wholeheartedly. Today,
more than half of its arable land is covered with GM soya, which was
developed by Monsanto and is sold as Roundup Ready (RR) because it has been
engineered to be resistant to Roundup, the company's trademarked glyphosate
herbicide.

Yet something has gone wrong. Argentina's main agricultural research
institute has warned that, unless the move into RR soya monoculture is
reversed, 'a decline in agricultural production will be inevitable'. And
in January Monsanto abruptly halted the sale of its GM soya seeds.

At first, GM technology seemed like a gift for farmers. The pampas, an
area of rich land that fans out for roughly 600 kilometres around Buenos
Aires, were suffering from serious soil erosion, caused partly by repeated
ploughing. RR soya seemed the solution: it allowed farmers to control
weeds by spraying glyphosate during the growing season and thus farm
without ploughing. The proliferation of weeds had earlier made such no-till
farming unsuccessful.

Driven by the huge demand on the world market for soya meal as cattle
fodder, farmers enthusiastically adopted the technology. At the time, with
encouragement from the IMF, Argentina had adopted free-market economics.
Soya looked like an ideal export product where the country had
'comparative advantage'. Monsanto sold Roundup at a special cheap price
and exempted farmers from royalty payments. The area under soya cultivation increased
by 60 per cent in the second half of the 1990s; output more than doubled.

After a currency collapse in December 2001, only export crops remained
profitable. Quick-witted businessmen set up investment trusts that scoured
the country in search of land to plant with soya. Soya spread beyond the
pampas into more environmentally fragile areas in the north, joining
fields in Brazil and Paraguay to form a vast 'soya republic'.

About 150,000 small farmers, who had cultivated rice, maize, lentils,
potatoes, fruit and other food crops, were driven off the land, hit both
by low prices for their products and by herbicide contamination from soya
farmers' spraying. Land ownership in Argentina is more concentrated today
than at any time in history. Moreover, new weeds, probably naturally
resistant to glyphosate and opportunistically occupying the new ecological
niche, are proliferating. RR soya, sprouting inconveniently from seeds
dropped during harvesting, is also becoming a nuisance. Farmers tried
upping the frequency and strength of Roundup applications. Sales of
glypho-sate rose from 5.4 million litres in 1994 to 59.2 million litres in 1998, and
probably to well over 100 million litres now.

Even so, the farmers have been losing the battle. So biotechnology
companies have come up with a new technical fix. Syngenta's advert
proclaims that 'soya is a weed' and advises farmers to spray their fields, prior to
planting, with two notoriously damaging herbicides - Gramoxone (paraquat)
and Gesaprim (atrazine).

These are exacerbating the damage to neighbouring farms. I recently
visited a peasant hamlet near the border with Paraguay. The families'
small subsistence plots have become islands in a sea of soya. One day last year,
soya farmers sprayed one of the new mixtures on a nearby farm. 'The wind
was in the north, so the toxic cloud got blown on to our plots and into
our houses,' recalled Sandoval Filemon. 'Our eyes immediately started
smarting.'

Over the next few days chickens, pigs and goats died. Sows gave birth to
deformed or dead piglets. And almost all the crops were badly damaged,
said Eugenia, Sandoval's wife. Even today, the banana trees produce
stunted fruit.

Because of their heavy use of herbicides, soya farmers also kill off
bacteria in the soil, leading to more snails, slugs and fungi. As the
normal process of decomposition is interrupted, some farmers have to brush
dead vegetation off the land prior to planting. Charles Benbrook, a US
agricultural economics consultant who has studied GM farming in Argentina,
told me that without big changes in farming practice, Argentinian
agriculture will not be sustainable for longer than another two years.

Even Monsanto appears to have qualms. In response to my queries about the
sustainability of RR soya, it said it 'strongly supports crop rotation',
something that it has not encouraged in practice. It is also trying
belatedly to regain control over the soya sector by charging royalties.
But the farmers are resisting, either by saving seeds at harvest time to
plant the following year or by buying RR seeds on the black market. Monsanto
suspended seed sales in January and could introduce an extra 'terminator'
gene into other GM crops to sterilise seeds and stop hoarding.

The case of Argentina shows that genetic modification of crops, by its
very nature, permits farmers to indulge in irresponsible practices such as
deluging the soil with glyphosate, something that would be impossible in
conventional farming. In less than a decade the rush into soya farming has
driven thousands of families off the land, created serious ecological and
agronomic imbalances, destroyed food security and led to dependence on a
technology controlled by a handful of multinational companies. GM
technology, though not wholly responsible, has played a part while
contributing only a temporary increase in yields and a short-lived
solution to the problem of soil erosion.

Sue Branford is co-author of Cutting the Wire: the story of the landless
movement in Brazil (Latin America Bureau, 2002)

http://www.in-forum.com/articles/?id=51762
Biotech wheat release debated
By Jeff Zent
jzent@forumcomm.com
The Forum - 03/02/2004

JAMESTOWN, N.D. -- Mike Brandeburg braved icy roads Monday to weigh in on one of the state’s most controversial farm issues: the pending release of genetically modified wheat.

Renewed efforts to squash the commercial release of genetically modified wheat in North Dakota could rob North Dakota State University of research dollars and the state’s farmers of a valuable production tool, said Brandeburg, who farms near Edgeley.

If the high-tech wheat is commercialized, North Dakota stands to lose much more, said Janet Jacobson, an organic farmer from Wales, N.D., and president of the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society.

The wheat’s commercial release would jeopardize international markets and the livelihood of the state’s organic farmers, said Jacobson, one of four panelists at a meeting in Jamestown on Monday.

“The risks far outweigh the benefits,” Jacobson told about 15 farmers who attended the first of four statewide panel discussions on genetically modified wheat.

What farmers on both sides of the issue seemed to agree on was that biotech research should continue at NDSU.

Federal approval of St. Louis-based Monsanto Co.’s gene-altered wheat could come in 2005 or 2006, said Dale Enerson, a state Farmers Union economist.

Monsanto has developed technology to alter the genes of hard red spring wheat making it resistant to the company’s herbicide, Roundup.

Monsanto has pledged not to release the wheat until there’s market acceptance and other concerns are satisfied.

Farmers have embraced “Roundup Ready” soybeans and corn because the technology allows them to kill a wide range of weeds with just one herbicide.

NDSU has partnered with Monsanto to develop a genetically modified spring wheat variety that can stand up to North Dakota’s harsh growing conditions.

U.S. farmers export half the wheat they produce and 75 percent of their overseas customers don’t want wheat that’s genetically modified, said Leland “Judge” Barth, a marketing specialist with the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

The commission supports a go-slow approach to the release of genetically modified wheat, said Barth, a panelist.

Foreign consumers have resisted the technology because they don’t have confidence in their food regulators, said Al Schneiter, chairman of NDSU’s plant sciences department.

On Feb. 7, Jacobson and four other members of the state’s Coexistence Working Group resigned, saying the process is a failure.

The group, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and formed by NDSU, set out to resolve conflicts about biotech wheat between farmers.

Jacobson said representatives from biotech companies and NDSU officials refused to assume responsibility for liability issues that are created with a biotech wheat.

The resignations came a day after a group called the “Go Slow with GMO Committee” announced it plans an initiated measure that would create state barriers to a federally approved biotech wheat.

Another panel discussion, sponsored by the North Dakota Farmers Union, will be held today in Dickinson and Minot.

A fourth discussion scheduled in Devils Lake Monday was canceled because of poor road conditions.

Readers can reach Forum reporter Jeff Zent at (701) 241-5526

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/opinion/01MON4.html?th

New York Times

March 1, 2004
Keeping Seeds Safe

hen an American farmer gets ready to plant a crop like corn or soybeans, he has two basic choices. Traditional seeds are the kind farmers have planted throughout history, developed by crossing parents with desirable traits to get a superior variety. Genetically modified seeds, first widely planted in 1996, contain trangenes from other organisms that convey specific advantages to mature plants — the ability to resist herbicides, for instance. The acreage planted with genetically modified crops has exploded: a third of this country's corn by 2002 and three-quarters of its soybeans. Whatever you make of this trend — and there are strong arguments on both sides — one question it raises is whether genes from modified plants might somehow drift into unmodified ones. The answer is yes.

In a pioneering study released last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists asked two independent labs to examine samples of traditional corn, soybean and canola seeds. The labs found contamination in half the corn, half the soybean and more than 80 percent of the canola varieties. The study draws no conclusions about when the mingling took place. It could have happened during field tests, after modified crops were widely planted or during shipping and storage. But the genetic purity of at least some traditional seed varieties has been compromised.

This is a serious finding. Though the acreage planted with modified crops is enormous, the number of varieties is still very small. But many more modified varieties — many of them for industrial and pharmaceutical crops — are being tested. The risk posed to the food supply by contamination from pharmaceutical crops will almost certainly be much greater than it is from genes that have migrated from, say, Roundup Ready corn. But there is a broader point. To contaminate traditional varieties of crops is to contaminate the genetic reservoir of plants on which humanity has depended for most of its history. In 2001, for instance, scientists discovered modified genes in traditional varieties of corn in Mexico, the ancestral home of the crop and the site of its greatest diversity.

The need now is for more extensive study, best undertaken by the Department of Agriculture. It's also time to subject genetically modified crops to more rigorous and more coherent testing. The scale of the experiment this country is engaged in — and its potential effect on the environment, the food supply and the purity of traditional seed stocks — demands vigilance on the same scale.

Website with liability letter: http://www.flaginc.org/news/news.htm#20040224

USDA world survey shows biotech wheat reservations
Reuters, 03.12.04, 6:41 PM ET
http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/03/12/rtr1297493.html

WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) - Results of a new U.S. survey of global
attitudes toward genetically modified wheat indicate widespread opposition
or uncertainty about imports if the product were to be approved for
commercial sales.

Some major grain-importing countries would refuse to buy genetically modified
wheat if it became commercially available, or are uncertain of their
reaction, according to the survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The survey results, obtained by Reuters, also found that key countries such
as Japan and South Korea might even refuse non-biotech wheat from a country
if it approved just one variety of biotech wheat.

St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. (nyse: MON - news - people) has petitioned the
U.S. Department of Agriculture to approve the world's first genetically
modified wheat. "Roundup Ready" wheat would be modified to tolerate
applications of Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller.

USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service offices around the world provided answers
to a series of questions about host countries' stances toward biotech wheat.

The survey, requested by the U.S. wheat industry, mostly backed up widely
held views that European and Asian countries have serious concerns about
biotech wheat, including fears about its impact on the environment and human
health.

The survey covered the one-year period ending November, 2003.

Asked whether host countries would buy biotech wheat, only the FAS officers
stationed in Pakistan, Peru, Sri Lanka and Yemen responded affirmatively.

FAS officials in 17 countries, including top importer Japan and
seventh-largest importer, South Korea, all responded negatively.

A "don't know" response came from FAS offices in 32 countries, including
major wheat importers Mexico, Philippines and Taiwan.

Monsanto has said that if its biotech wheat is approved, it would not market
the product until there was consumer acceptance of the product.

U.S. wheat farmers have been engaged in a spirited debate over whether a
genetically modified crop would be a boon or burden to their industry.

But 81 percent of farmers attending an American Farm Bureau Federation
convention in January surveyed by Reuters said the U.S. and Canadian
governments should approve Monsanto's application.

The United States, the world's largest wheat exporter, is projected by USDA
to ship more than 31 million metric tons abroad this year.

February 23, 2004

Genetically Engineered DNA
Found in Traditional Seeds
Study Has Implications for Trade, Organic Agriculture, Human Health
in food and environment See the Gone to Seed web feature
Read the report

Washington, D.C.—The Union of Concerned Scientists today released a groundbreaking pilot study that found genetically engineered DNA is contaminating traditional seeds of three major U.S. crops. Seed contamination, if left unchecked, could disrupt agricultural trade, unfairly burden the organic industry, and allow hazardous materials into the food supply.
" This study shatters the presumption that at least one portion of the seed supply-that for traditional varieties of crops-is truly free of genetically engineered elements," said Dr. Margaret Mellon, Director of the Food and Environment Program at UCS and an author of the new study, Gone to Seed: Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply. "The traditional seed supply is an agricultural treasure that must be preserved. The government should immediately follow up this study to determine the extent of contamination and the steps needed to protect this treasure."

The pilot study by UCS is the first to examine systematically whether genetically engineered (GE) crop varieties now widely adopted in the United States have contaminated the seed supply for crop varieties presumed not to contain GE elements. The seeds tested in the pilot study were for traditional varieties of corn, soybeans, and canola that have no history of genetic engineering. The tests were conducted for UCS by two commercial laboratories employing sensitive techniques capable of detecting specific sequences of DNA.

The degree of concern to attach to seed contamination depends on many factors, including the nature of the genes that are contaminating the seed supply and the levels at which they occur. That information awaits the further, more comprehensive tests recommended by UCS in its report. However, the study released today suggests that contamination is pervasive, especially in canola where one laboratory found six of the six traditional varieties tested contaminated with GE elements.

Most of the specific DNA sequences tested for in the study are found in popular GE varieties currently on the U.S. market. But there is no reason to believe that engineered DNA sequences detected in the study are the only ones moving into the traditional seed supply.

"Until we know otherwise, it is prudent to assume that engineered sequences originating in any crop, whether it was approved and planted commercially or just field tested, could potentially contaminate the seed supply," said Dr. Jane Rissler, a plant pathologist at UCS and the report's co-author. "Among the potential contaminants are genes from crops engineered to produce drugs, plastics, and vaccines."

Serious risks to human health could result if genes from pharmaceutical and industrial crops contaminate the seeds for food crops at a significant level. "Because growers and processors would not be aware of the contaminants, they would inadvertently sell them for food use-a back door to the food supply that must be closed," said Mellon.

The materials needed to detect such genes in molecular tests are not publicly available; therefore, it was not possible for UCS to test seeds for sequences from so-called "pharm crops." However, the report urges prompt action to protect seed production from these sources of contamination.

In addition, seed contamination makes it more difficult for U.S. exporters to assure Japan, South Korea, the European Union, and other export customers that grain and oilseed shipments do not contain unapproved GE crop varieties and to supply commodity products free of engineered sequences. Seed contamination also places an unfair burden on organic food production, an increasingly important sector of U.S. agriculture. Organic farmers depend on traditional seed varieties to meet organic standards and consumer demand. The contamination of traditional seeds hampers their ability to find the GE-free seed they need.

The UCS study is too limited to provide a reliable estimate of the levels of contamination across the seed supply. However, the data obtained in the study suggest a range of roughly 0.05 to 1% in the seeds tested. Calculations done as part of Gone to Seed illustrate that even a level as low as 0.1% could translate into hundreds of tons of contaminated corn and soybean seeds inadvertently planted on U.S. farms, or the equivalent of over 55,000 50-pound bags of seed.

"We must confront the reality of seed contamination now," said Rissler. "Not only must we worry about genes in approved varieties but we must be concerned about hundreds of other genes that have been field tested but whose identities are unknown to the public in many instances. Heedlessly allowing the contamination of the seed supply to continue may cause problems which cannot be easily remedied."

"While not completely reversible, with sufficient political will it is possible to look forward to sources of seeds that are substantially free of genetically engineered sequences," Mellon added. "But the government must act now."

UCS recommends eight steps to address seed contamination, including a government-sponsored, full-scale investigation into the extent and causes of seed contamination. The United States Department of Agriculture should also establish a reservoir of non-engineered seeds for major food and feed crops.

The new report is located here. Formed in 1969 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCS is a nonprofit partnership of scientists and citizens combining rigorous scientific analysis, innovative policy development and effective citizen advocacy to achieve practical environmental solutions. UCS advocates evaluation of the risks and benefits of and alternatives to agricultural applications of biotechnology

Stop Playing With Our Food
Craig Holdrege

During boyhood drives to Denver, the lovely scent of baking bread would
waft into our car. After a number of trips I discovered the source: a
large Wonder Bread factory. I consumed Wonder Bread in two ways. One was
as the covering for my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The other was
in advertisements: “Wonder Bread Helps Build Strong Bodies in 12 Ways!”
I didn’t know what this meant, but I sure loved squishing two or three
slices into a ball and popping it into my mouth.

Only later did I learn that Wonder Bread had nearly all of wheat’s
natural nutrition processed out, only to receive the wondrous 12-fold
enrichment conceived by nutrition scientists and industry marketeers. As
have most other Americans, I grew up with this kind of subliminal
infection: Food is composed of individual nutrients, and each one does
something different for you. Just take in enough of the right kinds and
you’ll be fine.

With the advent of genetic engineering, the All-American food processing
industry takes on a new dimension. Instead of adding ingredients to
foods in the factory, we will “enrich” the plants themselves by
inserting genes from other organisms. The first genetically modified
plants -- mainly corn, soybeans, canola and cotton -- were altered to
produce their own pesticides or to be resistant to herbicides. The next
generation, under development in industry and university labs around the
globe, will be nutritionally enhanced, such as lettuce enriched with
vitamin C.

An illusion of genetic engineering improvements is that we can alter one
specific trait in a plant without changing anything else. The truth is
that any time new genes are incorporated into an organism, they have
multiple effects. For example, in an experiment that caused tomatoes to
produce extra carotene, researchers found that the more of this vitamin
A compound a plant produced, the smaller it became. In some unknown way
the extra carotene was linked to reduction of a particular hormone
related to growth.

Although the idea is to produce clearly defined, discrete alterations,
plants produce thousands of different substances in ways much more
complex and dynamic than our manipulative schemes can envision. The
genetic engineer discovers only the most glaring changes. We want to
make plants function the way we desire, and yet we do not know the
larger consequences of our intrusions.

If our desire is solely an array of different nutrients, we will have no
problem doing this. In fact, as one Ivy League biologist imagines, the
dream crop will be one that contains as many as possible of the 13
essential vitamins and 14 minerals required in our diet. It’s Wonder
Bread all over again, except that the fruit or vegetable itself will be
the vehicle to transport all those substances into our bodies.

But maybe it’s not desirable to turn lettuce, bananas and tomatoes into
fortified wonder foods. Individual plant species have evolved very
different qualities and substances that make them special. What makes
them healthful might be the unified and harmonious interplay of the
diverse substances each produces uniquely.

In contrast, the biotech wonder crops could lead to less food variety as
the food industry focuses on production of the “enhanced” versions of
major crops to capitalize on consumers’ assumption that “fortified” food
must be better food. And on the path toward ever-greater “enrichment” of
lettuce or bananas, no one will know what is getting lost.

There’s no need for such super foods. For enriching the diet of people
in all parts of the globe, we should look to the bountiful and
nutritious variety of foods we already have.

* * * * *
Craig Holdrege, biologist and director of The Nature Institute in Ghent,
N.Y., is the author of “Genetics and the Manipulation of Life: The
Forgotten Factor of Context.” For more information about the Institute’s
work, email info@natureinstitute.org or visit www.natureinstitute.org.
Craig wrote this op-ed as a member of the Prairie Writers Circle, a
project of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas (www.landinstitute.org).
You may reproduce this op-ed; please include source information.

____________________________________________________________________

The Nature Institute
20 May Hill Road
Ghent, New York 12075
Tel: 518-672-0116; fax: 518-672-4270
info@natureinstitute.org
www.natureinstitute.org

DATE: March 18, 2004 03-04/40
RELEASE: Immediate

customer opposition to gm wheat growing

Winnipeg - Customers who buy 87 per cent of the wheat produced by western
Canadian farmers now require that the CWB provide guarantees the wheat is
not genetically modified (GM), Ken Ritter, chairman of the CWB's
farmer-controlled board of directors told farmers and industry reps
gathered for a meeting in Calgary today. This is up from 82 per cent just two
years ago.

"We're seeing increasing concern and opposition from our customers over
the introduction of GM wheat," Ritter said. "As a farmer, what concerns me
the most is that the markets resistant to GM wheat include all of the markets
where the CWB usually achieves a premium."

The loss of these markets would have a disproportionate impact on farmers'
incomes, Ritter said. "We've all witnessed the devastation a single case
of BSE has caused in Canada's beef industry. The introduction of GM wheat
could cause similar devastation in our wheat industry," he said.

Ritter noted that customers in the CWB's top 10 highest volume markets for
Canada Western Red Spring wheat in 2002-03 all required a non-GM
guarantee, including the domestic market, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy,
Indonesia and Malaysia. A list of the countries who bought CWRS in
2002-03, including those countries in which customers required non-GM
certification, is attached.

There are no genetically modified varieties of wheat or barley approved or
registered for commercial production in Canada. Monsanto submitted
applications for the approval of its Roundup Ready GM wheat variety in
2002. Under Canada's current regulatory system, a
GM variety can be approved for unconfined release and registered for
commercial production if it meets criteria for food, feed and environmental safety as
well as agronomic quality.

The CWB has called on the federal government to include a cost-benefit
analysis prior to the unconfined release of a new genetically modified
wheat variety, a call which Ritter renewed. "Farmers need to know their
interests are included in any regulatory approval process," he said. "We need to
see this fourth safeguard added to the decision-making process. Our
livelihoods depend on it."

Controlled by western Canadian farmers, the CWB is the largest wheat and
barley marketer in the world. As one of Canada's biggest exporters, the
Winnipeg-based organization sells grain to more than 70 countries and
returns all sales revenue, less marketing costs, to Prairie farmers.

For more information, contact
Louise Waldman
Manager, Media Relations
Tel: (204) 983-3101
Cell: (204) 299-8398

Nadège Adam, biotech campaigner | Council of Canadians
502-151 Slater, Ottawa, ON K1P 5H3 | p 613.233.4487, ext. 245 | f
613.233.6776 | nadam@canadians.org

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 22, 2004

1 million Japanese say no to GE wheat

WINNIPEG - A coalition of Japanese consumer and food industry groups declared today that Japanese consumers will not buy wheat from Canada if it introduces genetically engineered (GE) wheat.

The Japanese coalition will present a petition to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Bob Speller. Signed by over 410 consumer groups and food manufacturing companies representing over 1,000,000 Japanese, the petition expresses concern over the potential introduction of GE wheat in North America.

"For us, wheat is our staple food after rice, and it appears on our kitchen tables at almost every meal in the form of noodles, bread, desserts and so on," says Keisuke Amagasa of the No! GMO Campaign, a Japanese association of consumers, producers, and distributors.

"Japan is almost entirely dependant on North America, specifically Canada, for our wheat. But Japanese consumers will not buy or eat foods that are genetically engineered, so if Canada's wheat is engineered or could be contaminated by engineered products, we will have to look elsewhere to meet our needs."

Japan is the largest foreign buyer of Canadian wheat, purchasing an average of 1Mt of our famed Canada Western Red Spring wheat each year.

"The Japanese are telling us that we will lose their business if we introduce Monsanto's GE wheat. And Japan is not alone; figures from the Canadian Wheat Board show that 87% of Canada's wheat customers will refuse to buy GE wheat," says Nad=E8ge Adam of the Council of Canadians, an NGO that is assisting the Japanese coalition in making its voice heard in Canada

"The Canadian government must realize that GE wheat is a market destroyer. Its introduction would leave Canadian farmers unable to sell one of their most profitable exports, and cripple the communities that rely on its production for their survival."

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is currently reviewing an application from Monsanto for the release of Roundup Ready (GE) wheat in Canada. Canadian consumers, farmers, and food industry representatives have expressed grave concerns over the potential impact of government approval of the controversial GE wheat. Now foreign customers are joining the increasingly large group of dissenters, calling on Canada to deny Monsanto's application.

"We simply cannot understand why Canada would risk jeopardizing the strong relationship between the producers and consumers of our respective countries," says Keisuke Amagasa. "We hope that our petition will impress upon them the serious repercussions of this decision."

After meeting with Canadian government officials, the Japanese delegation will travel to the United States to present a similar
petition to American officials.

For more information, please contact:
Laura Sewell, Media Officer, Council of Canadians: 613.233.4487 ext 234;
613.795.8685 (cell); lsewell@canadians.org
mailto:lsewell@canadians.org; www.canadians.org
http://www.canadians.org

Japanese consumers tell Canada to stop GM wheat
Mon March 22, 2004 01:38 PM ET

By Roberta Rampton
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, March 22 (Reuters) - Japan will stop buying Canadian
wheat if Canada approves a variety of genetically modified wheat, a
delegation of Japanese consumer groups warned on Monday.
Bearing a petition signed by 414 Japanese organizations and companies, and
saying that they represent more than 1.1 million people, the activists said
they wanted to take their message to Canadian politicians in person.
" We will reject GM wheat," said Keisuke Amagasa of the No! GMO Campaign. "If
GM wheat is approved and commercial planting begins here, we will take
action to prevent the import of wheat from Canada."
Japanese consumers are worried that biotech crops have not had enough
testing to prove they are safe, Amagasa said.
Japan is one of Canada's biggest wheat markets, buying an average of 1.3
million tonnes a year.
Genetically modified wheat is not yet grown commercially, but Canadian and
U.S. regulators for more than a year have been reviewing safety data for a
variety developed by Monsanto Co. (MON.N: Quote, Profile, Research)
The wheat has been altered so it can withstand Roundup, a Monsanto
herbicide. Regulators have not said how long their review will take.
The Canadian Wheat Board, which has a monopoly on most of Canada's wheat
crop, has said government approvals would put most of its markets in
jeopardy.
But Monsanto has promised it will wait to commercialize its wheat until it
can keep it segregated from traditional grain and find customers who will
buy it.
It has also promised it will not commercialize the wheat until regulators in
the United States and Japan have also approved it.
" We recognize that there will be buyers who show a preference for
non-biotech wheat," said Trish Jordan, a spokeswoman for Monsanto Canada.
" So what we're trying to do ... is to set up a system that maintains choice
for all buyers," she said.
The company has made its final submissions of regulatory data in Canada and
the United States. It has also submitted preliminary safety data to Japan
and several other countries, Jordan said.
" Even though we're a long way away from commercial introduction, there
should be no reason why Japan cannot continue to buy Canadian wheat," Jordan
said.
The Japanese delegates said millers had told them it would be too difficult
and expensive to segregate GM wheat from traditional wheat.
" Millers have therefore said that unless Japanese consumers ... accept
(genetically modified) wheat, they will not be able to sell it," said Koga
Masaka of Consumers Union of Japan.
The delegates planned to take their petition to Ottawa on Tuesday and then
to state legislatures in Montana and North Dakota later in the week.

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Agence France Presse
March 25, 2004
Resistance in Canada to GM wheat hots up

BY STEPHANIE PERTUISET

Canada's resistance to growing genetically modified wheat is intensifying, with the nation's wheat export agency, ecologists and many growers warning of a "terrible disaster" for the nation's agricultural industry.

"The greatest threat to wheat farming isn't hail or drought," reads an ad run this week in a number of Canadian newspapers. "It's Roundup Ready Wheat."

The accusation comes from the ecology group Greenpeace, allied with three agricultural groups.

Roundup Ready, a new variety of wheat genetically modified to make it more resistant to herbicides, was developed by the agrochemical giant Monsanto.

Monsanto hopes in the near future to see its modified wheat growing across Canada's vast prairies, but must first, as is the case with all new biotechnology, get the green light from Canadian health authorities.

At the end of 2002, Monsanto submitted a request for approval to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and is still awaiting a reply.

In the meantime, the company has passed an initial stage of the process, winning approval in 2000 to sow Roundup Ready for trial purposes in fields and confined spaces far from other crops.

Aware that more and more consumers abroad do not want genetically modified foods on their tables, the semi-governmental Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), which holds a monopoly on wheat exports from western Canada, views Roundup Ready as a weed to be banished.

Armed with statistics, the CWB has warned its 85,000 member farmers of the potential danger of genetically modified wheat for the health of an industry that represents 20 percent of sales on the world market.

The CWB says consumers from countries demanding guarantees no GM organism is present in wheat amount to 87 percent of those who buy Canadian wheat.

Those countries include Japan, which buys a million ton of Canadian wheat per year, Mexico, Britain and Italy.

"We've all witnessed the devastation a single case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) has caused in Canada's beef industry," CWB administrative board chief Ken Ritter told farm representatives.

"The introduction of GM wheat could cause similar devastation in our wheat industry," he warned.

The Council of Canadians, a non-government organization, this week hosted a group of Japanese activists who presented a petition to the Canadian government urging it not to allow the introduction of GM wheat.

Japanese consumers, they said, would bypass Canadian wheat if there was any risk it was contaminated with GM organisms.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesman Alain Charette said this week that examination of Monsanto's proposal for Roundup Ready was still incomplete.

"Our role is to determine whether a risk exists or not for the environment," said Charette, noting Canadian health authorities had no deadline to decide on Monsanto's application.

Canada produces six percent of the world's GM crops, including soya and corn, making it the world's third largest GM crop producer, though well behind the United States, the world's number one, and Argentina.

3/25/2004
NAWG: Biotech Meeting Underscores Need for Grower Engagement
From Pro Farmer
Julianne Johnston

National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) President Mark Gage will participate in a meeting today with several Japanese visitors to the United States who come to discuss biotechnology applications in wheat.

"Our organization is committed to having these sorts of discussions with our customers, both here at home and overseas, to bridge the gap between consumer confidence and the broad array of benefits that biotechnology can bring to wheat," said Gage. "We welcome opportunities like this one to share why we're supportive of biotechnology, and to understand and address the concerns of our customers. One of the strengths of the U.S. grain system is that it will deliver what the customer specifies. Fundamental to our policy on biotechnology is the principle of customer choice."

He added, "There is broad understanding among producers and in the food chain about the safety and benefits of biotechnology," he said. "But we simply must engage the issue of market acceptance if we are to capture those benefits to society, the environment, producers and customers. We must address and answer the concerns of everyone in the food chain before we can successfully adopt this technology."

Gage continued, "We stand today on the threshold of traits that can bring us improved disease resistance, drought tolerance, reduced pesticide applications and reduced soil erosion, and it's time that wheat growers begin to tell the story. With that package of positives for the environment, it's hard for me to understand how someone can oppose this new variety improvement tool for environmental reasons."

Gage noted that to bridge this gap, wheat producers must collaboratively develop and implement a strategy to answer the concerns of customers and communicate the compelling case in favor of this new tool to improve wheat varieties.
" The path forward must be comprehensive and inclusive up and down the food chain," he said. "It must be based on sound science and safety, and coordinate both domestic and international components. It must include production, handling, transportation, marketing, processing, end-use applications, environmental and consumer perspectives. This effort is being developed, and there is an urgent need to get it implemented immediately."

"If we as growers fail to engage, we cede the debate and the future of our industry to anti-technology activists who are spreading their message of fear, and have neither producer nor consumer interests at heart. That outcome would be bad news for the wheat industry, and for our customers too," he said.

JOHNON: NORTH DAKOTANS HEAR JAPANESE CONCERNS ON GMO WHEAT
Friday, March 26, 2004 at 3:00 PM

BISMARCK -Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson says that Japanese concerns about genetically modified wheat must carry great weight with North Dakota producers and policymakers because Japan is the leading buyer of North Dakota wheat.

"Japan buys 50 million bushels of North Dakota hard red spring wheat every year - that's 20 percent of our export market," Johnson said. "We must continually remind ourselves that consumers drive the market and we must meet their demands. We must do everything possible to maintain and further develop the Japanese market."

Speaking to a delegation of Japanese consumer group representatives and North Dakota government officials, agricultural industry representatives and farmers Friday, Johnson emphasized that the recognition of consumer demands, coupled with sound science, must guide the development and use of genetically modified wheat in North Dakota.

"Sound science must be used in making determinations on the safety of using genetically modified organisms (GMO's) in food production," Johnson said.

The Japanese delegation, headed by Keisuke Amagasa of the "No! GMO Campaign," asked Johnson to arrange and moderate the meeting with the U.S. officials and farmers. The Japanese presented Johnson with petitions, which they said were signed by more than 414 Japanese organizations and companies, representing more than 1.1 million people. The petitions called for North Dakota to reject the application of Monsanto Corp. for the introduction of its genetically-modified wheat. It is estimated that 30 percent of Japanese consumers are members of co-operatives or consumer unions expressing similar concerns.

The Japanese delegation also said they would discontinue buying North Dakota wheat if GMO wheat is commercialized in the state. Earlier this week, the same delegation told Manitoba officials and producers that Japan will stop buying Canadian wheat if Canada approves the genetically modified wheat.

Noting that many countries are currently conducting research on genetically modified crops, Johnson urged the Japanese visitors and others at the meeting to begin considering the kinds of national and international policies that will be needed to guide the introduction of these crops into the world marketplace.

Among the North Dakotans participating in the meeting were representatives of state and federal agencies, general farm organizations, commodity groups, organic producer organizations and university scientists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roundup wheat moves forward
Posted on Mon, Mar. 29, 2004

By Mikkel Pates
Agweek Staff Writer

FARGO, N.D. - Monsanto officials downplayed the prospect of any kind of new, U.S.-only commercialization of Roundup Ready wheat, but it was clearly on the minds of North Dakota scientists and officials at a March 25 meeting in Fargo, N.D.

Company officials helped organize and lead an annual research update/discussion at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

"It's just a good dialog to see where we're all at," says Duane Hauck, interim NDSU Extension Service director.

Through the past few years, Monsanto consistently has said it would commercialize the new genetically modified hard red spring wheat only when foreign export markets are ready for it and only simultaneously in the United States and Canada.

Two weeks ago, however, Monsanto officials raised eyebrows when they offered a statement to U.S. wheat leaders, reportedly opening the possibility of "alternative strategies" that would include a U.S-only approach because of Canadian opposition.

Kelly Fleming, Monsanto's commercial director for wheat, fielded pointed questions from some attending the meeting. She says the issue is "kind of a sexy subject" for media attention, but that the company's focus and its discussions with the wheat industry are more focused on pursuing market acceptance for the crop.

"Our (release) strategy hasn't changed, nor is it likely to change," Fleming says.

After the program, Ken Grafton, NDSU Agricultural Experiment Station director, repeated earlier statements in which NDSU opposes U.S.-only commercialization and commercialization should happen only after a thorough and current study of market implications. He notes, however, that NDSU has control only of its own GM varieties, and other states and private companies have developed varieties that could be used in North Dakota.

Much of the March 25 discussion centered around research progress involving varieties being developed by NDSU that include the Roundup Ready trait. Mohamed Mergoum, NDSU's hard red spring wheat breeder, discussed the westward expansion of tests in the western part of the state. He says that lines so far show equal or favorable yields and other agronomic characteristics when treated with conventional chemicals and compared with conventional varieties.

Trials in 2003 have started to use the Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide on the crop, and those tests will be expanded in 2004.

Bill Wilson, an NDSU ag economist, discussed preliminary results of an economic study of impacts of Roundup Ready wheat commercialization. Wilson's results disagree with a Canadian study that indicates the Canadian wheat industry could lose $1 billion to $2 billion in lost markets and increased fees if the crop is adopted. The Canadian Wheat Board says its 10 highest-volume customers all require a non-GM guarantee.

Wilson says the Canadian studies use 2- and 3-year-old data and don't account for new trials that show yield increases or production cost savings.

Wilson uses a 10 percent increase in yield, under Roundup Ready wheat, and a 66 percent adoption rate by farmers.

If both countries adopted the technology and it was fully accepted in the market, the benefit would be more than 500 million in the system, with more than $200 million a year in value going to the farmers.Wilson breaks the market into more segments by risk-aversion. He calculates that if both the United States and Canada adopt the technology at once, purchasers of non-GM wheat at a tolerance of 0.9 percent or less would pay an extra $6 per metric ton for the privilege. Those with zero tolerance would pay $15 per ton more.

He says that nonadopting countries, such as the European Union and Japan, have tax structures that increase tax revenues and subsidies to their own producers.

"I think the companies (in those GM-averse countries) should be made aware of the likely disparity on prices of ingredients because they're going to be the first hurt," Wilson says.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Japanese consumer groups warned the United States last week that the country would reject U.S. wheat products if Monsanto Co. (MON.N: Quote, Profile, Research) releases a controversial genetically modified wheat variety.

Representatives of the Consumers Union of Japan, along with several other Japanese environmental and consumer groups, met Friday morning in North Dakota with state and federal agricultural leaders, presenting them with a petition signed by 414 Japanese organizations urging a rejection of biotech wheat.

The delegation was in North Dakota because the state is the top U.S. producer of hard red spring wheat, and is the planned U.S. launching pad for Monsanto's biotech wheat product. Japan is the No. 1 buyer of North Dakota's wheat, purchasing about 50 million bushels a year.

"The Japanese consumers will... certainly resist GM wheat or GM wheat products," Keisuke Amagasa, a representative of the No! GMO Campaign of Japan, said through a translator. "We would hope the people of North Dakota would also oppose the cultivation of Monsanto's Roundup Ready wheat."

Amagasa said flour and milling associations in Japan have said they won't import genetically modified wheat because of the negative consumer sentiment that has already successfully derailed some other biotech products.

The Japanese delegation said Japan would stop buying wheat altogether from the United States and would buy from competitors like Canada or Australia to avoid any risk of receiving biotech wheat.

Japan is only one of many countries that have expressed reservations on buying from the United States if biotech wheat is grown here.

North Dakota's agricultural leaders acknowledged the concerns Friday and said they were wrestling with how to comply with customers' desires while still pursuing the benefits they believe lie in biotechnology.

"Wheat is the largest crop we grow in this state," said North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson. "This represents a fundamental choice we have to make."

Monsanto is currently in the final phases of seeking regulatory approval of the world's first biotech wheat variety, which is engineered to tolerate weed-killing chemicals.

Final U.S. approval is expected by the fall of 2005 or spring of 2006, North Dakota Wheat Commission marketing specialist Judge Barth told the Japanese.

Monsanto did not attend the meeting Friday, but has said in the past that it will not release a biotech wheat product until there is sufficient market acceptance. It has also indicated that it may cease researching future biotech traits unless U.S. wheat growers embrace this initial biotech wheat product.

Company officials had no immediate comment Friday.

Story by Carey Gillam

Story Date: 29/3/2004

1 million Japanese say no to GM wheat, but NAWG still aims to persuade them on its merits

(Friday, March 26, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- A coalition of Japanese and food industry groups is in North Dakota today to give to Roger Johnson, the state agriculture commissioner, and state agriculture groups a petition declaring that Japanese consumers would not buy wheat from the United States if it introduces genetically modified (GM) wheat.

Signed by over 400 consumer groups and food manufacturing companies, the petition represents over 1,000,000 Japanese who are concerned about the potential introduction of GM wheat in North America.

Japan is the largest foreign importer of US wheat, purchasing, on average, 3 million tons of wheat a year. This includes 1.3 million tons of Hard Red Spring wheat from Northern Plains states.

The US Department of Agriculture is currently reviewing Monsanto’s recently resubmitted application for Roundup Ready wheat deregulation. Deregulation is the last hurdle to Monsanto’s commercial introduction of their wheat.

Meanwhile, even though very few wheat eaters want genetically engineered wheat, National Association of Wheat Growers had the following to say in an AgWeb.com story yesterday:

From Pro Farmer
Julianne Johnston

“Our organization is committed to having these sorts of discussions with our customers, both here at home and overseas, to bridge the gap between consumer confidence and the broad array of benefits that biotechnology can bring to wheat,” said Gage. “We welcome opportunities like this one to share why we’re supportive of biotechnology, and to understand and address the concerns of our customers. One of the strengths of the U.S. grain system is that it will deliver what the customer specifies. Fundamental to our policy on biotechnology is the principle of customer choice.”

He added, “There is broad understanding among producers and in the food chain about the safety and benefits of biotechnology,” he said. “But we simply must engage the issue of market acceptance if we are to capture those benefits to society, the environment, producers and customers. We must address and answer the concerns of everyone in the food chain before we can successfully adopt this technology.”

Gage continued, “We stand today on the threshold of traits that can bring us improved disease resistance, drought tolerance, reduced pesticide applications and reduced soil erosion, and it’s time that wheat growers begin to tell the story. With that package of positives for the environment, it’s hard for me to understand how someone can oppose this new variety improvement tool for environmental reasons.”

“The path forward must be comprehensive and inclusive up and down the food chain,” he said. “It must be based on sound science and safety, and coordinate both domestic and international components. It must include production, handling, transportation, marketing, processing, end-use applications, environmental and consumer perspectives. This effort is being developed, and there is an urgent need to get it implemented immediately.”

“If we as growers fail to engage, we cede the debate and the future of our industry to anti-technology activists who are spreading their message of fear, and have neither producer nor consumer interests at heart. That outcome would be bad news for the wheat industry, and for our customers too," he said.

Source: http://www.agweb.com/news_show_news_article.asp?file=AgNewsArticle_2004325853_5912&articleid=107083&newscat=GN

Japanese urge no GM wheat in N.D.

By Mikkel Pates
Agweek Staff Writer

BISMARCK, N.D. - Several anti-GMO Japanese consumer and food organizations leaders met with North Dakota ag officials March 26 in Bismarck, N.D., to ask them to oppose commercialization of genetically modified wheat.

"Please do not produce it; please do not sell it to Japanese people," said Keisuke Amagasa, who heads Japan's "No! GMO Campaign."

Amagasa and four colleagues delivered a petition of 414 names of organization leaders, which he says represent some

1.2 million consumers opposed to GM wheat importation. The consumer group's visit followed a similar one in Canada earlier in the week. It was "perhaps the first time Japanese consumers have been able to bring their case directly" to the U.S. industry on the topic, Amagasa says.

He has no official standing with the Japanese government, but claims he represents major constituent groups, including so-called "consumer co-ops" that involve some 30 percent of Japanese households. The delegation warned that if any GM wheat is grown in North Dakota, it would foster an "untrustworthiness" of the state's wheat and likely would reduce the amount they're willing to pay for wheat grown in North Dakota, as opposed to other areas that would be GM-free.

Amagasa says 90 percent of Japanese consumers in surveys say they don't want to consume genetically modified food. He says they are "split" on where they get their food safety information. He says they listen to both U.S. science, which accepts GM food as safe, and European Union science, which tends not to.

"Food safety concerns about GM food have not been convincingly established," Amagasa says.

He says 30 Japanese products already are labeled for genetically modified content. If GM wheat is commercialized, it will show up on labels under current laws.

He acknowledges that GM corn and soybeans currently are imported, but that they are used either for animal feed or processed as oils so that the GM proteins aren't identifiable or on the label. He says all soybeans imported for human food products such as tofu are non-GM. Amagasa says that major human food processors in Japan say that if their own farmers produce GM soybeans, they will not handle it.

Genetically modified wheat is controversial for several reasons. Companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont own traits that are created by genetic modifications - pulling genes from one species and placing them in another to create a desired trait. One of the most popular traits for farmers is the Roundup Ready traits in which crops can thrive in the presence of glyphosate, a weedkiller.

Consumers in key markets - chiefly Japan and the European Union - have balked at the products. Many U.S. wheat farmers and wheat marketers fear that if the United States adopts GM crops, that Canada and Australia will step in to fill markets with non-GM crops.

Asia and Europe represent 75 percent of the export markets for the region's hard red spring wheat exports. Japan alone represents 20 percent of the total U.S. exports of dark northern spring wheat, the kind grown primarily in North Dakota and Montana.

The meeting, held at the Capitol in Bismarck, was an unprecedented discussion between a foreign consumer group and state industry officials.

It started with a contact between the Japanese groups and the Dakota Resource Council, a rural advocacy group. DRC officials later said they didn't request the visit, nor did they or the Western Organization of Resource Councils, with which they're affiliated, pay for the trip.

Wayne Fisher, a DRC member and wheat farmer, told the Japanese that his group shares their concern that they be allowed a choice - to grow non-GM wheat if they want to.

Commissioner of Agriculture Roger Johnson agreed to host the meeting, after consulting with the U.S. Wheat Associates, the industry's international marketing arm. Monsanto officials were invited but declined to attend.

Among those at the meeting were officials from North Dakota State University, which conducts research on GM crops, and the North Dakota Grain Growers, which has been promoting benefits of biotech wheat. They say North Dakota could lose 1 million acres of wheat production in 2004 as farmers turn to more profitable crops, including Roundup Ready soybeans.

Johnson says it is commonly believed that GM wheat will be commercialized somewhere in the world and asked the Japanese if they would accept establishment of tolerance levels for their market. Amagasa says the Japanese government allows importation of up to 5 percent tolerance on GM soybeans, but consumers only accept 1 percent contamination.

"If it is not grown in the U.S., we think there is a good possibility it would not be planted at all," Amagasa says.

He says that if the crop isn't grown, it won't have to be segregated. Amagasa says if North Dakota plants GM wheat, the Japanese flour miller's association says it will respect consumer wishes. The Japanese likely will go to other suppliers - Canada, Australia, the European Union and domestic production. They would be willing to pay more for it, but Japanese wheat consumption would go down and rice consumption would go up.

Neal Fisher, administrator of the North Dakota Wheat Commission, says customer needs and preferences are important, but at the same time, biotech promises to deliver consumer and producer benefits as the technology unfolds.

Biotech wheats on the horizon would have certain health and nutrition traits, including extending shelf life. Ironically, one of the potential varieties would be for people allergic to wheat gluten products - one of the Japanese people's concerns. Japanese schoolchildren eat wheat product servings an average of 2.3 times a week, and a third of Japanese children are "allergic to something" already, Amagasa says.

Leland "Judge" Barth of the North Dakota Wheat Commission notes that Monsanto is working through governmental approvals for Roundup Ready wheat - fall 2004 or spring 2005 for the Environmental Protection Agency; same for the Food and Drug Administration; and the fall of 2005 or spring of 2006 for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Plant Health Inspection Service.

"The final test is consumer concerns," Barth says.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., says the U.S. government currently states plainly that no transgenic wheat is in production.

"We do not intend to make a change in this policy until international preference" allows it, Pomeroy says.

March 30, 2004

Angola's Plan to Turn Away Altered Food Imperils Aid
By MICHAEL WINE

JOHANNESBURG, March 29 - A United Nations effort to feed nearly two million
hungry Angolans, most of them former war refugees, is imperiled because
Angola's government plans to outlaw imports of genetically modified cereals,
officials of the World Food Program here said Monday.

Most food assistance from the United States, which at last count provided
more than three-quarters of United Nations aid to Angola, consists of
genetically modified corn and other crops that apparently would be barred
under the new rules.

That includes 19,000 tons of genetically modified American corn now bound
for an Angolan port. The corn - roughly a month's supply for the United
Nations feeding program in Angola - must be cleared for unloading by
Wednesday, said Mike Sackett, the World Food Program's director for southern
Africa.

It remains unclear whether the new ban on genetically modified foods, issued
March 17 but not yet formally put into effect, will prevent the unloading of
the shipment, Mr. Sackett said.

Angola follows four drought-stricken southern Africa nations - Zimbabwe,
Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique - in refusing foreign donations of certain
genetically modified foods despite widespread malnutrition and even
starvation among their citizens.

Zambia has barred genetically modified foods outright, saying their safety
is unproven. Other nations, including Angola, are insisting that cereals and
seeds be milled first so that they cannot germinate in local soils and
therefore potentially alter the genetic makeup of local crops.

The United States, which provides well over half the food aid in southern
Africa and the vast bulk of genetically modified foods, has accused
governments of placing political and theoretical concerns above the survival
of their own people.

Both the United Nations and the Americans have sidestepped the bans
elsewhere by milling grains before they are delivered to needy nations, a
costly process that reduces the amount of food donated.

Angola's case is unusual, Mr. Sackett said Monday, because the suddenness of
the government's prohibition leaves no time to mill grain intended for
Angola before it is shipped. Mills are so scarce inside Angola that it would
take 11 weeks, using every mill in the nation, just to grind the 19,000-ton
shipment of American corn now under way.

Furthermore, international relief donations to Angola are dwindling because
the government is widely perceived as deeply corrupt - awash in oil revenues
that it refuses to spend to feed its own people.

Angola is second only to Nigeria among Africa's oil-producing states. But
the watchdog group Human Rights Watch charged in January that from 1997 to
2002 alone, $4.2 billion in oil money - one-fourth of the total - was
unaccounted for.

The World Food Program feeds 1.9 million Angolans, or about one in eight.
About 1.5 million of that total are former war refugees trying to resume
their prewar lives.

Export trade fear shrinks GM crop trials
By Stephanie Peatling, Environment Reporter
April 2, 2004

An application to run Australia's largest trial of genetically modified canola has been significantly watered down by the State Government, but NSW will still have more research fields than anywhere else in the country.

The Agriculture Minister, Ian Macdonald, rejected the advice of his expert advisory council, which had recommended a 3000-hectare trial, after the Australian Wheat Board raised strong concerns that a trial might risk its export markets.

Mr Macdonald will now allow only three small trials, covering 420 hectares; trials in other states are limited to one hectare.

"By taking a cautious, staged approach, NSW is neither ruling out the potential of this technology nor jumping in without more science to guide us," Mr Macdonald said yesterday.

The managing director of the wheat board, Andrew Lindbergh, said this week that the board would not support the application by Monsanto and Bayer if the crops from the trials were to be sold. Markets such as the Middle East and Japan were concerned about potential contamination.

The board's representative on the advisory council is understood to have abstained from voting on the trial application.

A Monsanto spokesman, Mark Buckingham, said the company was "very disappointed".

Claude Gauchat, the executive director of the industry lobby group Avcare, which represents Monsanto and Bayer, said the Government had failed the majority of farmers.

"This staged approach will only delay good decision-making in time for Australia to capture the benefits of this technology and compete on a level playing field," Mr Gauchat said.

The Greens MP Ian Cohen said NSW would become known as the state that introduced GM food crops into Australia.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/01/1080544629490.html

Argentina's bitter harvest
New Scientist, 17 April 2004

When genetically modified soya came on the scene it seemed like a
heaven-sent solution to Argentina's agricultural problems. Now soya is being
blamed for an environmental crisis that is threatening the country's fragile
economic recovery. Sue Branford discovers how it all went wrong

A YEAR ago, Colonia Loma Senes was just another rural backwater in the north
of Argentina. But that was before the toxic cloud arrived. "The poison got
blown onto our plots and into our houses," recalls local farmer Sandoval
Filemon. "Straight away our eyes started smarting. The children's bare legs
came out in rashes." The following morning the village awoke to a scene of
desolation. "Almost all of our crops were badly damaged. I couldn't believe
my eyes," says Sandoval's wife, Eugenia. Over the next few days and weeks
chickens and pigs died, and sows and nanny goats gave birth to dead or
deformed young. Months later banana trees were deformed and stunted and were
still not bearing edible fruit.

The villagers quickly pointed the finger at a neighbouring farm whose
tenants were growing genetically modified soya, engineered to be resistant
to the herbicide glyphosate. A month later, agronomists from the nearby
National University of Formosa visited the scene and confirmed the
villagers' suspicions. The researchers concluded that the neighbouring
farmers, like thousands of others growing GM soya in Argentina, had been
forced to take drastic action against resistant weeds and had carelessly
drenched the land - and nearby Colonia Loma Senes - with a mixture of
powerful herbicides.

The villagers took their neighbours to court and won an order banning
further spraying. The judge also found the tenants guilty of "causing
considerable harm to crops and human health". But it was a pyrrhic victory.
In September, new tenants took over the land and started spraying again.
When challenged, the farmers said that the ban did not apply to them, which
was technically true.

Colonia Loma Senes is not an isolated case. Over the past eight years, GM
soya farmers have taken over a huge proportion of Argentina's arable land,
leading to regular complaints by peasant families that their crops have been
harmed by glyphosate and other herbicides.

"We really don't know how much damage is being done throughout the country,
because the authorities are not monitoring the situation properly," says
Walter Pengue, an agro-ecologist from the University of Buenos Aires who has
studied the impact of GM soya. But he predicts that such incidents will
become more common as a consequence of Argentina's rush into GM soya. And
other experts are warning of potential problems that include the emergence
of herbicide-resistant weeds and destruction of the soil's natural
micro-organisms.

GM technology is not entirely to blame for Argentina's agricultural woes.
Economic problems have also played their part. But the country's experience
with GM soya holds worrying lessons for the rest of the world, particularly
developing countries such as Brazil, the world's second largest soya
producer after the US. After refusing for years to authorise GM technology,
Brazil is now rethinking its policy. Farmers in the south have been
illegally planting GM soya smuggled over from Argentina, attracted by
reports of higher yields and lower production costs. This has left the
government with little option but to accept the cultivation of GM soya as a
fait accompli. Last year it reluctantly gave temporary authorisation for the
sale of GM soya on the domestic market and is now debating the finer details
of permanent approval. Argentina's experience suggests that Brazil would do
well to opt for tight controls with rigorous environmental impact studies.

In 1997, Argentina became one of the first countries to authorise GM crops,
when Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya was introduced there and in the US. This
GM variety is resistant to glyphosate, which Monsanto sells under the trade
name Roundup. Argentina's farmers jumped at the new technology, which seemed
just what they needed to solve some of their most pressing problems. Since
the late 1980s, Argentina's largest and most fertile farming region, the
Pampas, had been suffering from serious soil erosion. About half of the 5
million hectares of the Pampas's core grain-producing region was suffering
severe erosion, according to the country's National Institute of
Agricultural Technology (INTA), and yields on these lands had fallen by at
least a third. To try and alleviate the problem, farmers were experimenting
with no-tilling - a system in which seed is sown directly on the land
without ploughing or any other form of cultivation. But with no ploughing,
weeds were starting to get out of control, and the farmers were at a loss as
to what to do.

Roundup Ready soya seemed a solution made in heaven. Farmers were able to
make the no-till system work because, instead of needing five or six
applications of various herbicides, they could spray only twice with
glyphosate at key moments in the season. What's more, the seed companies
made the move into Roundup Ready easy by supplying the seeds, machinery and
pesticides in a single convenient "technological package". The new
technology was also cheap. While farmers in the US paid a premium of at
least 35 per cent to plant GM varieties, Argentina had not at that time
signed an international patent agreement so Monsanto was able to charge only
a modest fee or risk being undercut by companies making generic copies of
its technology .

Driven by the world's apparently insatiable demand for soya to feed to
cattle, Argentinian farmers stampeded into soya, one of the few profitable
sectors in a depressed economy. Desperate to join in, urban investors rented
land from impoverished smallholders and turned it over to soya. Anta, the
farming group that did the damage to Colonia Loma Senes, benefited from such
schemes.

By 2002 almost half of Argentina's arable land -11.6 million hectares - was
planted with soya, almost all of it GM, compared with just 37,700 hectares
of soya in 1971. Soya moved beyond the Pampas into more environmentally
fragile areas, especially in the northern provinces of Chaco, Santiago del
Estero, Salta and Formosa. Not even Monsanto had imagined that the move into
Roundup Ready soya would be so rapid.

At first everything looked rosy. From 1997 to 2002 the area under soya
cultivation increased by 75 per cent and yields increased by 173 per cent.
In the early years there were also clear environmental benefits. Soil
erosion declined, thanks to the no-till method, and farmers moved from more
damaging herbicides to glyphosate, widely regarded as one of the least toxic
herbicides available.

Even when world soya prices started to decline as global supply increased,
Argentinian farmers continued to do well financially. Monsanto progressively
cut the price of Roundup and by 2001 it was selling at less than half its
1996 price. Overall, Argentina's farmers made a profit of about $5 billion
by adopting Roundup Ready soya.

Some years ago, however, a few agronomists started to sound alarm bells,
warning that the wholesale and unmonitored shift into Roundup Ready soya was
causing unforeseen problems. In a study published in 2001 by the Northwest
Science and Environmental Policy Center, a non-profit organisation in
Sandpoint, Idaho, agricultural economics consultant Charles Benbrook
reported that Roundup Ready soya growers in Argentina were using more than
twice as much herbicide as conventional soya farmers, largely because of
unexpected problems with tolerant weeds. He also found that they were
applying glyphosate more frequently than their US counterparts - 2.3 versus
1.3 applications a year. Saying that "history shows us that excessive
reliance on any single strategy of weed or insect management will fail in
the long run, in the face of ecological and genetic responses", he advised
Argentinian farmers to reduce their Roundup Ready acreage by as much as half
in order to cut glyphosate usage. If they did not, he warned, they would run
the risk of serious problems. Among his predictions were shifts in the
composition of weed species, the emergence of resistant superweeds, and
changes in soil microbiology.

The warning fell on deaf ears. Argentina's economy was in deep trouble, and
with soya now its main export earner the government was in no mood to
intervene. The area under Roundup Ready has continued to grow, and farmers
hurt by the collapse of Argentina's currency at the end of 2001 are
increasingly moving into soya monoculture, as other crops for the domestic
market have become unprofitable. Glyphosate use continues to rise. Pengue
estimates consumption reached 150 million litres in 2003, up from just 13.9
million litres in 1997.

Initially Pengue believed that with careful rotation of crops and adequate
controls over the way the herbicide was applied, the move to glyphosate
would benefit the environment. But he is now concerned that the unmonitored
use of this one herbicide is leading to the problems predicted by Benbrook.
In a study into the impact of Roundup Ready soya on weeds, Delma Faccini of
the National University of Rosario found that several previously uncommon
species of glyphosatetolerant weed had increased in abundance. In another
study, agronomists from INTA's office in Venado Tuerto, near Rosario, found
that farmers were having to use higher concentrations of glyphosate. For
now, the problem appears to be limited to the proliferation of weeds that
are naturally resistant, but some agronomists are warning that it is only a
matter of time before glyphosate resistance is transferred to other weed
species, turning them into superweeds.

The third problem that was predicted by Benbrook - changes in soil
microbiology - also appears to be happening. "Because so much herbicide is
being used, soil bacteria are declining and the soil is becoming inert,
which is inhibiting the usual process of decomposition," says agronomist
Adolfo Boy from the Grupo de Reflexion Rural, a group of agronomists opposed
to GM farming. "In some farms the dead vegetation even has to be brushed off
the land." He also believes that slugs, snails and fungi are moving into the
newly available ecological niche.

Similar problems are occurring to some extent in the US. According to Joe
Cummins, a geneticist from the University of Western Ontario in Canada,
studies of the impact of herbicides, particularly glyphosate, on soil
microbial communities have revealed increasing colonisation of the roots of
Roundup Ready soya with the fungus Fusarium in Midwestern fields.

Argentina's farmers are also having to deal with the proliferation of
" volunteer" soya, which sprouts from seeds dropped during harvest and which
cannot be eradicated with normal doses of glyphosate. This has created
marketing opportunities for other agrochemical companies such as Syngenta,
which has been placing adverts with the slogan "Soya is a weed" advising
farmers to use a mixture of paraquat and atrazine to eradicate volunteer
soya. Other companies, including Dow AgroSciences, are recommending mixing
glyphosate with other herbicides, such as metsulfuron and clopyralid.

Market forces

Not all scientists in Argentina are convinced that the farmers' problems
have been caused by heavy use of glyphosate, and others say that the
difficulties are not yet critical. "We are experiencing some problems of
tolerant weeds, but they are not on a large enough scale to affect overall
yields seriously or to jeopardise the future of soya farming," says Carlos
Senigalesi, director of investigative projects at INTA. He believes it is
the tendency for farmers to grow nothing but soya, rather than the
prevalence of GM strains, which is at the root of the problem. "Monoculture
is not good for the soils or for biodiversity and the government should be
encouraging farmers to return to crop rotation," Senigalesi says. "But here
everything is left to the market. Farmers have no proper guidance from the
authorities. There are no subsidies or minimum prices. I think we must be
the only country in the world where the authorities do not have a proper
plan for agriculture but leave everything to market forces."

For the first time however, INTA recently expressed concern. In a report
published in December it criticised "the disorderly process of agricultural
development", warning that if nothing was done, a decline in production was
inevitable and that the country's "stock of natural resources will suffer a
(possibly irreversible) degradation both in quantity and quality". It called
for changes in farming practices in the Pampas, saying that the combination
of no-till with soya monoculture was "not a sustainable alternative to crop
rotation farming". It also warned that, in the north, soya farming "is not
compatible with the sustainability of farming".

Monsanto's Argentinian headquarters has refused to comment directly on these
accusations. But the company has expressed concern about the situation,
saying it believes that crop rotation is more sustainable than monoculture.
It is also starting to suffer from the lack of government controls. In
January it unexpectedly halted sales of Roundup Ready soya, saying that
farmers were buying about half of their seeds on the black market and
depriving the company of royalties.

To Benbrook, this adds up to a very worrying outlook. "Argentina faces big
agronomic problems that it has neither the resources nor the expertise to
solve," he says. "The country has adopted GM technology more rapidly and
more radically than any other country in the world. It didn't take proper
safeguards to manage resistance and to protect the fertility of its soils.
Based on the current use of Roundup Ready, I don't think its agriculture is
sustainable for more than another couple of years."

Argentina used to be one of the world's major suppliers of food,
particularly wheat and beef. But the "soyarisation" of the economy, as the
Argentinians call it, has changed that.

About 150,000 small farmers have been driven off the land. Production of
many staples, including milk, rice, maize, potatoes and lentils, has fallen
sharply.

Many see Argentina's experience as a warning of what can happen when
production of a single commodity for the world market takes precedence over
concern for food security. When this commodity is produced in a system of
near monoculture, with the use of a new and relatively untested technology
provided by multinational companies, the vulnerability of the country is
compounded. As yet, few countries have opted for GM technology: the US and
Argentina together account for 84 per cent of the GM crops planted in the
world. But as others, including the UK, seem increasingly prepared to
authorise the commercial growing of GM crops, they may be well advised to
look to Argentina to see how it can go wrong.

Sue Branford is a freelance journalist specialising in Latin America

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Food industry dreads European labeling rules
By Bill Lambrecht

St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Sunday, Apr. 18 2004

They ease biotech exports but impose strict record keeping

WASHINGTON - The food industry is bracing for new European labeling and
tracking rules that could knock down export barriers to genetically modified
food but at the cost of changes in food-production and farming.

Fear of the new rules - which take effect Sunday - is so widespread that
leading American farm and food groups are pressing the government to
challenge their validity in the World Trade Organization.

The stakes are especially high in St. Louis, headquarters of the American
Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association and Monsanto Co.,
the world leader in plant biotechnology.

The European rules represent a stark divergence from practices in the United
States, where the government and industry have fought to prevent labeling
genetically modified products along with requirements to track their
shipment.

But in return for abiding by their rules, the Europeans are promising to
lift a moratorium on approvals of many new, American-bred biotech products
that were banned six years ago.

That would be hugely welcome news for Monsanto and its rivals in the
biotechnology industry were it not for concern about the looming rules for
labeling.

They require European retailers to inform consumers if even a tiny portion
(0.9 percent) of their food has ingredients that come from genetically
modified plants. Even sacks of engineered grain fed to animals in Europe
must bear labels.

In order to avoid the stigma of labels, food companies could choose to
reformulate products to assure that they contain no genetically engineered
ingredients whatsoever.

That would be especially troublesome to the soybean farmers in the United
States, where the crop is now more than 80 percent genetically modified.
Soybeans are used in a wide variety of processed foods but companies might
substitute palm oil or the equivalent for soybean oil.

American soybean farmers already have lost one-quarter of their European
market - valued at more than $200 million - in two years in part because of
the furor over biotechnology.

David Hegwood, trade adviser in the U.S. Agriculture Department, said he
worries that some food companies may simply choose to relocate in Europe to
avoid burdensome export rules.

"We think this is a lousy way to accomplish what they are trying to
accomplish," he said.

Farmer obligations

The loss of markets is just one of the worries.

Accompanying the labeling rules are new documentation requirements for
genetically modified products that will require record keeping from farms to
grocery shelves.

American farmers hoping to export engineered corn will need to keep track
for five years of which seeds were planted in what field. Similar records
will need to be maintained at grain elevators and by rail, trucking and
barge lines as grain makes its way across the ocean.

The prospect of all that paperwork is daunting, said Hayden Milberg, the
director of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association in
Washington.

"The U.S. grain-handling system is just not set up for this level of
traceability. Such a system would be extremely expensive," he said.

The issue takes on even bigger significance because much of the world looks
to Europe for leadership in matters of food safety.

Since Europe's initial labeling regime was imposed five years ago, some
three dozen countries representing 20 of the top 25 American export markets
have adopted a labeling system, according to industry calculations.

In other words, rules written for the 15-country European Union - soon to
grow to 25 countries - could have an impact far beyond the European
continent.

"These rules are important for the entire global economy," said Karil
Kochenderfer, director of international trade for the Grocery Manufacturers
of America, the world's largest food association.

"These products are safe by every scientific measurement, but they are being
treated like hazardous waste. If we don't have the objectivity of science,
what do we rely on?" she asked.

Tony Van der Haegen, a European Union official in Washington, argued that
the traceability requirements are becoming common throughout the world as a
means to prevent bioterrorism and attacks on computer systems.

He asserted that the United States ought to understand that there are views
about food in the world other than those held by Americans.

"The problem of the United States is that it works under the motto that what
is good for Americans is good for the world. That is wrong, and that is why
the U.S. is losing big chunks of its export markets," he said.

European barriers

It didn't take long after the first shipments of Monsanto's Roundup Ready
soybeans arrived in Europe in 1996 for a backlash to begin.

Europeans long have paid more attention than Americans have to food, its
sources and its presentation. In the 1990s, the continent had been shaken by
a serious epidemic of mad cow disease, which produced spongelike holes in
the brain of animals and began afflicting humans.

Despite a loss of faith in the continent's regulatory apparatus, Monsanto
did little to prepare the European public for newly constituted food,
leading to the 1998 de facto embargo that remains in effect today.

Europe's new labeling rules were devised as a strategy to give consumers a
choice and to tamp down concerns about the safety of genetically modified
food and its impact on the environment. Greenpeace activists are planning to
fan out to European supermarkets to warn people about products carrying the
new labels.

Despite opposition, Van der Haegen predicted that by early June, Europe will
approve two biotech corn products - one a Monsanto variety - which he
interpreted as lifting the moratorium that has plagued the industry and cost
American corn farmers more than $1 billion in lost exports.

Tom McDermott, Monsanto's spokesman in Brussels, said he is hopeful that the
Europeans will live up to their promise to end the moratorium that is
blocking the approval of about a dozen Monsanto products both for import and
planting.

But McDermott said that Monsanto, like many others, is wary of the new
labeling rules.

"Besides requiring a lot of record keeping and extra work by the people who
handle these products, it will be very difficult to enforce and open the
door to confusion, possibly even to consumer fraud. People might not
represent truthfully what they have," he said.

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in Washington
and the author of a newly released book on the World Trade Organization,
sounded amused by the fretting.

"The industry has its knickers in a colossal knot about the most basic of
market freedoms - the consumer's right to know. It strikes me that there's
more going on here than worry about the cost of regulation. It has to do
with the fear of what consumers will do if fully informed," she said.

Signs of change

In November, 22 organizations representing much of the American food and
farm industry requested that the U.S. trade representative begin formal
proceedings in the World Trade Organization against the new rule, similar to
the challenge to the European Union moratorium last year.

If the World Trade Organization found that the new rules unfairly restrained
trade, Europe could be harshly penalized.

As of last week, the U.S. trade office had made no decision on challenging
the rules, and officials there did not respond to requests for comment.
Government officials have expressed fears in recent months of what they call
a growing "Europe-ization" of world attitudes against genetically modified
food.

But a U.S. official who monitors biotech issues said last week he believes
that the anti-biotech sentiments that gave rise to the new rules are
increasingly being questioned in developing countries.

Peter Chase, a State Department official who returned recently from a U.N.
global biotechnology forum in Chile, said he detected rising resentment
toward European-induced obstacles to agriculture biotechnology.

"Many people feel that the pendulum has swung too far and that some of the
questions that the Europeans keep asking aren't relevant to them," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
EU starts enforcing strictest rules on GM food labeling
Few products to reach the market as companies keep in mind consumers'
choices.

Food Ingredients First
19/04/2004

Countries in Europe have started enforcing the world's strictest rules on
labeling genetically modified foods. However, few such products are expected
to come to market as consumers continue to avoid these as "frankenfood."

Europe's biggest retailer, Paris-based Carrefour Group, said its own
research shows more than 75 percent of European consumers do not want
genetically modified foods.

Its own-brand products have been guaranteed biotech-free since 1999 and
other companies are "doing whatever's necessary to make sure their products
don't need to be labeled," a Carrefour spokeswoman said.

At the Di per Di supermarket in central Rome, manager Mario Greghi said it
would be "useless" to stock such items because they wouldn't sell.

Major supermarket chains in Sweden require suppliers to provide
documentation that products don't include genetically modified ingredients,
and big companies generally comply.

Foods with biotech ingredients already had labeling requirements in the EU.

But the new rules are tougher because they will include ingredients like
vegetable oils and other highly-refined products, such as soy lecithin,
where the genetically modified DNA or resulting protein is no longer present
or detectable in the final product.

The new threshold level is set at 0.9 percent, down from the current 1
percent.

Traceability rules adopted simultaneously require a paper trail "from the
farm to the fork" to deter cheating.

In preparation for the law coming into force, "a lot of food companies have
reformulated or found other supply chains" to avoid using the labels, said
Dominique Taeymans, director of scientific and regulatory affairs at the
European food and drink industry lobby, CIAA.

Food already on the shelves before today can still be sold without being
relabeled.

Supporters of the biotech industry, which had fought for less stringent
rules, expressed hope Friday that the implementation would clear the way --
as promised -- for the lifting of the EU`s 6-year-old moratorium on
approving new genetically engineered products.

But opponents pledged to keep up their campaign and were already pushing for
even tougher rules to require labels on any meat or dairy products from
animals that ate genetically modified feed.

The feed itself will have to be labeled under the new rules, but the EU
decided not to label meat or dairy because there was no scientific proof
that the altered material made it from the animal's stomach to the end
product.

Farm groups in the US -- the world's leading producer of genetically
engineered crops -- have opposed labeling, arguing it is unnecessary because
their products have been proven safe.

In the US, about 80 percent of the soy crop, half of the canola crop and 40
percent of the corn crop comes from genetically engineered seeds. As the
acreage has grown, Europe's markets have closed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
GM soya 'miracle' turns sour in Argentina

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Friday April 16, 2004
The Guardian

Seven years after GM soya was introduced to Argentina as an economic miracle
for poor farmers, researchers claim it is causing an environmental crisis,
damaging soil bacteria and allowing herbicide-resistant weeds to grow out of
control.

Soya has become the cash crop for half of Argentina's arable land, more than
11m hectares (27m acres), most situated on fragile pampas lands on the vast
plains. After Argentina's economic collapse, soya became a vital cash export
providing cattle feed for Europe and elsewhere.

Now researchers fear that the heavy reliance on one crop may bring economic
ruin.

The GM soya, grown and sold by Monsanto, is the company's great success
story. Programmed to be resistant to Roundup, Monsanto's patented glyphosate
herbicide, soya's production increased by 75% over five years to 2002 and
yields increased by 173%, raising £3bn profits for farmers hard-hit
financially.

However, a report in New Scientist magazine says that because of problems
with the crops, farmers are now using twice as much herbicide as in
conventional systems.

Soya is so successful it can be viewed as a weed itself: soya "volunteer"
plants, from seed split during harvesting, appear in the wrong place and at
the wrong time and need to be controlled with powerful herbicides since they
are already resistant to glyphosate.

The control of rogue soya has led to a number of disasters for neighbouring
small farmers who have lost their own crops and livestock to the drift of
herbicide spray.

So keen have big farmers been to cash in on the soya bonanza that 150,000
small farmers have been driven off the land so that more soya can be grown.
Production of many staples such as milk, rice, maize, potatoes and lentils
has fallen.

Monsanto says the crop is the victim of its own success. Colin Merritt,
Monsanto's biotechnology manager in Britain, said that any problems with GM
soya were to do with the crop as a monoculture, not because it was GM. "If
you grow any crop to the exclusion of any other you are bound to get
problems. What would be sensible would be to grow soya in rotation with corn
or some other crop so the ground and the environment have time to recover,"
he said.

One of the problems in Argentina is the rapid spread of weeds with natural
resistance to Roundup. Such weeds, say opponents of GM, could develop into a
generation of "superweeds" impossible to control. The chief of these is
equisetum, known as marestail or horsetail, a plant which rapidly chokes
fields of soya if not controlled.

But Mr Merritt said horsetail could be a troublesome weed in any crop. "I
reject the notion that this is a superweed or that it will confer genetic
resistance on other weeds and make them superweeds. It always has been a
troublesome weed."

The soya was originally welcomed in Argentina partly because it helped to
solve a problem of soil erosion on the pampas which had been caused by
ploughing. Soya is planted by direct drilling into the soil.

Adolfo Boy, a member of the Grupo de Reflexion Rural, a group opposed to GM,
said that the bacteria needed for breaking down vegetable matter so that the
soil was fertilised were being wiped out by excessive use of Roundup. The
soil was becoming inert, and so much so that dead weeds did not rot, he told
New Scientist.

Sue Mayer, of Genewatch in the UK, said: "These problems have been becoming
evident in Argentina for some time. It gives a lie to the claim that GM is
good for farmers in developing countries.

"It shows it's an intensive form of agriculture that needs to be tightly
controlled to prevent very undesirable environmental effects. It is not what
small farmers in developing countries need."

Information and awareness raising workshop on GMOs and the rights of local communities in Burkina Faso
http://www.grain.org/research/?id=3D84

Ouagadougou, 13-16 April 2004

GMO WORKSHOP STATEMENT
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
17 April 2004

From 13 to 16 April 2004, a workshop was organised in Ouagadougou by INADES - Formation, Agroecology Consultation Framework (CCAE) and the National Federation of Peasant Organisations (FENOP), with support from ACORD-Sahel and GRAIN, on the problem of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and community rights in Burkina Faso. The meeting brought together some 40 participants from NGOs and farmers' organisations. Just before the workshop, a round table was organised at the National Assembly in order to update parliamentarians on what is at stake.

This workshop aimed to inform and raise awareness about the issues surrounding GMOs -- organisms created in laboratories. To help meet this aim, a number of experts including Dr Robert Ali Brac de la Perri=E8re (BEDE/Inf'OGM, France), Dr Jeanne Zoundjih=E9kpon (GRAIN, B=E9nin), Soumayila Bance (Minister for the Environment and Quality of Life, Burkina), Bougnounou Ou=E9tain (retired researcher), J=E9r=E9mie Ouedraogo (INERA, Burkina), Devlin Kuyek (GRAIN, Canada), Anne Chetaille (GRET, France), Christophe Noisette (Inf'OGM, France) and Souleyman Coulibaly (IPM/FAO, Mali) provided background on the following points:

- GMOs: their definition, advantages and risks
- the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol
- what's at stake for agriculture in Burkina Faso and throughout Africa
- the African Union Model Law on biosafety
- GMO field trials

The debates and discussions inspired by these talks were very rewarding. The participants really understood the issues around GMOs and especially raised a lot of questions about field trials of GMOs in Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso bears the stigma of being the first West African country to have officially authorised, as of 2003, field trials of transgenic cotton belonging to Monsanto (Bt cotton) and Syngenta (VIP cotton). These experiments could spread to other countries in the region, and are therefore pioneers. The workshop participants are worried because these GM crops were released into the field without anyone being informed of the implications of transgenic plants and without Burkina having the necessary biosafety legislation in place. GMOs are extremely controversial worldwide, and questions about t=
heir safety and risks, both for the environment and for human health, are far from answered.

These field trials do not mean that Burkina Faso has authorised the commercial planting of GM crops by farmers. That decision has not yet been taken.

At the moment, directives to set up a national legislative framework on biosafety have been developed and are being processed by the government. The participants of the workshop hope that civil society will actively participa=
te in the discussion and adoption of this legislative framework.

Other legal instruments which caught the attention of the participants are the ratification by Burkina Faso of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1993 and the Biosafety Protocol in 2003. These two international treaties aim, on the one hand, to protect biological resources and, on the other hand, to set up safeguards against environmental and health risks from GMOs.
Both of them limit the scope for privatising and commercialising genetic resources, serving as counterweights to other treaties, such as those of the World Trade Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). For example in Africa, we have the Bangui Agreement, revised in 1999 with help from WIPO, which sets up a common system of intellectual property rights over plant varieties in 16 countries. It was ratified by Burkina Faso in June 2001. The Bangui Agreement does not protect the rights of farmers and local communities -- it facilitates the privatisation of life. So how do we manage these contradictions between the precautionary principle and a 'free market' principle? The workshop wrestled with these questions -- and the answers need to be found.

In relation to the Bt cotton field tests, the participants expressed their fears concerning both the socio-economic and environmental impacts.

Regarding the socio-economic impacts, the Bt cotton variety being field tested is from the US and the Bt gene that it carries is patented. Consequently, even if this gene was transferred into a local burkinab=E8 variety, farmers would not be able to grow it without paying royalties to the company holding the patent. The unfortunate experience of Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian canola farmer whose fields and varieties were contaminated by transgenic pollen from neighbouring farms, illustrates the worries in Burkina Faso. In Schmeiser's case, instead of being compensated for contamination, he was taken to court by the company holding the patent and sentenced to pay the intellectual property rights to Monsanto. The patents, which establish a legal straightjacket, are being used as weapons to subjugate farmers to agro-chemical companies.

Regarding the issue of yield, a film produced in India shows that farmers who grew Monsanto's 'Bollgard' Bt cotton in 2002 were let down: conventional varieties produced more and larger heads. Not only that, the conventional varieties gave a better fibre quality which fetched a better market price. Yet the Indian farmers were completely confused, because the price of the t
ransgenic seeds was so much higher. GRAIN indicated that the GM cotton variety being field tested in Burkina costs more than 50,000 CFA (US$90) per hectare, while cotton farmers in West Africa presently spend on average 37,000 CFA (US$67) for pesticides and the conventional cotton seeds are free. It is therefore evident that Bt cotton will not reduce poverty.

Even if this cotton did lead to lower pesticide use, and putting aside all other risks, doubts about the technology remain. The fact that it is US cotton that is being tested in Burkina doesn't achieve any real transfer of the transgenic technology, which is complex and expensive.

As for the environmental risks, one recurring concern expressed by the participants is the possibility that transgenic cotton contaminates related plants, of which there are many in the region. If local or wild varieties acquire the modified genes, they could become unmanageable and invasive 'super weeds'. Another risk of contamination is the likely end of organic agriculture, an approach to farming which categorically refuses GMOs. Finally, since insects and wind do not know boundaries, genetic pollution and seed exchange can cross national borders and spill into neighbouring countries, hence the urgent need to get a common biosafety framework in place. The AU Model Law on Biosafety can help in the harmonisation of national legislation. Participants actively encouraged their governments to adopt the Model Law.

The workshop participants also stressed that the growing of Bt crops, which produce their own insecticide, does not mean that farmers stop using insecticides. Bt cotton has self-defences against certain pests, but not all.

Is there an alternative to both pesticides and genetic engineering?

The participants learned about different agricultural methods, such as integrated pest management, which allow farmers to deal with pests in an ecological way. Among other solutions, it was proposed to give more value to the gene pool and agricultural heritage of West Africa. African fauna and flora is extremely rich. If public research would lend a hand, local biodiversit
y could fight malnutrition and assure food security. But this heritage is now being privatised by Western companies, as in the case of the yellow yam (Dioscorea dumetorum) which has been patented by the company Shaman Pharmaceuticals. Their patent (US 5019580) applies to the use of dioscoretine for the treatment of diabetics. How can we protect our collective rights to this heritage? How can we secure appropriate sharing of benefits, linked to its use?

In the end, the workshop came up with an action plan. The participants committed themselves to: inform a wide public using different methods (e.g. radio programmes, written articles, educational materials, etc.); take action to influence official bodies; contribute to the development of a national and regional network for the sharing of experiences and information; and help promote alternative technologies.

Finally, a group was created to work with Social Alerte Burkina which has already been engaged in raising awareness.

At the political level, the participants called on Burkina Faso to immediately vote for a moratorium on the use and commercialisation of GMOs, so that time can be devoted to informing the public and assessing all the risks related to GMOs.

-- The Participants

Dear Editor,

There was something about a Montana Grain Growers Association (MGGA) press
release printed on page 8 of the April 2 Agri-News (MGGA Disappointed With
Monsanto Decision) that bothered me, but it took a couple of days of
mulling it over before I understood why. It wasn't what was said, it was
what wasn't. The MGGA press release announced their objection to the
Monsanto Company's intention to release a genetically modified wheat strain
(Roundup Ready) in the United States but not Canada.

Canada will not allow introduction of genetically modified (GM) wheat in
their country. The MGGA is concerned that if the Roundup Ready wheat is
released in the United States and the Asian countries make good on their
threat to not buy wheat from countries that raise GM wheat, Canada will be
in a position to supply Asian markets with non-GM conventional wheat. What
bothers me is the MGGA's apparent willingness to allow Monsanto to
contaminate the world's wheat supply with genetically modified varieties ON
THE CONDITION that everyone's wheat is contaminated at the same time.

What a completely arrogant and shortsighted position on the part of the
MGGA! You would think that the people running the outfit would look at the
record and conclude that we should think before contaminating the wheat.
Already canola, corn, and soybeans have been contaminated with Monsanto's
GM varieties. The marketing and distribution system cannot segregate GM
from non-GM grains. The Starlink disaster alone has cost US corn farmers
billions in foreign sales. The wind has cross-pollinated all of the Canola
grown in North America with GM genes - a disaster for farmers who were
raising "organic" canola.

Why is Monsanto's right to contaminate the wheat more important to MGGA
than the right of "no-till" wheat farmers who will not be able to
chemically fallow fields once they become infested with "roundup ready"
wheat? Why is Monsanto more important than organic wheat farmers, who will
have great difficulty keeping stray GM wheat plants out of their fields?
Heck! What about consumers who don't want GM contaminated bread? Shouldn't
they have a say? It is not as though MGGA has a good record in the policies
they have supported. In fact the MGGA policy record is a long list of
disasters.

MGGA was behind the "Freedom to Farm" Bill which instead resulted in
" farming for free". That farm bill was supposed to make farming market
driven and take the government out of the farming business. The result is
that farmers are more dependent on subsidies than before and the government
never more in control of farming decisions. MGGA inspired farm policy on
previous farm bills was no more successful. Remember the notion that if
" we" forced grain prices low enough the rest of the world's farmers would
founder, and American farmers would have sole and prosperous access to the
worlds grain markets. How many US farmers and taxpayers' dollars did that
prize winning policy cost?

Given their record, I wonder why farmers still allow the MGGA to represent
them? But wheat farmers seem real quiet about the GM wheat issue and
Federal farm policy in general. At least the people raising cattle are
having a loud and sometimes rancorous debate about important issues
including market competition, beef imports, country of origin labeling,
meat inspection, etc. This is what democracy is all about. Wheat farmers
need to start discussing the important issues facing farming. They can't
assume that export markets and government subsidies will just be there for
them.

Sincerely yours,

Gilles Stockton
Grass Range, Mt. 59032

4/26/2004
Mississippi farmer gets big break from appeals court in Monsanto biotech
seed case
-------------------------------------------

Editor's note: Links to some of the other CropChoice news and commentary
items can be found following this story. -- RS

by Robert Schubert

CropChoice editor

(Tuesday, April 27, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- After losing to Monsanto in
federal district court in late 2002, Homan McFarling thought he'd have to
pay the company $780,000 for illegally saving and replanting its genetically
engineered soybean seed. However, a federal appeals court earlier this month
threw out the award for damages. The Mississippi farmer likely will end up
owing the company a fraction of the original amount. What's more, his lawyer
is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court on antitrust grounds.

"It's one thing to subsidize Monsanto, but why do farmers have to subsidize
the seed companies that have nothing to do with development of the
[transgenic] seed but are charging higher prices," says Tupelo, Miss.
attorney Jim Waide.

Neither Monsanto nor its counsel in the federal appeals case, Seth P. Waxman
of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, would comment on this story.

Monsanto v. McFarling

In 1998, Homan McFarling purchased and planted 1,000 bags of genetically
engineered RoundUp Ready soybean seed on his Mississippi farm. Two years
later, Monsanto sued the farmer in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Missouri, home turf for the St. Louis company, after tests
showed his saved seeds were RoundUp Ready.

RoundUp Ready soybeans are so named because they're engineered with a gene
conferring resistance to the glyphosate herbicide Monsanto makes and markets
under the tradename RoundUp.

A "Technology Agreement" is critical to marketing the seed. Monsanto
licenses the patented gene for glyphosate resistance, referred to as "the
435 patent," (Patent No. 5,633,435) to seed companies. They then integrate
the gene into their soybean seed lines. With those genes inside the cells,
the seeds themselves are now resistant to glyphosate, or RoundUp. They're
RoundUp Ready, and covered by "the 605 patent" (No. 5,352,605). Monsanto
charges seed companies, including its subsidiaries that control some 20
percent of this market, a "Technology Fee" as compensation for its
innovation.

The seed companies actually collect the tech fee from farmers buying the
RoundUp Ready seed -- the 1998 charge was $6.50 per 50-pound bag -- and then
forward it to Monsanto. In addition, they include a "Technology Agreement"
bearing the farmers' signatures. This contract licenses farmers to plant
the seed for one season, and disallows both seed saving and selling or
giving the seed to anyone for planting, research or breeding.

In federal district court, McFarling admitted saving 1,500 bushels of seed
harvested from the '98 crop and sowing it in 1999. Furthermore, he planted
3,075 bags of saved seed in 2000.

Monsanto argued that McFarling, by saving and replanting the seed, infringed
its '435 and '605 patents and breached the technology agreement, according
to this reporter's interpretation of the appeals court decision. The company
eventually sought a summary judgment against him for infringement of the
'605 patent only and breach of the technology agreement. The court granted
the request and ruled against McFarling's claims that Monsanto had:

violated the Plant Variety Protection Act, which permits the saving of
registered seed; misused the '435 patent covering the herbicide-resistant
gene by applying it to the entire germplasm, by which point the '605 patent
applies; violated patent exhaustion and first sale doctrines; and broken
federal antitrust laws.

Beyond the issue of liability, the court ultimately ordered McFarling to pay
Monsanto damages of $780,000.

McFarling appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,
which sided with the district court on all of the claims except the large
damage award -- 120 times the $6.50 technology fee McFarling paid for each
of the 1,000 bags of seed. The 120 multiplier that Monsanto has made
standard in its technology agreements for soybeans, corn and cotton, even
though they are different plants, did not reasonably predict the harm caused
by breaching of the agreement and it was not difficult to measure, according
to the decision. The appellate judges ordered the district court to
reconsider and recalculate. McFarling will end up paying about $10,000, says
his attorney, Jim Waide.

Monsanto's technology agreement, with the 120 multiplier, not only likely
breaks the law of every state, it also violates federal due process, which
limits punitive damages to 10 times actual damages, Waide says. Monsanto
" uses it [the 120 muliplier] to frighten farmers into settling rather than
fighting the company in court." He thinks Monsanto has used it to threaten
about 70 farmers into settlement instead of going to court.

Antitrust appeal?

The appeals court ruled that seed saving prohibitions in the technology
agreements are legal. In effect, farmers not only have to pay the fee, but
they also have to buy new, more expensive seed every year instead of using
saved seed, a longtime soybean farmer practice, Waide says. Approximately
200 soybean companies have agreements with Monsanto to sell the biotech seed
to farmers. "The effect of this is farmers are forced to subsidize the seed
companies that had nothing to do with developing the technology."

Waide, who represented McFarling in district court, told the appellate
judges that Monsanto included "a count of infringement under the '435
patent" covering the glyphosate-resistant gene in its complaint but did not
request "summary judgment on this count." He also argued that no court has
ruled on the validity of the patent, and so it was improper to assume its
validity. The court ruled against him and said he should have brought up
the issue in district court.

Were Waide to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, a spokesperson in
his office says he would likewise assume validity of the '435 patent and
then argue that Monsanto is tying the original technology for herbicide
resistance to the second generation seeds. In other words, the '435 and
'605 patents, referring to different products, are "tied." Farmers can't
buy one without the other. This is similar to the U.S. government's case
against Microsoft Corporation, which hinged on the claim that users of the
Windows computer operating system had to use the company's Internet Explorer
program, Waide says. -end-

Editor's note: McFarling is not challenging the validity of Monsanto's
patents, but Mitchell Scruggs is. He's denying the validity and
enforceability of all five patents under which Monsanto is suing him: '435,
'605, '938, '316 and '525. Scruggs has filed motions for summary judgment
asking the court to hold all five of these patents invalid, says his lawyer,
James Robertson. A hearing on these motions is slated for June 2-3, 2004 in
U.S. District Court in Greenville, South Carolina.

In July of 2002, Monsanto tried to amend its complaint to, in effect,
withdraw the '435 patent; the court denied the motion in January of 2003. On
December 8, 2003, Monsanto filed a Notice of Dismissal of the '435 patent,
the contents of which are "Under Seal" and cannot be disclosed, Robertson
says. He has filed a motion asking the district court to remove the seal so
that the contents of the notice can be made public and continues to oppose
Monsanto's withdrawal of the '435 patent from the case.

The case is set for trial in district court in Greenville on August 2, 2004.

Sources:

1. Decision, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Case
No. 03-1177, -1228; MONSANTO COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. HOMAN
MCFARLING, Defendant-Appellant

2. Interview, Jim Waide of Waide & Associates, counsel to Homan McFarling

3. Interview, James Robertson of Wise, Carter, Child and Caraway, counsel to
Mitchell Scruggs

To see the 2001 CropChoice story about Mitchell Scruggs, 'Mississippi farmer
fights for the right to save seed,' go to
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=285 . (Note: His lawyer at the
time was Jim Waide.)

Related stories:

Seed-saving subjects farmers to patent infringement suits...
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=2176

Monsanto vs Homan McFarling: Judge Clevenger understands...
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=1175

Monsanto sees opportunity in glyphosate resistant volunteers, part 2...
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=1299

Also on CropChoice:
Liability issue bogs down energy bill: Dan McGuire discusses energy issues,
GMOs and farm bill...
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?RecID=2538
Is the customer ever right at USDA?...
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?RecID=2536

Big governments take power from small ones in economic matters...
http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?RecID=2539

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EU Paves Way to End Five-Year Ban on New GM Foods

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union is expected to end soon a five-year ban on approvals of new genetically modified (GM) foods, paving the way for a biotech maize product to hit Europe's supermarket shelves.
The EU's trade partners, including the United States, have pressured the bloc to remove the ban, but many consumers are wary.

The opportunity to end the ban came after a Monday meeting of the EU's 15 agriculture ministers failed to break a long-standing deadlock on whether to approve a maize variety known as Bt-11, marketed by Swiss agrochemicals giant Syngenta .

The European Commission now has the legal power to rubberstamp a request for imports of Bt-11, although there is no formal time limit for the EU executive to act. Bt-11 maize would be for consumption from the can, not for growing in Europe's fields.

"We're now in business. The laws are in place and we can do this (authorize Bt-11) in such a way that consumers are protected," EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne said.

"It is therefore logical that we move ahead with pending authorizations," he told a news conference, adding that approval was likely in the next two months.

"It's difficult to predict exactly but I would imagine this will be before the Commission in late May or early June," Byrne said. "I don't expect any opposition."

The views of EU member states at the farm ministers' meeting were largely unchanged from a previous meeting on Bt-11 in December.

Two countries surprised observers by altering their positions: Italy, a known GM-skeptic, voted in favor, while Spain - which had previously backed an approval - abstained.

The last EU approval of any GM product was in October 1998 for a type of carnation. The last food product, a type of maize, was approved in April that year.

Syngenta welcomed the outcome of the ministers' meeting.

"We're looking forward to the EU process progressing in the interests of consumer choice and technological innovation," said Michael Stopford, Syngenta 's head of public affairs. "Of course, we're thoroughly convinced our product is safe," he told Reuters from Switzerland.

Six EU governments backed the proposal to authorize Bt-11: Ireland, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden.

France, Austria, Greece, Portugal, Denmark and Luxembourg all voted against, while Belgium, Spain and Germany abstained.

RIFTS OVER BIOTECH FOOD

The ending of the biotech ban is likely to be welcomed by the EU's top trading partners, such as the United States which, along with Argentina and Canada, has challenged the EU ban at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

But environmental groups oppose the lifting of the ban, citing safety concerns. Polls have also shown that most consumers are opposed to biotech foods in Europe - public opposition to GM produce is estimated at more than 70 percent.

"The Commission is politically isolated. They don't have the support of the population, which is overwhelmingly against GM food and they lack the support of a majority of member states," Friends of the Earth spokesman Geert Ritsema told Reuters.

The ban was triggered when a handful of EU countries said in 1998 they would refuse new GM authorizations until there were stricter laws on testing and labeling. U.S. farmers say the EU moratorium costs them millions of dollars a year in lost sales.

But the real battle for EU biotech policy, diplomats say, is when the bloc gives a green light to plant live GM crops. That will be the acid test of whether the moratorium is really over.

Story by Jeremy Smith

Story Date: 28/4/2004

Commentary: Who is responsible for the consequences of pollen drift?

Apr 27, 2004 10:45 AM

By Daryll Ray

The USDA's March 31 "Prospective Plantings" report shows the area to be planted in biotech crops increasing for corn, soybeans, and cotton. Biotech soybeans are projected to be planted on 86 percent of soybean acres in the U.S. this spring, up form 81 percent a year ago. Cotton biotech varieties are slated for an increase of 3 percentage points from 73 percent last year to 76 percent this season. For corn, the numbers are 46 percent for this spring up from 40 percent a year ago. In these three crops farmers are adopting the latest technology at a very fast rate.

On the other hand, wheat growers in North Dakota have expressed concern about the possible introduction of a GMO variety of wheat. Japanese millers recently told North Dakota agricultural leaders that they would stop buying U.S. wheat if Monsanto's plans to introduce a biotech variety of wheat go through. Japan is the largest market for North Dakota wheat.

The Japanese have threatened to seek other markets if necessary.

On March 2, 2004, the voters in Mendocino County, California voted to become the first county in the U.S. to ban the rowing of genetically altered plants and animals. Officials on Prince Edward Island, Canada have also considered becoming a GMO-free area. Organic producers are concerned that pollen from GMO crops will cross-pollinate with their traditional lines, thus from their perspective contaminating their genetic lines.

This raises the questions of responsibility and accountability. Who is responsible for the consequences of pollen drift?

Should the growers of GMO corn be held responsible if pollen from their fields drifts onto a field of Reid's Yellow Dent corn that is being grown as seed corn for organic producers? Corn that contains GMO material, even if it is inadvertently contaminated, cannot be sold as organic.

Another question that arises is whether or not the organic producer who finds GMO material in his corn is liable for paying a tech fee for that corn? After all, the GMO gene belongs to a chemical company with the right to prevent others from using or possessing it.

On the other hand, is it the responsibility of organic farmers to protect themselves from this contamination? It could be argued that pollen drift has been a fact of agricultural life since the domestication of crops and thus the growers of GMO crops have no greater responsibility than the growers of any other crops. If the growers of organic or other non-GMO crops are concerned about pollen drift is it their responsibility to come up with a solution that does not infringe on the rights of the producers of GMO crops to plant what ever they want?

Some would suggest that this problem is without precedent and the actions of Mendocino County and the North Dakota wheat farmers are an over-reaction. A reading of Earl W. Hayter's book, The Troubled Farmer, would suggest that there is nothing new in this controversy. We've been there and done that, only the last time the issue was not GMO seeds, it was the conflict between livestock and crop farming.

In England it was the responsibility of those farmers who produced livestock to enclose their animals in a legal fence.

And if they did not, they were held liable to damage done by their animals. When the settlers came to North America there were large areas of open range and forests available for grazing and it made more sense to enclose the cropland and allow the animals to roam freely than to try to fence in the range and forest land. As Hayter tells it, "This traditional system of fencing crops in and livestock out gave rise to incessant quarrels and feuds (p. 106)."

The responsibility to protect themselves from roaming animals imposed a considerable burden on crop farmers. They had to take on the cost of building and maintaining animal-proof fences. This would prove to be a serious challenge when it came to fencing out semi-wild hogs that could make their way under all but the strongest fences. As farming moved out into Illinois, the extension of crop farming was delayed due to the lack of suitable, accessible fencing materials.

Even for the crop farmer who did erect a fence, the recovery of damages from trespassing livestock were not certain. For one thing the aggrieved crop farmer had the burden of proving whose animal it was that destroyed his crop. And even if he could do that, he had to face the counter argument that his fence did not meet the requirements of the law. It would be argued that the fence was old and in disrepair and thus the livestock owner had no responsibility for any damage that might have been done.

Over time, as crops followed livestock onto the frontier, the number of crop farmers would begin to outnumber the livestock producers, and township by township ordinances began to be passed requiring livestock owners to fence their animals in.

At this point the story of Mendocino County begins to sound like a new verse being sung to an old tune. Two groups with seemingly equal claims to "rights" have begun what may be a long struggle to determine who is responsible for providing the fence.

Daryll E. Ray holds the Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy, Institute of Agriculture, University of Tennessee, and is the Director of UT's Agricultural Policy Analysis Center. Contact him by telephone at (865) 974-7407; Fax: (865) 974-7298; or or e-mail: dray@utk.edu. Daryll Ray's column is written with the research and assistance of Harwood D. Schaffer, research associate with APAC. To visit the APAC Web site, click on http://www.agpolicy.org.
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Sustaining the Northern Plains: Pie-making and building community
Janet Jacobson

Last week two friends and I got together to practice pie making. One friend is a 23 year old college senior, the other a middle aged mother of three, and me, the graying crone. We all have varying expertise and methods of pie making but decided we could all use some practice, sharing of techniques and--pies.

We assembled various ingredients: one of us prefers to use lard, another shortening and the third uses butter. We peeled apples, thawed out last year 92's rhubarb, pears and currants. We baked a little bread at the same time since the oven was hot and we were already covered with flour.

In a couple of hours we had turned out a half-dozen pies and had six loaves of bread baking.

The conversation which accompanied rolling pie crust and peeling apples covered more than the technical aspects of pastry making. Our talk moved from the best kind of apples for pies to growing apple trees. Our discussion of lard versus shortening or butter took a turn to the changing attitudes of nutritionists about the role of saturated fats and trans fatty acids in our diets. We talked about cheap food policies. We talked about children 92's tastes in food and how our eating habits change. As the pies baked we got to know each other even better.

Most of us are far too busy to bake pies. It is easier to buy them already made. Certainly finding a time when three busy people could schedule a morning dedicated to sharing such an experience is rare. Coordinating shared work time has become an overwhelming task for most groups. So instead of working together, we sometimes each put up a little money and hire someone else to bake the pies or to clean the church.

Somehow cooperatively hiring someone else doesn't have the same effect on community as actually working together to produce a shared outcome.

Fortunately, the opportunity for shared work continues to be one of the best parts of rural communities. The most important result of church suppers, benefit breakfasts, quilting bees, and bake sales is not the fundraising or quilts produced. The most valuable product of these activities is the opportunity to get to know our neighbors.

Granted, conversations are not always positive. Sometimes conflict can erupt over the right way to do things. There are some pretty strongly held feelings, after all, on the appropriateness of lard versus butter or shortening in the making of pie crusts. Getting the pies in the oven requires tolerance for differing opinions, respect for others experience and willingness to try something new.

In the end, regardless of the recipe used, the pie was delicious. Even more important than the pies, however, were the friendships that were strengthened in the process.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0404250422apr25,1,426531
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Altered corn ignites furor in Mexico

By Hugh Dellios
Tribune foreign correspondent

April 25, 2004

CAPULALPAN, Mexico -- Olga Toro couldn't resist planting a few kernels of
the corn she purchased at the government warehouse, even though it was
intended only to help feed her family and her chickens.

She was doing what Mexican farmers have done religiously for 6,000 years.
She was experimenting with seeds in a tradition that helped create corn from
a weed called teosinte and ultimately produced dozens of yellow, white, red,
blue and black species that make Mexico the world's most important
repository of corn genes.

What Toro didn't know was that her kernels may have been the product of far
more powerful experiments to improve corn. And what sprouted in her yard was
not only an oddly robust plant but an international controversy that could
help decide how the world deals with genetically altered food.

"We were curious to see what the seeds would give, and they gave a
lot--double what our own corn seed produces," Toro said.

Mexico's recent confirmation that American-manufactured, laboratory-modified
genes have somehow appeared in cornfields in Mexico's remote hills has
fueled an impassioned debate over "transgenic" products and their potential
impact on human health, the environment and the survival of Mexico's
traditional corn varieties.

The government announcement in February gave credence to much-maligned
claims by a team of California scientists that they found lab-created genes
in Toro's and others' corn in Oaxaca three years ago. But it did not solve
the mystery of how the genes got there despite a 5-year-old ban on planting
transgenic crops in Mexico.

The findings have led environmentalists and others to call for a moratorium
on Mexico's annual imports of more than 5million tons of cheap feed corn
from the U.S. Those imports have been important for farmers in Illinois and
Iowa while helping Mexico introduce more chicken, eggs and other protein
into the national diet.

Effects unknown, some say

While the Mexican government insists the laboratory-produced genes pose no
threat to humans or Mexico's corn, environmental groups, indigenous leaders
and other critics say scientists cannot predict what harmful effects may
crop up later. They also fear the modified corn could contaminate and
displace native species.

In the next few weeks, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, an
international watchdog agency created in the wake of the North American Free
Trade Agreement, will complete the first comprehensive study of the
potential impact of modified genes on Mexican corn. Its findings will be
presented in June with recommendations on how to proceed.

At stake is not only the North American corn trade, Mexican food policy and
the future of a crop that is central to Mexico's identity, but also an
important precedent on how the promises of science and biotechnology are
weighed against unknown risks and traditional values.

"There are very few places where the issues regarding transgenics are as
stark as in Mexico, and it's various decisions like this made all over the
world that are going to determine what happens with them in the future,"
said Peter Raven, a prominent American botanist and adviser to the
commission's study panel.

"In a lot of ways, this issue has come to symbolize the clashes of European
and indigenous cultures, and big-time agriculture against what you think
your grandparents did," he said.

Other experts say the Mexican case raises the additional concern of how easy
it might be to lose track of "gene flow" between agricultural products or
into the wild.

Norman Ellstrand, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of
California, Riverside and another Commission for Environmental Cooperation
adviser, said that is particularly important because corn has been the
primary food product used in the development of pharmaceuticals and other
industrial compounds that should be tightly regulated.

"I am worried that this shows over what distance gene flow can occur, and
how quickly," Ellstrand said.

Worldwide, the use of modified crops is growing, with about 167 million
acres planted in 18 countries in 2003. The new genes have been developed by
companies such as Monsanto to provide resistance to insects or to increase
crop yields.

Industry officials point to studies showing little threat and they say that
if Mexico embraced transgenics it potentially could produce more corn, rely
less on imports and use fewer chemicals in the fields.

"Real knowledge about transgenic crops is very limited in Mexico, especially
in rural areas," said Eric Sachs, Monsanto's director of scientific affairs.
" Because we're not able to grow it there now, it's hard to show how valuable
these products could be."

Yet concerns have been sprouting. The European Union has passed a moratorium
on modified crops, and about 90 nations have signed a biosafety protocol
calling for coordinated controls.

U.S. hasn't signed

The U.S., which produces by far the largest share of modified corn, soybeans
and cotton, has not signed the protocol.

The Mexican controversy began four years ago when a team of biologists from
the University of California, Berkeley claimed they had found an
insect-resistant gene made by Monsanto in Oaxaca's Sierra Juarez range.

The team's dozen samples included corn that Toro said she bought from a
Ministry of Social Development program to deliver cheap food to impoverished
rural areas. Until the controversy, 40 percent of that program's corn came
from the U.S.

Industry officials and other researchers scoffed at that initial study's
methodology. But soon after, the Mexican government began its own testing.

In February, officials announced they found evidence of
U.S.-laboratory-produced corn genes in 7.6 percent of the 4,000 samples they
took from 188 communities in Oaxaca and neighboring Puebla state.

The officials said they have not determined who produced the genes or where
they had come from, but they said the evidence showed no dangers and that
the presence of the modified genes was diminishing.

Victor Villalobos, executive secretary of Mexico's Interministry Commission
on Biosafety and Genetically Modified Organisms, said the government has
proceeded with caution, noting the 1999 moratorium and that Mexico was among
the first nations to sign the biosafety protocol.

But he said the government is confident that the threat is exaggerated and
must balance the biological concerns with the economic need to feed its more
than 100 million people.

He said 70 percent of the country's feed and food corn comes from the U.S.
Most is yellow corn that feeds livestock, but some white corn is imported to
help fulfill the demand for the 1 billion tortillas eaten by Mexicans every
day. At least 30 percent of the corn is modified.

Villalobos said refusing imports and returning to the pre-NAFTA days when
Mexico grew all of its own corn would double prices for consumers.

"We are not a country that should remain behind in technological
innovation," Villalobos said. "It's better to monitor the risks than close
the border, which would be like shutting down industry."

Critics, however, say neither the government nor scientists have studied the
issue enough, and they believe Mexico has been careless.

Mexico signed an agreement with the U.S. in October requiring the labeling
of modified corn imports. But environmentalists complained that it set a bad
precedent by exempting shipments with less than 5 percent modified corn and
by not holding shippers responsible for "unknowingly" delivering modified
products.

Alejandro Calvillo, director of Greenpeace Mexico, argues that transgenics
could be to the 21st Century what industrial chemicals were to the 20th
Century, when DDT and ozone-depleting compounds were put on the market
before their impact on the environment was known.

The fears and doubts of local farmers were evident at a public hearing in
March by the environmental commission in Oaxaca. Many of the farmers
rejected transgenics as another harmful invasion by outsiders.

"Sometimes we have to stop trying to be so intelligent," said Miguel Angel
Moran, 32, whose family farms corn in Guerrero. "Nature is wiser. It has
magic, and it will swallow this monster that the scientists have created."

Migration threatens corn

An even bigger threat to Mexico's corn diversity, some said, is the steady
migration to urban areas of peasants who cared for the native species. That
too was linked to the U.S. imports, which are cheaper to buy partly because
U.S. farmers are subsidized by taxpayers while Mexico's are not.

Traditional corn species "can cope with the weather and pests and disease,
but it is very hard for them to overcome the 20 to 30 percent subsidies paid
to U.S. farmers to bolster U.S. corn exports," said Major Goodman, a North
Carolina State University professor who is writing a chapter of the
Commission for Environmental Cooperation study.

Hovering above the bitter debate between what Ellstrand has labeled
industry's "smug optimism" and opponents' "self-righteous panic" is the
mystery over how the modified genes arrived in such remote parts of Mexico.

One theory is that Mexican migrants brought seeds home from the U.S. in
their pockets and luggage. Officials say that is common among farmers.

But the environmental commission's draft report said "the most likely
culprit" is the government's rural food-distribution programs.

Toro, a mother of six, said she first planted the white government corn in
1998, next to two local varieties in her 5-acre plot. She said she was
surprised when it sometimes produced three ears on its short, fat stalks.
The more slender local stalks produced two.

"It was a really beautiful plant," Toro said. "If they can say, `Don't worry
about your grandchildren'--if they can give us that assurance, then let's go
with it."

April 30, 2004
Norway likes our wheat

BY LEE EGERSTROM

St. Paul Pioneer Press

A Norwegian trade delegation has come to spring wheat country to remind
farmers and grain traders that wheat is the staff of their country's life,
with or without herring on the bread.
That means Upper Midwest farmers should resist growing the genetically
modified wheat that seed companies are developing because Norwegian law
prevents its importation, officials of the Unikorn trading company said
this week.
" We like the high-quality spring wheat we get from Minnesota and North
Dakota. This is technical, but it's the high-quality protein that we need
in milling and baking to make our breads," said Helge Remberg, a Unikorn
marketing director.
Unikorn is the largest grain trading firm in Norway, jointly owned by the
Norwegian government and farmer-owned cooperatives. It imports wheat,
soybeans, corn and other agricultural products from around the world.
A 1993 law effectively prohibits the company and other traders from
importing grains and oilseeds that contain genetically modified organisms
(GMOs), said Oystein Haslum, administrative director of the Oslo-based
trading firm.
" We want to buy where we can get the cleanliness and quality that we want.
That means we start with the U.S. and Canada, and if we have to, we turn to
Australia and Kazakhstan, and work down from there," Haslum said.
Monsanto, the St. Louis-based chemical and biogenetics company, is
developing GMO seed varieties that would be resistant to some of its
branded chemicals, such as Roundup herbicide. Other geneticists are
exploring seeds that would be resistant to other popular farm chemicals,
resistant to plant diseases or which add higher nutrient content to the
wheat.
Regardless of the purpose, Unikorn's Remberg said Norway is among several
countries that won't import the genetically altered grains.
The Unikorn group met Tuesday with AGP Grain, based at the Minneapolis
Grain Exchange, and toured the spring wheat trading floor at the exchange.
The Norwegians also had meetings scheduled this week with Cargill, in
Minnetonka, and with CHS Inc., in Inver Grove Heights.
The Minnesota-based companies often partner with Unikorn when the
Norwegians buy spring wheat and other Northern-grown grains. Most of those
purchases are shipped through Duluth, said John Comford, marketing manager
for AGP Grain.
AGP, the former grain-merchandising unit of International Multifoods, now
is a subsidiary of Ag Processing Inc., a large cooperative based in Omaha,
Neb.
The Norwegian wheat trade is relatively small, compared with southern
Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, said a spokeswoman for the U.S.
Wheat Associates trade promotion group in Washington, D.C. The country
takes about 200,000 to 300,000 tons of wheat most years, although it hasn't
purchased U.S.-grown wheat in the current year.
AGP's Comford, however, said this country has about 450,000 tons of spring
wheat trade at risk with other countries that share Norway's aversion to
GMO wheat.
What's more, Comford said the Norwegian wheat trade is greater than noted
in government statistics because exports aren't tracked through
transhipping ports to the final consumers. AGP ships about 200,000 to
300,000 tons of wheat to Norway through its port facilities in Antwerp,
Belgium, most years, he said. "Then there are Cargill, CHS and ConAgra
doing the same kind of deals."
Monsanto is seeking federal regulatory approval for issuing the new wheat
seeds for commercial production, but said it won't until the United States
and Canada both are in agreement on GMO use.
If that happens, U.S. grain merchants would need to operate a costly
process of keeping GMO wheat and non-GMO wheat separated through storage
and transportation, the Unikorn team said.
Norwegian resistance to GMOs is based more on environmental concerns about
letting the organisms lose to breed with local grain crops than from
concerns over human health, the grain delegation said.
But that becomes the awkward conflict that farmers and their customers have
over the new seeds. While people have environmental concerns about
releasing GMOs into the natural plants, the GMO seeds are helping farmers
cut back total use of chemicals on crops that have been responsible for
polluting water supplies and streams in past years.
Minnesota corn farmers, for instance, used more than 16.5 million pounds of
herbicide and insecticide chemicals on their 7.5 million acres of corn in
1996, when GMO corn seeds were just starting to become popular. The
Minnesota Agricultural Statistics Service found that farmers used less than
8.3 million pounds of chemicals on their 7.2 million acres of corn in 2002,
the last year for which there is data.

Lee Egerstrom can be reached at legerstrom@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5437.

For Immediate Release May 10, 2004
Contact: Craig Culp, Center for Food Safety, (202) 547-9359, (301) 509-0925 (mobile), cculp@icta.org
Also contact John Smillie or Kevin Dowling, Western Organization of Resource Councils, (406) 252-9672 to discuss farmer rejection of GE wheat.

monsanto pulls plug on embattled biotech wheat
Struggling Biotech Giant Faced Stiff Opposition to Engineered Wheat From Farmers
WASHINGTON — Monsanto announced today that it is pulling the plug on genetically engineered wheat after seven years of development and failed efforts to win over farmers and the international wheat market. The company made the announcement even as its application for commercialization remains pending, signifying that stiff opposition to the biotech food crop from U.S. farmers and international markets could not be overcome.

“Monsanto may call this a corporate realignment, but it’s really a full retreat,” said Joseph Mendelson, CFS legal director. “For Monsanto to pull the plug on biotech wheat at this stage, could hardly be more significant. The company has been forced to face reality — the market didn’t want this wheat and Monsanto itself is in a struggle for its very survival.”

Monsanto has suffered a number of significant setbacks in the past few years: the continuing rejection of genetically engineered foods by food manufacturers (at least 52) and international export markets (over 35 countries); in December 2003 the company was forced to cut distribution of its high-profit recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (Posilac) by 50 percent after its Austrian production facility failed sterility tests (company may already have exhausted current supplies of Posilac); in October 2003, it was forced to pull out of any attempts to market biopharmaceutical crops resulting in the layoff of approximately 1,200 people; Monsanto lost $1.8 billion in fiscal 2002 and its stock value has fallen 50 percent since 2001; and PCB and Agent Orange issues continue to be significant drags on company resources (e.g., liability for PCB contamination of Anniston, Al.).

“Introduction of genetically modified wheat would have been a commercial disaster,” said Gail Wiley, a North Dakota farmer speaking for the Dakota Resource Council and the Western Organization of Resource Councils. “Monsanto’s announcement today is a victory for farmers in the United States and Canada and our consumers overseas. After five years of effort, we finally convinced Monsanto to face reality: our markets do not want Roundup Ready wheat.”

“This is a huge victory for farmers, consumers and food safety advocates,” added Mendelson, “and signifies a turning point in the battle against genetically engineered foods.”

In March of 2003, CFS along with Western Organization of Resource Councils filed a legal petition with USDA to prevent the regulatory approval of genetically engineered wheat. The full petition is available at http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/li/WheatUSDApetFinalD7.pdf

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Monday, May 10, 2004 (AP)
Monsanto puts plans for biotech wheat on hold
JIM SALTER, AP Business Writer

(05-10) 09:09 PDT ST. LOUIS (AP) --
Monsanto Co. is halting development of genetically engineered wheat that
would have been able to withstand its popular Roundup herbicide, the
company said Monday.
Since 1997, the St. Louis-based agricultural and biotech company had been
developing a Roundup Ready variety of hard red spring wheat. Instead,
Monsanto said it will focus on development of new and improved biotech
traits in corn, cotton and oilseeds.
"As a result of our portfolio review and dialogue with wheat industry
leaders, we recognize the business opportunities with Roundup Ready spring
wheat are less attractive relative to Monsanto's other commercial
priorities," said Carl Casale, Monsanto's executive vice president.
Monsanto shares were down $1.18, or 3.6 percent, to $31.81 in midday
trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Some farm and consumer groups asked the government last year to suspend
development of the biotech grain, expressing concern that U.S. farmers
could lose overseas clients if genetically engineered wheat pollinates
with other crops.
In a petition filed in March 2003 with the Agriculture Department, the
groups said wheat genetically designed to tolerate Roundup could lead to
grain mix-ups in the field and in shipments, making some exports
unacceptable to trading partners who oppose biotech crops.
"Monsanto has run up against the reality of market rejection from both
farmers and consumers and they realize that basically no one wanted this
stuff," said Joe Mendelson, legal director for the Washington-based Center
for Food Safety, an opponent of genetically engineered crops. "They're in
full retreat."
Casale said that acreage planted in the U.S. and Canadian spring wheat
markets have declined nearly 25 percent since 1997.
"This technology adds value for only a segment of spring wheat growers,
resulting in a lack of widespread wheat industry alignment, unlike the
alignment we see in other crops where biotechnology is broadly applied,"
Casale said. "These factors underscore the difficulty of bringing new
technologies to the wheat market at this time.
"We will continue to monitor the wheat industry's desire for crop
improvements, via breeding and biotechnology, to determine if and when it
might be practical to move forward with a biotech wheat product," Casale
said.
Monsanto began trying to develop Roundup-tolerant wheat in 1997. The
company said that six years of field tests by Monsanto as well as academic
researchers showed that the Roundup Ready wheat offered the potential to
increase yields by 5-15 percent.
Monsanto's investment in wheat in fiscal year 2004 has been less than $5
million, or less than 1 percent of the company's $500 million research and
development budget, company officials said.
In February, China appeared to show more interest in biotech products by
reducing paperwork requirements for imports of five Monsanto varieties of
genetically modified corn, soybeans and cotton. The approvals raised
expectations that China might also accept Monsanto's Roundup Ready wheat.
That would be a big inducement for American growers, as China is the
world's largest wheat consumer.
But other nations were opposed. Japan, America's top wheat importer, has
said it will accept no wheat -- conventional or biotech -- from any nation
that grows biotech wheat.

On the Net:
Monsanto Co.: www.monsanto.com
Center for Food Safety: www.centerforfoodsafety.org

Wheat Organizations Comment on RoundUp Ready Wheat Deferral

From Pro Farmer

Julianne Johnston

Monsanto announced plans this morning to defer development of its RoundUp Ready trait in wheat until other biotechnology traits are in the marketplace. While expressing support for biotechnology applications in wheat, the three national wheat organizations commended Monsanto for its decision.

Monsanto announcement

“We understand and respect Monsanto’s decision to defer development,” said Alan Lee, Chairman of U.S. Wheat Associates. “While we believe that biotechnology has a definite place in the future of wheat production, the market is not yet ready for the introduction of this new technology. This deferral should reassure our customers that we’re not rushing to market prematurely, and it gives us more time to do the advance work that will be necessary for the eventual commercialization of biotechnology.”

Monsanto intends to continue to seek regulatory approval for the trait in wheat, in preparation for eventual commercialization. Monsanto’s statement also indicated that submissions will be made for international regulatory approvals as well.

“Technology has been a central part of U.S. wheat production for many years,” said Mark Gage, President of the National Association of Wheat Growers. “Wheat production and the quality of our product have steadily improved because of technology adoption, and we view biotechnology as the next tool in the toolbox. Monsanto’s deferral does not halt biotechnology development; RoundUp Ready® wheat is ‘on the shelf’, and there are other traits coming forward that will find their place in 21st Century wheat production.”

“Monsanto has been very open with us in dialogue; they’ve asked frank questions and we’ve had many candid discussions,” said Bruce Hamnes, Chairman of the Wheat Export Trade Education Committee (WETEC). “This decision demonstrates that we’re taking a very thoughtful approach to commercialization, and also illustrates that the pledges and milestones Monsanto set out were sincere.”

Carl Casale, executive vice president of Monsanto, said that the company will continue to monitor the wheat industry’s desire for crop improvements, via breeding and biotechnology, to determine if and when it might be practical to move forward with a biotech wheat product.

“This decision allows us to defer commercial development of RoundUp Ready® wheat, in order to align with the potential commercialization of other biotechnology traits in wheat, estimated to be four to eight years in the future,” Casale said.

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Monsanto Suspends Biotech Wheat Program
Mon May 10, 2004 01:56 PM ET

By Carey Gillam
KANSAS CITY, Mo (Reuters) - Biotech crop pioneer Monsanto Co. (MON.N: Quote,
Profile, Research) on Monday suspended plans to introduce what would be the
world's first biotech wheat, bowing to a storm of protest from around the
world over the company's scientific tinkering with a key food crop.
Monsanto said it had reached the decision after "extensive consultation"
with customers in the wheat industry and would continue to monitor the
desire for crop improvements to determine "if and when" it might be
practical to move forward.
" It was a lot of things coming together at once," said Monsanto spokesman
Chris Horner, who cited declining spring wheat acreage as well as dissent
among wheat growers and buyers as factors in the decision.
St. Louis-based Monsanto has been doing field tests of Roundup Ready wheat,
which has been genetically modified to tolerate applications of Monsanto's
Roundup herbicide, for six years at a cost of hundreds of millions of
dollars.
The company already has commercialized Roundup Ready corn and soybeans, key
feedgrains and had hoped to spread its herbicide-resistant technology into
the vast wheat-growing industry, starting in the United States and Canadian
markets.
But the company's efforts have ignited an outpouring of opposition by
environmentalists, farmers, consumers and religious groups, as well as
foreign wheat buyers. Concerns include worries about possible human health
hazards, increased weed resistance and fears Monsanto is gaining control
over key world crops.
Opponents heralded Monsanto's decision.
" Monsanto has correctly read the winds of public opinion and farmers and
consumers," said Ronnie Cummins, national director of the U.S. Organic
Consumers Association. "The crops that are in the pipeline are not going to
be able to be introduced without a tremendous amount of debate and civil
strife."
Wheat industry leaders, who said biotechnology could lead to improved
profitability for struggling wheat growers, warned Roundup Ready wheat could
devastate exports of all U.S. and Canadian wheat.
Foreign buyers, including top U.S. spring wheat buyer Japan, said they were
unwilling to risk alienating their own customers by accepting biotech wheat
supplies.
" This is a major acknowledgment by Monsanto ... it will be very hard to
market in the near future biotech products designed for human consumption,"
said Greg Jaffe, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "All the
other products have primarily gone to animal feed."
Monsanto's decision to back away from biotech wheat came as opposition was
mounting, particularly in Canada, where an anti-biotech wheat ad campaign
was launched in March and the Canadian Wheat Board has opposed the product.
Monsanto had asked the U.S. wheat industry to consider letting it out of its
pledge not to introduce biotech wheat in the United States without a
simultaneous release in Canada. But that proposal was flatly rejected.
In the meantime, several U.S. groups had sought to derail the project,
including groups in North Dakota, the top U.S. spring wheat-growing state
and Monsanto's planned launching pad for the biotech wheat product.
" I think it is a very wise decision," said Louis Kuster, a North Dakota
wheat farmer.
Monsanto shares were down 64 cents, or 1.94 percent, at $32.35 in early
afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monsanto to Realign Research Portfolio, Development of Roundup Ready Wheat
Deferred
Decision Follows Portfolio Review, Consultation with Growers
ST. LOUIS (May 10, 2004) - Monsanto announced today it is realigning
research and development investments to accelerate the development of new
and improved traits in corn, cotton, and oilseeds. As part of this
realignment, the company is deferring all further efforts to introduce
Roundup Ready wheat, until such time that other wheat biotechnology traits
are introduced. This decision was reached after a comprehensive review of
Monsanto's research investment portfolio and extensive consultation with
customers in the wheat industry.
" As a result of our portfolio review and dialogue with wheat industry
leaders, we recognize the business opportunities with Roundup Ready spring
wheat are less attractive relative to Monsanto's other commercial
priorities," said Carl Casale, executive vice president of Monsanto.
" Acreage planted in the spring wheat market in the United States and Canada
has declined nearly 25 percent since 1997, and even more in the higher cost
weed control target market for this product. This technology adds value for
only a segment of spring wheat growers, resulting in a lack of widespread
wheat industry alignment, unlike the alignment we see in other crops where
biotechnology is broadly applied. These factors underscore the difficulty of
bringing new technologies to the wheat market at this time.
" We will continue to monitor the wheat industry's desire for crop
improvements, via breeding and biotechnology, to determine if and when it
might be practical to move forward with a biotech wheat product," Casale
said. "This decision allows us to defer commercial development of Roundup
Ready wheat, in order to align with the potential commercialization of other
biotechnology traits in wheat, estimated to be four to eight years in the
future."
Shifting resources away from Roundup Ready wheat enables Monsanto to
increase its research emphasis on stress tolerance and several improved
health profile vegetable oil traits. Overall, Monsanto's biotechnology
research and development focuses on providing new solutions in the areas of
yield improvement and stress tolerance, agronomic pest resistance traits,
and food and feed improvement traits.
" We have pipeline products like Roundup Ready Flex for cotton and an
improved soybean oil for food manufacturers from our conventional breeding
program that are moving close to commercialization," said Casale. "We also
saw good results in our field trials for drought tolerant corn in 2003, and
we will be expanding our field trials in 2004.
" Wheat growers are already experiencing the benefits of biotech, but in
other crops such as corn, soy, and canola, which are increasingly being
grown on acreage formerly devoted to wheat," according to Casale. "Growers
will continue to benefit as we bring traits such as cold stress and drought
tolerance to the marketplace."
Monsanto began the technical development stage of Roundup Ready wheat in
1997. Six years of field testing by Monsanto scientists and academic
researchers demonstrate that Roundup Ready wheat performs exceptionally well
under the most difficult production environments for spring-planted wheat
and offers the potential to increase yields by 5 percent to 15 percent.
Monsanto will discontinue breeding and field level research of Roundup Ready
wheat. The company will be working with regulators around the world to take
appropriate next steps with regard to regulatory submissions.
Monsanto's investment in wheat in fiscal year 2004 has been less than $5
million, or less than one percent of the company's $500 million research and
development budget. Funds budgeted for wheat will be redeployed to other
research and development efforts. The company announced on May 4, 2004, that
it is increasing its fiscal year 2004 earnings per share (EPS) guidance, now
expected to be in the range of $1.55 on an ongoing basis for the 2004 fiscal
year. Even with this decision, the company is maintaining its reported and
ongoing earnings per share guidance for fiscal year 2004, and its projected
10 percent compounded annual growth rate for earnings per share on an
ongoing basis for 2005 and 2006.
Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions
and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality.
For more information on Monsanto, see: www.monsanto.com.
Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information:
Certain statements contained in this release, such as statements concerning
the company's anticipated financial results, current and future product
performance, regulatory approvals, currency impact, business and financial
plans and other non-historical facts are "forward-looking statements." These
statements are based on current expectations and currently available
information. However, since these statements are based on factors that
involve risks and uncertainties, the company's actual performance and
results may differ materially from those described or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such
differences include, among others: the company's exposure to various
contingencies, including those related to Solutia Inc., litigation,
intellectual property, regulatory compliance (including seed quality),
environmental contamination and antitrust; fluctuations in exchange rates
and other developments related to foreign currencies and economies;
increased generic and branded competition for the company's Roundup
herbicide; the accuracy of the company's estimates and projections, for
example, those with respect to product returns and grower use of the
company's products and related distribution inventory levels; the effect of
weather conditions and commodity markets on the agriculture business; the
success of the company's research and development activities and the speed
with which regulatory authorizations and product launches may be achieved;
domestic and foreign social, legal and political developments, especially
those relating to agricultural products developed through biotechnology; the
company's ability to continue to manage its costs; the company's ability to
successfully market new and existing products in new and existing domestic
and international markets; the company's ability to obtain payment for the
products that it sells; the company's ability to achieve and maintain
protection for its intellectual property; the effects of the company's
accounting policies and changes in generally accepted accounting principles;
the company's ability to fund its short-term financing needs; general
economic and business conditions; political and economic conditions due to
threat of future terrorist activity and related military action; and other
risks and factors detailed in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission. Undue reliance should not be placed on these
forward-looking statements, which are current only as of the date of this
release. The company disclaims any current intention to revise or update any
forward-looking statements or any of the factors that may affect actual
results, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Notes to editors: Roundup Ready is a trademark owned by Monsanto Company and
its wholly owned subsidiaries.
Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measure
This release uses the non-GAAP financial measure of earnings per share (EPS)
excluding the effect of certain items. A non-GAAP EPS financial measure
(which the company sometimes refers to as EPS from ongoing business) may
exclude the impact of restructuring charges, charges associated with the
settlement of litigation, gains and losses on the sale of assets, and
certain other items. The specific items that are excluded from, and result
in, the company's non-GAAP EPS financial measure are clearly identified as
such in this release. The disclosure of EPS excluding the effect of certain
items is intended to supplement investors' understanding of the company's
operating performance. This non-GAAP financial measure may not be comparable
to similar measures used by other companies. Furthermore, this non-GAAP
financial measure is not intended to replace net income (loss), cash flows,
financial position, or comprehensive income (loss), as determined in
accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United
States. The non-GAAP financial measure used in this release is reconciled to
the most directly comparable financial measure calculated and presented in
accordance with GAAP below.

Dakota Resource Council –News Release

For Immediate Release: Monday, May 10, 2004

Contacts:

Gail Wiley – (701) 489-3498, Todd Leake – (701) 594-4275, Wayne Fisher - (701) 225-2563

Genetically Modified Wheat Stopped
North Dakota farmers declare victory over market destroying wheat

Bismarck, ND – Dakota Resource Council members declared victory today at Monsanto’s announcement to defer “all further efforts to introduce Roundup Ready wheat.”

“ Introduction of genetically modified wheat would have been a commercial disaster,” said Gail Wiley, North Dakota farmer and Dakota Resource Council member. “Monsanto’s announcement is a victory for farmers in the United States and Canada and our consumers overseas. After five years of effort we finally convinced Monsanto to face reality that our markets did not want Roundup Ready wheat.”

In October of 2003 Professor Robert Wisner, Iowa State University Agriculture Economist, released a science based assessment showing a drop of a third of the price of wheat from overseas market rejection.

“Dakota Resource Council was one of the first groups to realize the problems with Roundup Ready wheat,” said Todd Leake, North Dakota farmer and Dakota Resource Council member. “It’s been a long hard fight but Monsanto couldn’t continue to ignore the global marketplace.”

“Monsanto's decision to not introduce Roundup Ready wheat is wise and long overdue,” said Wayne Fisher, Dickinson farmer and Dakota Resource Council vice chair. “Now, we’re calling on Monsanto to withdraw its application to USDA to give our overseas customers 100% assurance that U.S. wheat will remain the high-quality, GM – free wheat they want.”

Dakota Resource Council members worked with the North Dakota legislature to pass laws giving North Dakota the ability to protect its overseas markets. They also supported the passage of a law protecting farmers in genetically modified seed disputes.

Dakota Resource Council members traveled around the world speaking on export market rejection of genetically modified wheat and filed a legal petition with USDA to prevent the regulatory approval of genetically engineered wheat.

Most recently Dakota Resource Council hosted, with Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, a delegation of Japanese consumer groups in Bismarck that delivered a petition in opposition to genetically modified wheat.

###

See DRC's study, Market Risks of Genetically Modified Wheat, www.worc.org/issues/art_issues/gmwheat.html#

Dakota Resource Council is a statewide grassroots membership based organization dedicated to forming enduring, democratic local groups that empower people to influence the decision-making processes affecting their lives.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, May 10, 2004
CONTACT: Gail Wiley, 701-489-3498, WORC spokesperson; John Smillie or Kevin Dowling, WORC staff, 406-252-9672

Grassroots Opposition Forces Monsanto to Drop Genetically Modified Wheat

Press Statement by WORC

Gail Wiley, a farmer from Montpelier, N.D., issued the following statement for the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) in response to Monsanto’s decision to end research and development on genetically modified (GM) wheat. The announcement follows five years of opposition by wheat farmers, consumers, and food safety activists to the commercial introduction of Roundup Ready wheat.

Statement by Gail Wiley

“Introduction of genetically modified wheat would have been a commercial disaster. Monsanto’s announcement is a victory for farmers in the United States and Canada and our consumers overseas. After five years of effort, we have finally convinced Monsanto to face the reality that our markets do not want Roundup Ready wheat.

As part of this effort, we joined with the Center for Food Safety and other groups to file a legal petition in March 2003 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop approval of GM wheat.

Then, WORC released a study finding that commercial introduction of GM wheat would devastate the U.S. wheat market for the foreseeable future.

Now, we’re calling on Monsanto to withdraw its application to USDA to give our overseas customers 100% assurance that U.S. wheat will remain the high-quality, GM – free wheat they want.”

-30-

Note to Editors: information about WORC is available at www.worc.org. See WORC’s study, Market Risks of Genetically Modified Wheat, www.worc.org/issues/art_issues/gmwheat.html#.

WORC is a network of grassroots organizations from seven states that include 8,750 members and 49 local community groups. WORC helps its members succeed by providing training and by coordinating regional issue campaigns. WORC represents farmers and ranchers in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon.

Celebrating 25 Years of Grassroots Leadership and Action

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 10, 2004

GE wheat battle won but GE food war goes on

Ottawa, Ontario - This morning, Monsanto abandoned its plans to
introduce genetically engineered (GE) wheat.

"This is a tremendous victory for consumers everywhere," says Nad=E8ge
Adam of the Council of Canadians. "No matter how Monsanto frames this,
it is very much a full retreat from a project that was doomed from the
beginning. This is a serious blow for this company, which was
determined to get the world to accept GE wheat."

In December 2002, Monsanto submitted an application to the Canadian
government for the release of Roundup Ready wheat, a herbicide-resistant
crop. This controversial crop encountered strong opposition from a
variety of sectors such as producers, consumers, civil society
organizations, and foreign buyers.

"No matter how hard Monsanto tried to promote GE wheat, it still could
not get past the fact that consumers wanted nothing to do with its
product," adds Adam. "Ignoring consumer concern has been the biotech
industry's biggest mistake."

Canadians are celebrating the good news but also recognize that there is
much more to be done.

"We may have stopped GE wheat, but there are many other applications for
the commercialization of GE crops on the horizon," says Adam." We hope
that Paul Martin seizes this opportunity to introduce a moratorium on
any further releases of GE foods until all health and environmental
concerns have been addressed. Until such moratorium is put in place,
all future GE crops will encounter the same resistance."

- 30 -

For more information, please contact:
Laura Sewell, Media Officer, Council of Canadians: 613.233.4487 ext 234;
613.795.8685 (cell); lsewell@canadians.org; www.canadians.org Farm News from Cropchoice
An alternative news service for American farmers
http://www.cropchoice.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monsanto Halts Biotech Wheat Development (DRC's Gail Wiley quoted in this article)
Washington Post

By JIM SALTER

ST. LOUIS - Monsanto Co. said Monday it has halted development of
genetically engineered spring wheat, a decision hailed by opponents of
biotech crops.

The biotech wheat would have been - like corn, cotton and oilseeds produced
by Monsanto - able to withstand Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

Monsanto cited economic factors in its decision: a 25 percent decrease in
U.S. and Canadian spring wheat acreage since 1997, and a lack of "widespread
industry alignment" behind biotech wheat.

"As a result of our portfolio review and dialogue with wheat industry
leaders, we recognize the business opportunities with Roundup Ready spring
wheat are less attractive relative to Monsanto's other commercial
priorities," said Carl Casale, Monsanto's executive vice president.

Genetically engineered crops remain a difficult sell in parts of the world.
Opponents have questioned the safety of the crops.

Japan, America's top wheat importer, has said it will accept no wheat -
conventional or biotech - from any nation that grows biotech wheat.

Gail Wiley, a North Dakota farmer speaking for the Western Organization of
Resource Councils, called the announcement "a victory for farmers in the
United States and Canada and our consumers overseas. After five years of
effort, we finally convinced Monsanto to face reality: our markets do not
want Roundup Ready wheat."

Some farm and consumer groups asked the government last year to suspend
development of the biotech grain. In a petition filed in March 2003 with the
Agriculture Department, the groups said wheat genetically designed to
tolerate Roundup could lead to grain mix-ups in the field and in shipments,
making some exports unacceptable to trading partners who oppose biotech
crops.

"Monsanto has run up against the reality of market rejection from both
farmers and consumers and they realize that basically no one wanted this
stuff," said Joe Mendelson, legal director for the Washington-based Center
for Food Safety, an opponent of genetically engineered crops. "They're in
full retreat."

St. Louis-based Monsanto had been developing a Roundup Ready variety of
hard red spring wheat since 1997. Tests by company scientists as well as
academic researchers showed that Roundup Ready wheat offered the potential
to increase yields by 5-15 percent, Monsanto said.

Monsanto's investment in wheat in fiscal year 2004 has been less than $5
million, or less than 1 percent of the company's $500 million research and
development budget, company officials said.

Now, Monsanto said it will focus on development of new and improved biotech
traits in other crops. The company will continue to monitor the wheat
industry's desire for biotechnology to determine "if and when" to reconsider
developing biotech wheat, Casale said. Meanwhile, Monsanto will continue to
seek regulatory approval for the wheat trait.

"This isn't the end of biotech in wheat," said Daren Coppock, chief
executive officer for the National Association of Wheat Growers, which
supports Monsanto's biotech efforts. "This is just a decision by Monsanto
that the market's not ready yet.

"We believe biotech will definitely have a role in wheat in the future.
This just gives us a little more time to do our homework to get the market
ready."

Monsanto shares fell $1.01, or 3.1 percent, to close at $31.98 on the New
York Stock Exchange.

---

On the Net:

Monsanto Co.:http://www.monsanto.com

Center for Food Safety:http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org

National Association of Wheat Growers:http://www.wheatworld.org
Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/admin/emailfriend?contentId=A15212-
2004May10&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle

C 2004 The Washington Post Company
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5/10/2004
Monsanto defers development of RoundUp Ready wheat

(Monday, May 10, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- From a Monsanto news release.
Monsanto announced today it is realigning research and development
investments to accelerate the development of new and improved traits in
corn, cotton, and oilseeds. As part of this realignment, the company is
deferring all further efforts to introduce Roundup Ready wheat, until such
time that other wheat biotechnology traits are introduced. This decision
was reached after a comprehensive review of Monsanto's research investment
portfolio and extensive consultation with customers in the wheat industry.

"As a result of our portfolio review and dialogue with wheat industry
leaders, we recognize the business opportunities with Roundup Ready spring
wheat are less attractive relative to Monsanto's other commercial
priorities," said Carl Casale, executive vice president of Monsanto.
" Acreage planted in the spring wheat market in the United States and
Canada has declined nearly 25 percent since 1997, and even more in the
higher cost weed control target market for this product. This technology
adds value for only a segment of spring wheat growers, resulting in a lack
of widespread wheat industry alignment, unlike the alignment we see in
other crops where biotechnology is broadly applied. These factors
underscore the difficulty of bringing new technologies to the wheat market
at this time.

"We will continue to monitor the wheat industry's desire for crop
improvements, via breeding and biotechnology, to determine if and when it
might be practical to move forward with a biotech wheat product," Casale
said. "This decision allows us to defer commercial development of Roundup
Ready wheat, in order to align with the potential commercialization of
other biotechnology traits in wheat, estimated to be four to eight years
in the future."

Shifting resources away from Roundup Ready wheat enables Monsanto to
increase its research emphasis on stress tolerance and several improved
health profile vegetable oil traits. Overall, Monsanto's biotechnology
research and development focuses on providing new solutions in the areas
of yield improvement and stress tolerance, agronomic pest resistance
traits, and food and feed improvement traits.

"We have pipeline products like Roundup Ready Flex for cotton and an
improved soybean oil for food manufacturers from our conventional breeding
program that are moving close to commercialization," said Casale. "We also
saw good results in our field trials for drought tolerant corn in 2003,
and we will be expanding our field trials in 2004.

"Wheat growers are already experiencing the benefits of biotech, but in
other crops such as corn, soy, and canola, which are increasingly being
grown on acreage formerly devoted to wheat," according to Casale. "Growers
will continue to benefit as we bring traits such as cold stress and
drought tolerance to the marketplace."

Monsanto began the technical development stage of Roundup Ready wheat in
1997. Six years of field testing by Monsanto scientists and academic
researchers demonstrate that Roundup Ready wheat performs exceptionally
well under the most difficult production environments for spring-planted
wheat and offers the potential to increase yields by 5 percent to 15
percent.

Monsanto will discontinue breeding and field level research of Roundup
Ready wheat. The company will be working with regulators around the world
to take appropriate next steps with regard to regulatory submissions.

Monsanto's investment in wheat in fiscal year 2004 has been less than $5
million, or less than one percent of the company's $500 million research
and development budget. Funds budgeted for wheat will be redeployed to
other research and development efforts. The company announced on May 4,
2004, that it is increasing its fiscal year 2004 earnings per share (EPS)
guidance, now expected to be in the range of $1.55 on an ongoing basis for
the 2004 fiscal year. Even with this decision, the company is maintaining
its reported and ongoing earnings per share guidance for fiscal year 2004,
and its projected 10 percent compounded annual growth rate for earnings
per share on an ongoing basis for 2005 and 2006.

Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based
solutions and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and
food quality. For more information on Monsanto, see:
http://www.monsanto.com .

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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monsanto halts development of herbicide-resistant wheat

By Chris Bagley

Last Updated: 5/10/2004 3:02:28 PM

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Monsanto will suspend development of a genetically modified variety of wheat, the company said Monday.

St. Louis-based Monsanto (MON) said it's responding to a drop in spring-wheat cultivation and lower anticipated demand for its product, which has drawn protests from consumer and environmental groups.

The move brings a pause in Monsanto's seven-year development of "Roundup Ready" wheat. "Roundup Ready" is Monsanto's trademark for crops genetically modified to resist herbicides that kill weeds.

Amid broad declines in the equity markets, shares in Monsanto fell 93 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $32.06 in afternoon trading.

The company said acreage planted with wheat in the U.S. and Canada has fallen 25 percent since 1997, when Monsanto began to develop its Roundup Ready wheat. Monsanto is the world's largest maker of genetically modified seeds.

The company may resume development later, and introduce herbicide resistance the next time it or another company brings a modified wheat seed to market, "if it seems to make sense, if it gets widespread industry support," said Monsanto spokesman Christopher Horner.

"Given the economics of this, we're taking a wait-and-see approach to biotech development," Horner said.

In a statement, Monsanto Executive Vice President Carl Casale said the industry is likely to produce a new wheat trait in "four to eight" years.

Opponents in North Dakota, a major source of spring wheat, have been pushing for a law that would enable the state's agriculture commissioner to restrict planting of the wheat, the Fargo Forum newspaper reported last week.

The Food and Drug Administration had begun reviewing the wheat, and analysts expected it would issue a non-binding opinion next year. Monsanto has said it wouldn't release the GMO wheat until it gained the approval of regulators in the U.S., Europe and Japan. As recently as January, however, it disputed what it called "incorrect reports by some media outlets" that it was abandoning development of Roundup Ready wheat.

'Lightning-rod issue'

Horner said the company's decision was "not at all" the result of protests from consumer and environmental groups. But analysts said the decision in any case ultimately goes back to consumers' aversions to eating genetically modified foods. Genetically altered strains of soybeans and corn are used widely in animal feed, while soybeans, corn and cotton also have industrial uses. Wheat, in contrast, is grown mainly for human consumption, and engineered variants of it aren't widely available.

"This is a recognition, since wheat is closer to the human food chain, that it's a lightning-rod issue," said Frank Mitsch, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners. "The potential for the European Union to reject it and the farmers who grow it is significant. You'd have to set up a whole separate system to handle it."

Monsanto had allocated about $5 million of its total $500 million research budget this year to the project. Horner, the company spokesman, couldn't immediately say how much Monsanto had put into the program since 1997. Fulcrum's Mitsch said it probably was "significantly" more than the $5 million budgeted this year.

"From an earnings standpoint, it doesn't mean much," Mitsch said, referring to the halting of wheat development.

Another analyst called the move a setback.

"It is disappointing that the weed (-resistant) opportunity is being put on the back shelf," said Michael Judd, an analyst with Soleil Securities Group. "But Monsanto has got plenty of opportunities to do various things with existing crops. If it was easy to tap into wheat markets, they'd already have done so."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15998-2004May10.html
Monsanto Pulls Plan To Commercialize Gene-Altered Wheat
By Justin Gillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 11, 2004; Page A01

Monsanto Co. yesterday scrapped plans to commercialize genetically engineered wheat, the biggest defeat yet for advocates of agricultural biotechnology -- and a victory for skeptics who said the company was trying to foist on the world a crop it did not want or need.

Monsanto said it would indefinitely delay plans to commercialize Roundup Ready wheat, a product that three years ago seemed headed for quick approval in the United States and Canada. The company said it would cut most of the $5 million it spends annually to develop the crop.

It did not rule out reviving it some day, but said it would do so only as part of a larger package of genetic alterations in the wheat plant that might win broad acceptance in the marketplace. Monsanto said any decision to revive the product would be four to eight years away.

While a few gene-altered crops have won wide acceptance among farmers, none is used primarily as human food and none carries the philosophical significance of wheat, fields of which make up the "amber waves of grain" that symbolize the bounty of North America. Monsanto's efforts to develop gene-altered wheat had been watched around the world as a bellwether for the future of agriculture.

A small but organized band of farmers in Canada and the northern Great Plains, fearing introduction of the wheat would cost them vital markets among skeptical consumers in Europe and Asia, fought for five years to kill the crop, forming a tactical alliance with environmental groups that oppose genetic engineering in principle. Their efforts set off broad debate among farm groups and in state legislatures.

The skeptics celebrated yesterday's announcement.

"We're just thrilled," said Gail Wiley, a farmer near Millarton, N.D., who joined her husband, Tom, in spearheading opposition to Monsanto's plans. "I'm sure Monsanto won't say it was because of us, but we're going to take the win, whether they admit it or not."

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, called Monsanto's decision "a worldwide victory for consumers." Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, said it was "a watershed event to have a product rejected in North America because of consumer and farmer desires. It will embolden farmers to say when we see a product we don't want on the market, we can stop it."

Roundup Ready wheat was designed to make it easier and less labor-intensive for growers to control weeds. The plant resists the effects of Roundup, an herbicide sold by Monsanto and, under the generic name glyphosate, by other companies. Roundup normally kills crops and can't be used after they're in the ground, but Roundup Ready crops have been tweaked at a genetic level to permit them to survive even heavy applications of the herbicide.

Monsanto said it scrapped the product not because of pressure from activists, but out of hard-nosed business calculations. Spring wheat acreage in North America, the market Monsanto was targeting, has shrunk 25 percent since research on Roundup Ready wheat began in 1997, the company said. With growers divided on whether to accept the crop, Monsanto said it simply saw better opportunities elsewhere.

Monsanto declined to say how much it had spent developing Roundup Ready wheat. The company said it would focus on expanding sales of gene-altered corn, cotton, canola and soybeans, which have been widely accepted in North America and in many foreign countries.

"I wish it were complex, but it's really not," said Carl Casale, executive vice president of Monsanto, based in St. Louis. "It was just a pure economic analysis of this opportunity relative to others that we have."

For two years, Monsanto's biggest political problem in pushing Roundup Ready wheat had been not its enemies but its friends.

The most influential wheat growers' group, the National Association of Wheat Growers, officially supported the crop and wanted it approved. But the group, and other wheat organizations, also pressed Monsanto to commercialize the product only when certain conditions were met, including evidence that it would be accepted among overseas buyers.

Those conditions became nearly impossible to satisfy as foreign opposition hardened in the past two years. Japanese millers went so far as to tour the American and Canadian wheat belts to oppose the crop.

Roundup Ready soybeans and canola have been huge successes with North American farmers, and they have also embraced other Monsanto crops that have been genetically altered to resist insects. But none of the gene-altered crops widely adopted to date is a food crop with the symbolic significance of wheat.

Soybeans and canola are pressed for their oil, most of which is used in small quantities in processed food. Most corn is fed to animals, and cotton is used for clothing. Wheat would have been by far the most important food crop to "go biotech," in the phrase that farmers use.

Daren Coppock, chief executive of the National Association of Wheat Growers, in Washington, emphasized yesterday that efforts to use biotechnology to improve the wheat crop were not dead. But genetic alterations that benefit farmers alone might not be enough to overcome marketplace resistance, he said, adding that companies need to develop genetic alterations that could benefit millers and consumers.

Among farmers, "nobody has a scientific or technical or philosophical objection to using biotechnology in wheat," he said. "The resistance comes if the person at the very end of the food chain says, 'I'm not going to buy the product.' "

Monsanto has already filed for approval of Roundup Ready wheat in some countries, including the United States, and the company said yesterday it would consult with regulators on how to proceed. Monsanto left open the possibility of seeking approval now in some countries, so that commercialization might be easier if it decides to revive the crop in several years. But the company said it would seek to go to market only if farmer sentiment changes, perhaps after other companies have successfully commercialized biotech wheat varieties.

Monsanto's decision to continue pressing for regulatory approval led to some wariness yesterday among opponents of biotech wheat, who fear the company, perhaps under new management in the future, might break its pledges to farmers.

"We do have a hard time trusting Monsanto," said Gail Wiley, the North Dakota farmer. "If that [regulatory] process is still going forward, we'll be watching."

Posted on Mon, May. 17, 2004

MONSANTO: Mixed reaction

Groups celebrate, grieve over Monsanto decision to shelve GM wheat

By Mikkel Pates

Agweek Staff Writer

FARGO, N.D. - Monsanto's announcement to shelve its plans for Roundup Ready spring wheat commercialization has made international news and put the spotlight on North Dakota and Montana and the Canadian prairies, where the high-quality spring wheat is grown.

'Wheat being left behind'

Roundup Ready technology means the crop's genes had been manipulated to make the crop immune from the effects of glyphosate herbicide. Among other things, Monsanto recently has claimed potential yield increases of 5 percent to 15 percent over conventional wheats, as well as the convenience and effectiveness that have allowed the technology to become adopted quickly in soybeans and corn.

The company says it will not suspend efforts to approve the technology through regulatory agencies in both the United States and Canada, despite opposition. The company reportedly had been spending roughly $5 million a year to bring the crop to market. Instead of an anticipated release of the crop as early as 2005, the company says it will delay efforts to commercialize by four to eight years.

Proponents of the technology are disappointed. John Mittleider, vice president for public policy for the North Dakota Farm Bureau, says he hopes the Monsanto decision isn't permanent.

"I think it's rather unfortunate that this technology, at least temporarily, will be put on the shelf at a time when producers need more choices," Mittleider says.

"The timing may not have been the best," Mittleider says, noting that markets aren't ready for it. He says issues of segregation are in the process of being solved.

Agriculture in North Dakota has changed dramatically because of biotech corn, soybeans and canola.

"Wheat is, unfortunately, one of those that hasn't seen the success story" in the breeding, Mittleider says. "Wheat is being left behind. Don't think anybody can dispute that."

'Door still open'Officials of the North Dakota Grain Growers were not immediately available to comment on the matter, in the wake of the recent departure of their executive director, Lance Hagen. The association, affiliated with the National Association of Wheat Growers, have been among the staunchest supporters of biotech wheat.

Neal Fisher, executive administrator for the North Dakota Wheat Commission, had been one of the officials urging caution on GMO wheat commercialization because several key foreign buyers are averse to it. The commission, which is connected to the U.S. Wheat Associates, has been criticized by biotech promoters for failing to strongly promote biotech wheat among international buyers.

Fisher, who says the commission will "continue to be involved in proactively informing wheat customers about the benefits of biotech traits being researched and developed," says it's important and good that Monsanto appears to be shelving biotech wheat - not scrapping it forever.

"They've said the door is still open for when they're able to 'stack' other biotech events that may be more beneficial to producers and consumer alike."

Fisher says the wheat industry's position is that there are many things to gain from biotechnology but that "customer concerns are paramount."

Bowing to pressure?

Opponents of genetically modified wheat are pleased. Generally, they're concerned about the ability to segregate GM from non-GM wheat in the market chains and the rejection of GM wheat by key markets.

The Rev. Karl Limvere, chairman of the Go Slow With GMO initiated measure effort, says that work will go forward. If successful, it would make the agriculture commissioner and an expert advisory panel he would appoint the decision-makers on every biotech wheat release in the state.

Limvere is reluctant to take credit for Monsanto's announcement. Limvere describes it as probably a "business decision," as Monsanto had described it, meaning that many factors allowed it to make more money on the corn, soybean, canola and cotton projects than on wheat, which had been languishing under opposition both in the United States and Canada.

Gail Wiley of Millarton, N.D., and her husband, Tom, have become internationally quoted opponents of biotech wheat.

"Introduction of genetically modified wheat would have been a commercial disaster," says Gail Wiley, a member of the Dakota Resource Council. "Monsanto's announcement is a victory for farmers in the United States and Canada and our consumers overseas. After five years of effort, we finally convinced Monsanto to face reality that our markets did not want Roundup Ready wheat."

Wiley says she is sure Monsanto "won't say it was because of us, but we're going to take the win, whether they admit it or not," is quoted in the Washington Post.

Wayne Fisher, a Dickinson, N.D., farmer and DRC member (not related to Neal Fisher), says the group called on Monsanto to withdraw its regulatory applications to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In Canada, officials of the Canadian Wheat Board and the National Farmers Union are praising the decision. Ken Ritter, chairman of the farmer-controlled board of the CWB, says customers representing 87 percent of spring wheat sales in 2003 said they would not purchase GM wheat.

Ritter says the CWB will continue to press for Monsanto to withdraw its application for regulatory approval. The quasi-governmental grain marketing monopoly also will continue to urge for a cost-benefit analysis requirement before any "unconfined release."

Canadian regulators say they plan to meet with Monsanto to discuss the company's plans, according to news reports from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

http://webstar.postbulletin.com/agrinews/111650497277770.bsp

Editorial -- Monsanto comes to its senses on GMO wheat

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

AgriNews

Monsanto has finally come to its senses. The agriculture giant has decided to back off on the marketing of Roundup Ready wheat, a herbicide resistant wheat.

The Roundup Ready product is a genetically modified wheat that tolerates applications of Roundup, Monsanto's potent herbicide.Farmers, though, did what any reasonable producer would do and looked to their buyers to see if they would accept genetically modified wheat as a replacement for hard red spring wheat.

The answer was not just no, but hell no. Buyers of American wheat, grown mainly in northwestern Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, emphatically rejected GM wheat. Japan is a good example of a country that says it will not buy American wheat if it has genetically modified genes.Faced with the potential loss of markets, farmers stood firm and held the line against a heavy push from Monsanto to get the product introduced. The trouble was, any commercial application of GM wheat would mean the entire U.S. wheat crop would likely, in the eyes of buyers, become contaminated.Farmers quickly pointed out the reality of farming to Monsanto suits and said that while one farmer might grow GM wheat the neighbor's wheat stood a chance of cross pollination.

If wind and the birds and bees didn't cause the GM traits to migrate to other wheat fields, small town elevators across the prairies would ensure contamination. Finally, what could have been the last nail in the coffin, large commodity exchanges said they would allow buyer contracts to stipulate no GM wheat.

To be honest, the buyers really do not have great reasons for rejecting the Monsanto product. This, though, does not matter. What the buyer wants, the seller produces. Monsanto thought it was too big for this axiom to apply.Monsanto thought it could coerce farmers to use the product by suggesting a cost savings from lower herbicide and application expenses. It thought it could use the same lower herbicide application rate reasoning to win over environmental minded agriculturists. It thought it could bully foreign buyers into acceptance through supply.

If U.S. farmers grow the crop, there are few other places to buy, or so goes the theory. For whatever reason, Monsanto didn't consider the massive wheat output in Brazil, Canada or Australia. Buyers have many other options than northwest Minnesota farmers.

Don't expect that this is the end of Monsanto's efforts. The company intends to continue pressing forward when the markets are more accepting.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Editorial+%2F+Commentary/65757C89B068B71086256E9900358AAE?OpenDocument&Headline=GENETICALLY+ENGINEERED+WHEAT%3A+Luddites+triumph&highlight=2%2Cmonsanto

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED WHEAT: Luddites triumph

05/19/2004

MONSANTO'S DECISION to not market genetically modified wheat represents another triumph of baseless fear over science. It's one more reason for Monsanto to hurry the day when genetically modified crops improve consumer health as well as crop yields.

St. Louis-based Monsanto dropped its genetically modified wheat after deciding that farmers in America and Canada were afraid to use it. The farmers wouldn't plant it because importers in Japan and Europe wouldn't buy it. In fact, they might shun all U.S. wheat rather than take the chance that some genetically modified grain might be mixed in.

The blame for that rests with a core of overwrought activists who insist against good evidence that genetic modification is evil. Genetically modified wheat was especially susceptible to the fear-mongering of activists because it involved the bread people eat every day, rather than crops used for animal feed and clothing.

Monsanto's decision to shelve its genetically modified wheat follows a similar decision to kill its insect-resistant potato. The decisions stymie a technology that could reduce hunger and improve nutrition worldwide. Rice enhanced with vitamin A can prevent blindness and death in developing countries. It's in field trials now. Poor farmers in Africa are seeing cotton yields jump after turning to seeds modified to resist insects.

But private industry won't advance genetic technology unless it will sell in developed nations, where the money is.

The fear is that genetic modifications will produce unknown toxins that poison the populace. Others worry that genetic changes will jump species into wild plants, creating super weeds immune to herbicides, or kill off insects.

But none of those bogeymen has popped up in the decade since genetic technology hit the farm fields. Genetically modified seeds now make up 86 percent of American soy, 46 percent of corn and 76 percent of cotton crops. The bugs are fine, super weeds are science fiction, and no one is breaking out in hives.

Monsanto's engineered spring wheat would have increased yields 5 percent to 15 percent but wouldn't have helped consumers one whit. Genetically modified crops won't gain acceptance until Western consumers have a reason to like them. Monsanto is working on soy that is lower in fats that clog blood vessels. Canola low in fatty acids already is on the market. Scientists are working on plants to deliver vaccines, such as a banana with the vaccine for Hepatitis B and a potato that helps prevent diarrhea.

For genetically modified technology to gain acceptance, consumers will have to see benefits to themselves, not just to farmers.

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Canada's high court to decide Monsanto dispute with farmer
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/Business/177059AEF21895EA86256E97006D50E3?OpenDocument&Headline=Canada's+high+court+to+decide+Monsanto+dispute+with+farmer&highlight=2%2Cmonsanto

By Jim Suhr
Associated Press
05/17/2004

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Canada's top court on Friday will decide once and for all a closely watched, 7-year-old dispute involving a farmer accused by Monsanto Co. of illegally growing a herbicide-resistant canola variety, an official with the court said Monday.

The Supreme Court of Canada will rule whether Saskatchewan's Percy Schmeiser violated a Monsanto patent by growing without the agribusiness titan's permission a gene-altered canola variety immune to Monsanto's powerful Roundup weedkiller.

The protracted legal case has become a cause for biotechnology opponents and proponents around the globe, dating to 1997 when Monsanto found its genetically engineered canola plant growing on Schmeiser's farm.

Monsanto has alleged that Schmeiser obtained its seeds without paying for them. Schmeiser has argued the Roundup Ready canola seed arrived in his field by accident, either from blowing off a passing truck or by cross-pollination from neighboring fields.

Two lower courts have rejected his explanation, saying it was more likely Schmeiser planted the seed himself, and ordered the farmer to pay Monsanto more than $100,000 in damages and legal costs.

The nine-judge Canadian high court, which heard arguments in the matter in January, will decide the matter Friday morning, Michel Jobidon -- the court's senior registry officer -- said.

Messages left Monday with Monsanto were not returned.

Some farmers, especially those from developing nations, fear that natural or accidental contamination of their conventional crops with biotech varieties will give biotech companies licenses to seize their crops.

Monsanto and its backers who joined the case -- an industry lobbyist and two farm groups -- have argued that invalidating the company's patent could do it and the country economic harm and undermine Canada's patent system.

"I think the point has been reached with the world community where I cannot stop now," Schmeiser said in 2002 during a visit to St. Louis, Monsanto's home turf.

"How can an average citizen stand up to a multinational, billion-dollar corporation? I don't have my head in the sand; I know who I'm up against," added Schmeiser, whose Web site casts his legal battle as "The Classic David vs. Goliath Struggle."

Monsanto and its backers insist Schmeiser must pay every year for seed, just like tens of thousands of other canola farmers in Canada, where roughly half the 10 million acres of canola have been converted since 1996 to Monsanto's variety.

A ruling against Monsanto could boost the anti-biotechnology movement trying to stop the spread of genetically engineered plants and animals until more comprehensive studies ensure the technology is safe.

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On the Net:

Supreme Court of Canada, http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca

Monsanto, http://www.monsanto.com.

Percy Schmeiser, http://www.percyschmeiser.com