WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 2015 - A USDA plan
to beef up oversight of test plots of genetically engineered wheat – put
together after unauthorized GE wheat was found in fields in Oregon and Montana
– is meeting opposition from both sides of the issue.
The proposed Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service rule, published in the Federal Register in September, would
require all future field trials of GE wheat to be done under APHIS permits, as
well as “more stringent post-harvest monitoring for volunteer wheat plants”
lasting for four years, the agency noted.
While it was never proven that the
events in Oregon and Montana were brought about by volunteer plants from
previous trials, there are no strands of GE wheat currently approved for sale
or production by APHIS.
The comment period for the proposed
rule closed on Monday, and in joint comments, the National
Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates pointed out that wheat
is already lagging in GE research, and this regulation could make that problem worse.
“NAWG and USW believe the USDA APHIS’
proposed four-year volunteer wheat monitoring requirement will be one of the
highest cost activities of compliance for researchers and could negatively
impact GE wheat research trends, resulting in a further erosion of wheat’s
competitiveness with corn and soybeans,” the organizations said.
The Biotechnology Industry Organization
(BIO) noted the “eagerness” of the wheat industry to take advantage of
potential GE advancements, and said that the proposed rule likely won’t address
the issues it is trying to correct. “The limited evidence and reasoning
described (in the Federal Register notice) do not suggest any basis for
concluding that the proposed changes would have the desired effects,” BIO said
in its comments.
While BIO, NAWG, and USW think the rule
goes too far, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW)
said the proposed changes don’t go far enough. It says contamination of non-GE
crops could still happen under this rule. FWW calls for a complete overhaul of
the way GE field trials are conducted, including improving aspects of
contamination prevention and compensation for those affected by contamination.
Furthermore, FWW says better
information about GE trials should be provided to the public.
“The lack of publicly available
information on the exact locations of field trials makes it extremely difficult
to adequately monitor these trials,” FWW said in its comments. “As it stands,
neighboring wheat farmers would never know to take precautions or test for GE
contamination due to the lack of public disclosure of locations and traits
planted.”
FWW also calls on USDA to “enact a
moratorium on the approval of GE wheat field trial applications at least until
the investigation into the Montana GE wheat event is complete.” APHIS recently concluded the investigation
into the Oregon event and could not find the source of the unapproved wheat.
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