Two major customers for U.S. wheat, Japan and South Korea, temporarily stopped purchases in 2013 as a precaution against import of GE grain. Some farmers filed suit against Monsanto, the giant seed and chemical company, because of the market turmoil.
USDA announced the Montana investigation at the same time it closed the Oregon case “after exhausting all leads” and “unable to determine exactly how the GE wheat came to grow in the farmer’s field.” It said in a statement “this appears to be an isolated occurrence and that there is no evidence of any GE wheat in commerce.”
The Montana case “is being investigated as a separate compliance issue at a field trial location,” said USDA. MSU said the so-called volunteer wheat “was found in two small areas kept free of unwanted plants” at its Southern Agricultural Research Center in Huntley, Montana. When the sprouts survived repeated doses of weedkiller, the university reported the matter to USDA. MSU said the test plots where it grew GE wheat have been used since 2006 for work on sugar beets and malt barley. The area where the GE wheat was found is bordered on three sides by sugar beet fields and on the fourth by an interstate highway.
USDA announced the Montana investigation more than 10 weeks after MSU reported the matter in mid-July; it made public its Oregon investigation four weeks after being alerted by Oregon officials. USDA said because the MSU case was a compliance issue, it decided to wrap it into the announcement of closure of the Oregon case.
The Oregon case raised questions about USDA supervision of field trials of GE crops. The Montana case could do the same. Researchers are supposed to restrict experimental crops to test plots, eradicate stray plants and police the site against volunteer plants as well as keeping strict control of seed.
For its part, USDA said it “is also taking several additional steps to ensure that unintended GE wheat is not growing in other locations in the United States where field trials are taking place or recently occurred.” Beside checking all field trial sites for this year and spot-checking post-harvest controls at 2012 and 2013 test plots, USDA said it would assess other steps to minimize further incidents involving GE wheat. The steps will include a review of USDA rules for field trials and the frequency of inspections of test sites, said USDA.
MSU discovered the GE wheat “as part of their ongoing monitoring associated with prior (GE) trials,” said Monsanto, developer of popular glyphosate-resistant corn and soybean varieties, in a statement. Monsanto said it and MSU determined the wheat plants were genetically engineered before notifying USDA.
Biotech skeptic Center for Food Safety said, “Just as USDA closes one fruitless investigation, it tries to bury the story of yet another contamination…There must be accountability for Monsanto. USDA should, at a minimum, immediately place a moratorium on open-air field testing of genetically engineered crops.”
Wheat industry leaders said they did not expect damage to wheat exports from the Montana case because USDA said no GE wheat reached commercial channels, said Reuters. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. wheat is exported.
A three-page USDA question-and-answer sheet is available here. The 12,842-page report on the Oregon investigation is available here.