Genetically modified plants are perfectly harmless and totally under control:
The Agriculture Department last night took the unusual step of insisting that U.S. farmers refrain from planting a popular variety of long-grain rice because preliminary tests showed that its seed stock may be contaminated with a variety of gene-altered rice not approved for marketing in the United States.
The announcement marks the third time in six months that U.S. rice has been found to be inexplicably contaminated with engineered traits, and it comes just weeks before the spring planting season. ...
How fun. Bayer, the nation's rice farmers salute you.
... USDA issued "emergency action notifications" to distributors to prevent planting of Clearfield CL131 seed. Similar orders will be issued to farmers to prevent use of the seed until USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection tests the rice.
Arkansas state officials say the Clearfield variety apparently carries the Liberty Link RICE601 gene material, a GMO strain made by Bayer CropScience. The rice variety disrupted the U.S. rice industry in the summer of 2006 after the material, which was not cleared for food use, was found in commercial bins in Arkansas and Missouri. ...
Weeks before planting season, GMO contamination in a non-engineered strain of rice puts what a USDA staffer described to me as being about half the U.S. stock of rice seed out of commission. Farmers are going to be hit hard by this and the inspections are going to cost taxpayers a bundle. It's either recall the rice or lose the most lucrative export markets for the year entirely.
From the Center for Food Safety:
... This new contamination episode follows a similar debacle last summer, when the non-engineered Cheniere variety of rice was found contaminated with LL601, another unapproved genetically engineered rice from Bayer. LL601 contamination led to rejection of U.S. long-grain rice exports to Europe, resulting in sharp drops in rice prices and lost income for farmers. Cheniere will not be planted this year to prevent propagation of the LL601 contaminant, which remains unapproved in Europe. The new ban is intended to prevent a repeat of that situation with Clearfield 131.
The loss of Clearfield 131 and Cheniere, which together represent 39% of the South’s certified seed supply, is causing great hardship to Southern, especially Arkansas, rice farmers, who are unable to find sufficient amounts of uncontaminated seed as planting season nears.
... USDA is responsible for ensuring that unapproved genetically engineered crops grown in outdoor field trials do not contaminate commercial-grade crops, but has come in for harsh criticism of numerous regulatory failings. In late 2005, USDA’s Inspector General issued a scathing audit documenting that the Department was not even aware of the locations of many field trials, and failed to conduct many, supposedly required, inspections of field trial sites. In February 2007, a federal court ruled against USDA for allowing genetically engineered crop field trials to take place without conducting environmental assessments. ...
GMO is perfectly harmless. Unless you're a farmer. Or a taxpayer. Or someone who was expecting rice to cost a little less than it's likely to this year.
Some people, which is to say the big seed companies, might argue that this is why the World Trade Organization should break down the trade injunctions against GMO crops. Those are the same people who keep telling us that there aren't any risks from these organisms getting into the food supply or interbreeding with wild plants. Yet they also aren't performing safety testing, they can't seem to control where their products show up, and they plainly aren't properly reporting their activities to the regulatory agencies who are responsible for protecting the food supply.
Why should the public trust anything that the companies peddling these gene modified crops say?
Natasha is currently an intern with the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, an organization dedicated to outreach and education in sustainable agriculture and food systems issues. The opinions expressed in this post are her own and are not representations on behalf of MFAI. For regular legislative alerts about food sustainability issues, sign up with the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture.