Was the Biotech Wheat Found in Oregon Surreptitiously Sowed by Anti-GMO Activists?
Glibert Ross, who works with the American Council on Science and Health has published an op-ed today over at Canada's Financial Post suggesting possible activist involvement:
There is no other explanation for the Oregon discovery. Roundup is Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide or weed-killer, among the commonest used since 1974; a Roundup Ready crop means it is gene-spliced to be resistant to the chemical, while the target weeds are killed by it. Monsanto has strenuously denied having any RR wheat trials in Oregon over the past nine years, and tests of over 30,000 wheat specimens in that region in 2011 showed no evidence of the trait.
So what's behind this bizarre appearance of RR wheat? The FDA said it poses no threat to man, beast or the environment. It's safe, just like the yields of the 400-million acres of GM-crops (over one-tenth of the world's acreage) harvested in 2011. In fact, since the beginning of the "biotech revolution" in 1996, as GM harvests have spread worldwide and accelerated, there has never been one instance of adverse health or environmental effects caused by biotech crops or products.
Activists stridently opposed to biotechnology would understandably want to make a big deal out of this event. The issue is driven solely by money, not science. It is a battle being fought by those who want to reverse real progress, based upon their anti-big business agenda and to promote their own organic mega-businesses.These are the same folks who, while posing as crusaders for "public health," are endeavouring even now to label foods with GM-ingredients, scaring consumers away from perfectly safe products towards their pet organic foods.
If it is impossible for GM wheat to have somehow migrated to that particular isolated farm, or to have spontaneously mutated, there could be only one logical explanation: an intentional surreptitious sowing of rogue RR wheat seeds for the purpose of promoting fear and suspicion of all gene-spliced products. This sort of agenda and tactics have won the day in Europe, which has adopted a Dark Ages approach to biotech agriculture, with activists burning GM crops like their forebears did to witches and infidels before the Age of Reason, screaming "frankenfood" as they do.
As I noted when I reported the incident in my post, "So What if Unregulated Genetically Engineered Wheat Is Found Growing on a Farm in Oregon?":
Nobody knows yet how the herbicide resistant wheat got into the farmer's fields in Oregon but, I, for one, am very curious about who the farmer will turn out to be.
I still am.