South Korea and Japan have banned wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest from their markets and announced that U.S. wheat crops will undergo increased scrutiny after the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s announcement that wheat grown in the United States has been contaminated by genetically modified (GM) strains found growing wild on a farm in Oregon.
Although there is no solid evidence that any GM wheat has been commercially sold, the USDA has confimed that it is also taking a close look at wheat grown in North Dakota and Hawaii as well. Reporting the story, the Washington Post questioned “… the mysterious appearance of the Monsanto wheat has raised questions about how the strain traveled there and whether it is lurking in the commercial wheat crop.”
The USDA’s initial test results suggest the Oregon field contained “volunteer” seedlings of (GE) glyphosate-resistant GM wheat. Monsanto developed GE wheat engineered to tolerate RoundUP, a widely used weed killer. The wheat (and other crop) seeds are often sold under the brand name Roundup Ready, but Monsanto says it stopped testing of GE and GM wheat in 2005 in the face of worldwide opposition to GMO crops. Monsanto began test GM wheat in 1998.
This GE wheat was supposed to be restricted to Monsanto’s experimental fields, so the breakout of GM wheat to uncontrolled environments is like the GMO zombie apocalypse. The vast majority of consumers never believed Monsanto’s promises that GMOs would be carefully contained, so now our worst nightmare has been realized. It is not at all unreasonable to foresee the GMO zombie apocalypse spreading uncontrollably until no unmodified crops remain.
The GM wheat breakout caused concern among Asian and European wheat buyers. More countries are likely to follow Japan and South Korea’s lead, since the United States is the only country in the world where GMO-products are not outlawed or regulated by strict labeling requirements. Asian and European markets are particularly adverse to GMO products. The loss of foreign markets for American wheat has far-reaching implications for U.S. farmers and food producers and ultimately for the U.S. economy in view of our $9 billion annual wheat exports.
In fact, as I reported last month, Monsanto, the holder of GMO patents on a wide variety of foods, has won government protection against lawsuits from exactly the sort of problem that has just emerged in that little 80-acre Oregon wheat field.
I couldn’t agree more with Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and editor of naturalnews.com, who said: “Consumers don’t want GMOs, farmers don’t want GMOs, foreign nations don’t want GMOs and food companies don’t want to deal with the hassle of GMOs either. The only entity that still wants GMOs in America is the very company making money off GMOs: Monsanto.”
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