What Idiot Thought Open Air GMO Trials Were a Good Idea?

I believe, at this point, it’s a fair question.

Open air GMO Trials make my gran gran sad

Melissa Melton
Activist Post

Aren’t we all beyond fed up with our food being taken over by science at this point? A piece by Andrew Gunther points out how open air trials of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are insanely stupid:

The news that an unlicensed genetically modified (GM) wheat has been found growing on a field in Oregon — almost 10 years after it was supposed to have completely destroyed — sent shivers down my spine…we are now witnessing a real ‘escape-from-the-laboratory’ nightmare and, in a worst-case scenario, the impacts on U.S. agriculture could be truly devastating.

But it was Gunther’s additional point that sent shivers down my spine:

Back in 2010, I wrote about how (USDA-approved) GM canola was escaping the agricultural fields, not only becoming a weed itself, but also passing on its GM herbicide-resistant genes to wild plant relatives. Researchers from the University of Arkansas had established that more than 83 percent of the wild canola plants they found growing wild along roadsides right across North Dakota were positive for GM genes. Some of the plants tested positive for resistance to both glyphosphate (Roundup) and glusfosinate (Liberty). Now, commercial GM canola is sold as resistant to either Roundup or Liberty, not both, so this dual resistance actually evolved in the wild after the plants had escaped.” [emphasis added]

See how that works?

Not only did the GM plants get out (not too hard to do considering they were growing out in the open air which isn’t exactly Alcatraz or anything), but they got out, commingled with wild, natural plants and other GM plants, and hybridized.

But open air trials of genetically modified science experiments are such a great idea, right? What a joke! In fact, it sounds like a lame joke:

Q: What do you call it when two genetically modified science experiments easily escape on the wind because that’s how nature works and create hybrids together? 

A: Open air GMO trials!

In reality, this practice is super dangerous as the long-term health effects of all this genetically modified tripe are still unknown, but no one seems to care, especially not the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) which basically allows these biotech companies to regulate themselves. Here’s a description of that process straight from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) website:

When a developer has collected enough evidence that a GE organism poses no more of a plant pest risk than an equivalent non-GE organism, the developer may petition APHIS to determine non-regulated status for the GE organism. If the petition is approved by APHIS, the GE organism may then be introduced into the United States without any further APHIS regulatory oversight.

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So all a biotech company has to do is say, “We think our GMO ‘poses no more of a plant pest risk than an equivalent’ non-GMO,” and toss out whatever it personally believes is ‘enough evidence’ their GMO is great (as in ‘no independent long-term studies whatsoever’), and it’s all good! No further USDA regulatory oversight! Big Agra party time all over mother nature’s creation!

Aside from a thousand other examples, Monsanto’s rogue GMO wheat showing up in an Oregon field after the biotech giant supposedly stopped field tests of it in that particular state back in 2001 is nightmare-inducing for more reasons than one (or one hundred).

As I’ve recently reported, Monsanto claims the GM wheat found growing in Oregon wasn’t even the type of GM wheat the company was testing there:

The type of wheat found (winter wheat) differs from the type Monsanto had been testing [in Oregon] anyway (spring wheat), so there should be absolutely no reason Monsanto’s GM wheat should be found growing anywhere in the state today.

If what Monsanto claims about its genetically engineered creations is true, the company never planted test plots of winter wheat in Oregon — only spring wheat. That means that the company’s test plants for GM winter wheat were magically found growing in an entirely different state than they were originally tested in!

It’d be one thing if the rogue GM wheat was found in a field in a border town of, say, the state of Washington. But by all accounts, this GM wheat-tainted field was reportedly located in eastern Oregon, not northeastern or southeastern Oregon.

Kinda makes this statement from Danny Gigax, Monsanto’s representative for wheat research partner relationships back in 2003, sound a little bit like, oh, I dunno, completely made up bs:

Outcropping or pollen drift is less than .01 percent because the [wheat] pollen is relatively heavy…None of the grain is allowed to go into commerce.

So the pollen is too heavy to transfer? Oh, I see. Then how was nature doing it before? And none of it is allowed into commerce? Tell that to Thailand who found GM test wheat in one of their U.S. wheat shipments back in 1999.

By the way, Gigax’s full time job back then was to prevent GM wheat contamination. Oops.

Thus, the whole idea of an open air trial of a potentially dangerous test crop could have only been dreamed up by total idiots, or worse, a company that would purposefully contaminate its natural competition in a bid for a total takeover of the world’s food supply. (If this was grade school, the phrase “no duh” would apply here.)

By the way, Monsanto resumed open air tests of the company’s GM wheat in 2011.

It’s times like these that feel like we’re living in the movie Idiocracy, and pretty soon we’ll be watering the cross-contaminated genetically engineered mess that was once our actual, real food with a sports drink resembling Gatorade instead of water: