Terry Wanzek, a farmer and politician, promotes genetically modified wheat as a potential savior for the state’s sluggish farm economy. But that position damaged his political career: Wanzek lost his state Senate seat to an opponent who ran on an anti-biotech wheat platform.
The lonely wheat fields of North Dakota have become the front line in an escalating international debate over genetically modified wheat, a new product from agricultural giant Monsanto that is being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.
The battle has pitted farmer against farmer, with proponents of the new technology arguing that biotech wheat will pull the grain growers out of years of malaise and opponents worrying that it could contaminate their fields and scare off foreign customers who are wary of genetic modification.
“As a farmer, I take food safety and consumers’ concerns very seriously,” said Wanzek, a fourth-generation farmer and the former head of the state Senate’s Agriculture Committee.
“But I ask, `Can we afford to take the risk of maintaining the status quo?’ I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one who stopped Louis Pasteur or Thomas Edison, and just look at the opposition they faced.”
The biotech wheat debate even reached the Statehouse in Bismarck, where the North Dakota House of Representatives passed a moratorium on biotech wheat that later was defeated by the Senate.
Some North Dakota farmers say they will refuse to plant the crop.
“I can’t envision why we want to do this,” said Jim Bobb, the grain division manager for Southwest Grain in Taylor, N.D. “Europe is opposed to this. [South] Korea doesn’t want it. There are very few customers who have said they will take it.”
An added protein in Monsanto’s biotech wheat makes it tolerant of Roundup, the company’s herbicide, which means the weeds are killed and the wheat remains intact. Monsanto says this would give farmers a significantly higher yield.
In the span of six weeks this fall, Bobb said five groups of foreign business people made the long trek to his offices to ask essentially the same question: Are North Dakota farmers going to plant genetically modified wheat?
“It’s a good two- or three-hour discussion every time,” Bobb said. “I don’t think the Japanese left very comfortably, sad to say.”
Heartland of controversy
Genetically modified wheat is controversial in other states as well but nowhere as much as here. North Dakota is the largest producer of hard red spring wheat, the modified version of which Monsanto hopes to market.
More than three dozen projects are under way to develop genetically engineered wheat plants, but Monsanto is the first to seek regulatory approval, hoping to replicate the success it has had with genetically modified corn and soybeans.
But while those crops have been accepted with relatively little controversy, the debate over genetically engineered wheat has been far more intense, mostly because so much of the American crop–nearly half–is sold abroad, where biotech crops have received a chilly reception.
Consumers in Japan, South Korea and in Europe, who are some of America’s biggest customers for wheat, have indicated that they do not want a bioengineered version of the crop.
Just how much international markets matter to U.S. agriculture was underscored by the discovery of mad cow disease last month. Within a week, 90 percent of export markets closed their doors to U.S. beef.
Altered wheat a linchpin
Michael Rodemeyer, executive director of the non-profit Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, which tracks the industry, said a rejection of genetically modified wheat by American farmers could have a chilling effect on the overall biotech industry because companies would be reluctant to invest in other plants.
“I think that wheat is really the bellwether of where the technology is going to go,” Rodemeyer said. “The real question is whether the market is going to accept biotechnology in another food crop.”
Food manufacturers and retailers are weighing the value of producing biotech products that make many Americans uneasy and that large parts of the world may refuse.
“The food industry, I think, continues to believe in the ultimate potential value of biotechnology in food,” Keith Triebwasser, manager of product safety and regulatory affairs for Procter & Gamble, said at a biotech seminar last fall.
But, he added, “as we look at the data, we just don’t get a lot of reassurance about consumer acceptance.”
FDA officials, meanwhile, are reviewing the application for Monsanto’s Roundup Ready wheat. They provided no deadline for making a decision.
At Monsanto’s research headquarters outside St. Louis, company officials emphasize that they will not introduce genetically modified wheat into the market until they have received approval from U.S., Canadian and Japanese authorities and until export markets that will buy the wheat are identified.
Making the case
The stiff resistance has forced Monsanto to take a softer, slower approach than it has in the past, when the company has been criticized for pushing biotech products to market without addressing consumer concerns. Its campaign to attract wheat growers emphasizes that the technology could jump-start an industry hard hit by years of low prices and foreign competition.
Michael Doane (the name as published has been corrected here and in subsequent references in this text), a soft-spoken Kansas native who grew up on a wheat farm and now spearheads Monsanto’s campaign for Roundup Ready wheat, said the company is pushing for a “positive and responsible introduction for the technology” that emphasizes openness about the company’s intentions and respect for other views.
“We want to demonstrate that this technology can coexist with opinions that are different than ours,” said Doane, director of industry affairs, adding that the company also plans to share its technology with poor nations.
Monsanto contends that biotech wheat would be good for farmers and the environment because it would increase yields by 10 percent per acre and reduce the overall need for herbicides. The company also argues that markets already exist for the new wheat, including Egypt and Latin America, and there likely will be more once the product is approved.
Doane’s argument has been received among some farmers and farm associations in the Great Plains. Lance Hagen, executive director of the North Dakota Grain Growers Association, said technology traditionally has been the tool that has kept American farming ahead of its competitors.
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“U.S. farmers have to do something that sets us apart,” said Hagen, who dismissed opponents of Roundup Ready wheat as being afraid of change. “It’s like going from tractors without cabs or air conditioning to tractors now that automatically steer themselves using global positioning.”
Lynn Selle, a farmer in Halliday, said he fears that farmers will have no way to contain biotech wheat once its planted. Once genetically modified wheat is planted, he said, there are so many ways it can spread–from combines traveling down the road to trucks going to grain elevators to birds carrying pollen–that it would be impossible to keep it separate from regular wheat.
Some foreign buyers have indicated they will not accept conventional American wheat if it is contaminated with even small amounts of biotech wheat.
“Right now our wheat is a proven product,” Selle said. “Why mess with it?”
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Genetically engineered wheat is a hard sell
Monsanto Corp. wants to introduce a variety of genetically modified wheat designed to resist herbicides. Foreign wheat buyers who do not import modified crops are concerned that U.S. farmers cannot prevent contamination of natural wheat with modified varieties.
%% PRODUCERS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS
In millions of acres in 2002
U.S. 96.3 (66.4%)
Others 48.7 (33.6%)
Argentina 33.3
Canada 8.6
China 5.2
Other 1.6
%%
TOP THREE U.S. GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS
The U.S. dominates genetically modified crops, which were introduced in 1996 and now make up 22 percent of the world`s produce.
%%
Percentage of U.S. crops that are genetically engineered
Corn
(2002: 79,000 acres)
2001: 26%
2002: 34%
2003: 40%
Soybean
(2002: 72,993 acres)
2001: 68%
2002: 75%
2003: 81%
Cotton
(2002: 14,151 acres)
2001: 69%
2002: 71%
2003: 73%
Source: Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology
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