“We respect USDA’s responsibility to oversee and regulate field trials of plants with genetically modified events but are concerned about the impact this rule change will have on wheat research and production,” says NAWG President Brett Blankenship, a wheat grower from Washtucna, Wash. “As we indicated to USDA during the comment period, we are concerned that the new rules will increase the cost of compliance and potentially impede wheat research programs, especially among small, private companies and public institutions whose resources for wheat research are already stretched.”
“Given the unmatched safety track record of all current GE crops, we view the added regulatory hurdle as unnecessary and potentially burdensome to moving wheat forward, says NAWG Vice President Gordon Stoner, a wheat grower from Outlook, Mont. “There is no commercially available GE wheat in production, no GE wheat in any export channels, and no GE wheat varieties currently awaiting APHIS deregulation, so having USDA-APHIS categorize future GE wheat research field trials for added scrutiny is both puzzling and potentially inhibiting for those seeking much needed public and private research investments.”