GMO Contamination: Who Pays? (03/22/2004)
In the ongoing debate over biotechnology in the U.S., one key question has yet to be answered: Who is responsible when genetically engineered crops contaminate a non-GE field? In this story, farmers, farm groups, the biotech and organic industries, and other agriculture experts weigh in on GMO liability.
DES MOINES (DTN) -- Iowa farmer George Naylor wants someone to take responsibility for genetically engineered (GE) crop contamination.
Naylor, a corn and soybean grower from Churdan in west central Iowa, raises conventional, or non-GE, crops. Last year he had a contract to raise non-GE soybeans for a Japanese company that uses them for tofu.
He chose a conventional variety that he'd had success with in the past, but when planting time arrived it was discovered that most of the variety had become contaminated through cross pollination with GE soybeans. Naylor was forced to choose a new variety from the few non-GE soybeans that remained.
Source: High Plains Journal
