Kenny
>From: "E. Ann Clark, Associate Professor" <ACLARK@plant.uoguelph.ca>
>To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
>Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 17:22:34 EST
>Subject: Re: pollen mobility
>
>Bob McG. The example from experimental plots in the UK is small
>potatoes compared to what has been coming through on Western
>Producer. In two separate articles, farmers are reporting movement
>of GE transgenes into their crops, either from an adjoining field
>they also own or from land owned (and sown) by others. In the latter
>case, the farmer is reportedly being sued by Monsanto for retaining
>and reseeding RR seed. Only problem - the farmer never bought it in
>the first place. He claims it came into his canola fields from what
>Jeremy Rifkin calls "genetic pollution" - movement from other fields.
>Reference for this is in my latest talk, given to the Ecological
>Farmers Association of Ontario (see my homepage).
>
>A prof at Alberta was queried on this - his response - no surprise to
>him. He and others had published back in the 70's showing
>field-scale (not small plot) canola pollen can move 8 km (yes, that
>is kilometers) via insect pollinators, such as flies. Canola is the
>biggest risk for this at present (apart from other open-pollinated
>potentially-GE crops like alfalfa). Soybean has a small % outcrossing
>- 0.3% I'm told - but this would of course be enough to nullify a
>neighboring claim by organic farmers for GE free crops. Corn is
>another freely outcrossing species, where pollen can reportedly move
>about 2 km.
>
>How can Monsanto claim to retain "ownership' of their precious
>transgenes when the pollen is so very mobile? Is this where
>Terminator, comes in? And what is a chemical-based farmer going to
>do when his/her field of Crop X gets RR-resistance from one neighbor,
>resistance to another herbicde form a second, resistance to another
>herbicide from a third - and so on? Ann
>ACLARK@plant.uoguelph.ca
>Dr. E. Ann Clark
>Associate Professor
>Crop Science
>University of Guelph
>Guelph, ON N1G 2W1
>Phone: 519-824-4120 Ext. 2508
>FAX: 519 763-8933
>http://www.oac.uoguelph.ca/www/CRSC/faculty/eac.htm
>
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