GMO Pollen transfer
David DeCou (ddecou@pond.net)
Wed, 28 Jul 1999 08:02:52 -0700
Hello all-
I am an organic farmer who is a member of a Task Force from the Organic
Trade Association (OTA) which is attempting to come up with a
recommendations for Organic farmers concerning GMOs. The one issue which is
of deep concern is polen transfer. We in the OTA assume that when the USDA
comes out with another Proposed Rule for Organic production that there will
be a requirement for no use of geneticically modified materials, seeds,
crops, etc. in organic production. We also assume that we will not be able
to achieve an absolute zero level over time because of cross pollenation of
certain crops. We know that in Europe there is DISCUSSION of a tolerance
level of 0.1% contamination of GMO's in crops which are still to be
considered GMO free (nothing definitive yet on this but this approaches the
current abilities to test these things). Given that organic farmers will be
growing crops near to their neighbors who may be growing Genetically
modified crops of the same species what kind of buffer would be necessary
to prevent a contamination of 0.1% in the crop. Clearly this information
would be crop specific and a buffer may be in time as well as in space.
This issue will be very significant organic growers in the Corn Belt
currently and in other crops as well if the BioTech Industry moves ahead
into a wider spectrum of crops as well.
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