Wheat farmers and a food safety advocacy group in the U.S. filed a lawsuit on Thursday against agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. (MON), saying that the discovery of the company's unapproved genetically engineered wheat in an Oregon field has financially hurt farmers and damaged export prospects.
The Center for Food Safety or CFS, a non-profit food safety advocacy group, noted that Oregon wheat farmers suffered depressed wheat prices following the discovery of Monsanto's illegal genetically engineered, glyphosate-resistant wheat plants in an Oregon field.
The genetically engineered crops, created by Monsanto, have not been approved for sale or commercial production in the U.S. The presence of these unapproved crops spurred top wheat importers such as Japan, South Korea and the European Union to enact restrictions on American wheat or call for testing.
CFS said that a class action lawsuit was filed against Monsanto on behalf of the group and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers. CFS and Washington white wheat farmers are representing the broad class of farmers affected by the contamination, seeking relief and forcing Monsanto take measures to clean up the contamination and ensure it never happens again.
The farmers are also seeking compensatory damages for class due to diminished prices for soft white wheat resulting from the loss of export as well as loss of domestic markets, and increased grower costs resulting from the need to maintain the integrity of the soft white wheat supply.
Tom Stahl, a fourth-generation Washington wheat farmer said, "We farmers cannot stand idly by while companies like Monsanto destroy our export markets and our economy. These reckless open-air test plots of GE wheat must be put to an end."
Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety said, "Monsanto has put our farmer's wheat export market at grave risk. Billions of dollars, and our food supply, is at risk because of Monsanto's negligence. They must be held accountable."
Monsanto conducted field tests of its genetically-engineered glyphosate-resistant or Roundup Ready wheat plants in 16 U.S. states from 1998 to 2005, but never commercialized the controversial crop. In May 2004, Monsanto decided to give up its pursuit of regulatory approval due to considerable market resistance.
Wheat farmers and advocacy organizations have long argued that genetically engineered or GE wheat would contaminate conventional wheat, making it unsellable to many markets that reject GE products.
"The discovery of unapproved Roundup Ready wheat in a farmer's field in Oregon, years after Monsanto terminated field testing, is one more example of Monsanto's inability to keep their engineered genes under control. Until Monsanto and USDA begin to take gene flow from field tests more seriously, we can expect escaped genes to continue to cause havoc," said Martha Crouch, a consultant for CFS.
MON closed Thursday's regular trading session at $98.72, down $0.19 or 0.19 percent on a volume of 3.47 million shares.
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