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GMO Grass is Creeping Across Oregon

posted by martyb on Monday July 02 2018, @11:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-wait-until-the-Ents-get-loose dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

High Country News reports:

[...] Scotts got permission from the USDA to plant larger fields for seed production. Farmers sowed 80 acres of bentgrass in Canyon County, Idaho, and 420 acres in Jefferson County, Oregon, north of Bend. The Oregon Department of Agriculture picked the site - an irrigated island in the sagebrush sea - to keep the plant far from the Willamette Valley. There, on the western side of the mountains, farmers grow forage and turf grass for a $1 billion-a-year seed industry.

Then two windstorms swept through the eastern Oregon fields in August of 2013, scattering flea-sized seeds well beyond the designated control area. Roundup-resistant pollen fertilized conventional bentgrass plants as far as 13 miles away.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:59PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:59PM (#701389)

    Wasn't the only farmer to be convicted shown to have collected and specifically bred roundup ready crop for seed.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeiser [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @06:22PM

    by HiThere (866) on Monday July 02 2018, @06:22PM (#701515) Journal

    You don't need to be convicted to be bankrupted by the law suit.

    And I believe that there were a few other cases that were less clear, but which Monsanto also won. I don't know that they've lost any, but why would I expect to?

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Monday July 02 2018, @07:53PM

    by sjames (2882) on Monday July 02 2018, @07:53PM (#701555) Journal

    That was the FINDING, but it was based on the court believing claims the plaintiff (Monsanto) made that were later proven false. Monsanto claimed that roundup readiness could ONLY happen by genetic engineering. Not through pollen spreading nor through selective breeding. Since then, weeds related to canola have turned up with the resistance and coca farmers (cocaine) in S. America have bred resistant strains (meaning the DEA was providing them with free weed control).