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Oregon wheat fields line State Route 206 between Condon and Wasco.
(Jamie Francis/The Oregonian)
An attorney representing the eastern
in one of his fields says his client is cooperating with a federal investigation that has roiled the international market for Pacific Northwest wheat.
"I think it's a difficult situation, but he knows he's done the right thing," said
of the Portland law firm Dunn Carney.
Bernasek did not identify the farmer; federal and state agriculture officials and other Oregon growers have likewise declined to name him or to provide more than a general description of where the farm is located.
The case has international trade implications. Genetically-modified – or
– wheat, often called "Roundup resistant" because it withstands the herbicide glyphosate produced by Monsanto, has not been approved for commercial planting. Some nations that buy wheat grown by Oregon and Washington farmers have made it clear they do not want to import genetically modified food.
News that GM wheat was found in Oregon caused an immediate market reaction. Japan postponed a 25,000-ton order from a Portland grain shipper, and South Korea and the European Union have called for tests of American wheat. An Oregon crop valued at $300 million to $500 million a year is suddenly in jeopardy as federal investigators try to track the problem to its source.
Bernasek said his client is as mystified as everyone else. The farmer has grown wheat in alternating years on the 125-acre field for the past nine years, he said, and has never before had a problem with plants resisting treatment with glyphosate.
The attorney said the field was never used for trials of Monsanto's Roundup resistant wheat, which was grown at test locations in 16 states, including Oregon, from 1998 to 2005. The last Oregon trial was in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Monsanto ultimately withdrew its application to have the GM variety approved.
Bernasek said the farmer used certified winter wheat seed and has used the same seed on other fields. The field was planted in October 2011, harvested in the summer of 2012 and is fallow, or bare, this year. The field was sprayed with glyphosate, but the treatment failed to kill a number of wheat plants, called volunteers, that had sprouted from leftover seed knocked loose during the previous year's harvest. Bernasek said the farmer estimated the scattered wheat plants cover 1 percent of the field.
The farmer reported the problem to Oregon State University and provided plant samples for study. Researchers at OSU determined the plants contained the glyphosate-resistant gene. Federal scientists then confirmed the plants were the same variety planted during the Monsanto trials.
Subsequent tests of the farmer's other fields have been negative, Bernasek said.
"He understands the need to responsibly work with the USDA to get to the bottom of this," he said.
Meanwhile, other eastern Oregon wheat farmers believe the involved grower did the right thing in reporting the problem, despite its impact on lucrative international exports.
"It was an incredibly courageous decision that he made," said Tyson Raymond, who farms near Pendleton. But for every person who believes the farmer acted correctly, "there's a guy that's probably sitting with a few thousand bushels of wheat right now that's not very happy with the decision."
"He's just your average-Joe farmer trying to make a living, and it's caused him a lot of grief," said Darren Padget, a Sherman County grower who serves on the Oregon Wheat Commission. "When he figured out what it was, he was very distraught."
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Richard Read of The Oregonian contributed to this report