 | Box 1
Nature Biotechnology
22, 1333 - 1334 (2004)
doi:10.1038/nbt1104-1333
Illegal seeds overtake India's cotton fieldsK.S. Jayaraman | | | 
| GM containment problems around the globe
India is one of several countries to have recent problems with unapproved varieties of GM crops popping up. Whereas in India, greedy traders colluding with unsuspecting farmers are spreading illegal cottonseeds, in other countries the problems are arising for different reasons:
- On 13 September, Thailand, which does not allow the commercial planting of GM crops, ordered a halt to the distribution of papaya seeds from its research station in Khon Kaen three months after Greenpeace campaigners discovered the presence of GM virus-resistant papayas outside the station. The government is investigating whether GM seedlings were sold to the farmers, which seems a more likely scenario than gene flow.
- Organic papaya growers in Hawaii have increasingly found their trees to have transgenes that confer resistance to ringspot virus since GM varieties were introduced in 1998. In this case, the culprit is almost certainly gene flow through pollen blowing in from nearby GM papaya farms.
- The New Scientist reported on 20 September that over one million GM insect-resistant poplar trees have been 'lost' in China. The government planted the trees over 8,000 square kilometers in an effort to prevent flash floods and halt the spread of deserts, but now no one knows exactly which trees in the areas are transgenic. China's Ministry of Agriculture has not kept track of them because they are not crops, and the country's State Forestry Bureau does not have a licensing system to properly trace the trees.
KSJ & Aaron Bouchie |
|
|
