01/05/09 A biotech survey for wheat growers

Farm and Ranch January 5, 2009 What do you think about transgenic wheat? The National Association of Wheat Growers will soon be surveying growers across the country about the issue of biotech wheat. NAWG president David Cleavinger spoke about the survey at the Oregon Idaho Grains Conference. Cleavinger: "We would ask that if you get the phone call or the paper in the mail that you would fill that out, because the biotech providers are asking how much do farmers support biotechnology. You know we can say as NAWG officers or NAWG leaders that we support biotechnology but ten years down the road do producers want biotechnology? This survey will be an avenue to show that we do have producer support. So when you get that survey please fill it out so we will know where to go forward." Steve Wirsching with U.S. Wheat Associates in Portland has been involved in sessions on transgenic wheat with overseas buyers like Japan. He sees some movement toward acceptance as those countries are now at least willing to talk about setting a tolerance for transgenic wheat in export shipments. Wirsching: "They are willing to start talking and thinking about that whereas as you know earlier they were not, because they realize that at some point it is going to be necessary." Wirsching says the U.S. wants to be in a position to supply non-transgenic wheat too, if that is what the customer wants. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.