Biotechology was focus of Wheat Summit III

Farm and Ranch October 15, 2009 The Wheat Summit, which began a few years ago, brings together all aspects of the wheat chain to address the competitiveness of wheat production in the United States. Wheat Summit III was held in Kansas City this week and Daren Coppock, CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers, says the focus of this gathering was biotechnology and biotech wheat.

Coppock: “But the two things we added new to the Wheat Summit this year were involvement by international collaborators and also had a very involved discussion with wheat breeders and technology transfer directors from public universities, and ARS, and we also had some seed certification people here, dealing with issues on how are we going to license and transfer materials back and forth to create public-private partnerships and really make this technology available on a broad scale.”

On hand from Canada was Richard Phillips, executive for the Grain Growers of Canada.

Phillips: “I just want to say thanks to the U.S. guys for inviting us down here. It has been really interesting. And I have to say they are at least a year if not two years ahead of the discussions in Canada.”

NAWG’s Coppock said the next step will continue the work on market acceptance of GMO wheat and he says since commercialized GMO wheat is probably ten years away, there is plenty of time. A key issue in market acceptance is the development of a tolerance level of GMO wheat in non-GMO shipments.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.