“Unprecedented Escape” of GM Crops into the Wild-


Scientists have discovered that genetically engineered canola has been reproducing in the American wild for at least “several generations”. Canola is a yellow flowering plant that is used to make oil. The GM canola has adapted into an unknown strain and it may be altering the genetic makeup of other plants as well. Researchers in North Dakota found varieties of transgenic canola growing wild along roadsides far from farmlands, evidence that the GM plants had spread a great distance. The discovery affirms that GM crops are not extensively monitored or controlled in the U.S.

Nature Reports:

“The extent of the escape is unprecedented,” says Cynthia Sagers, an ecologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, who led the research team that found the canola (Brassica napus, also known as rapeseed). Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild – one modified to be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (glyphosate), and one resistant to Bayer Crop Science’s Liberty herbicide (gluphosinate). They also found some plants that were resistant to both herbicides, showing that the different GM plants had bred to produce a plant with a new trait that did not exist anywhere else.
Sagers says the previous discoveries in other countries of transgenic canola populations growing outside of cultivation were often in or near fields used for commercial transgenic canola production. By contrast, her research team found feral populations of herbicide-resistant canola growing along roads, near petrol stations and grocery stores, often at large distances from areas of agricultural production.

According to Alison Snow, an ecologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, the escaped GM crops could potentially spread herbicide resistance to U.S. weed populations. If this happens, farmers will be left defenseless against invasive insects and extensive crop decline would be soon to follow.