The Port of Duluth-Superior may have been one of the biggest benefactors of Monsanto’s decision earlier this year to mothball plans to commercially release a genetically modified grain, Roundup-Ready wheat.

Had the commercial release gone forward, some in the grain trade believe that European buyers would have responded by taking their business to other sources where supplies of non-genetically modified wheat would be assured, subsequently bypassing spring wheat out of Duluth.

“I’m not sure people fully realize the magnitude [genetically modified] wheat would have on the Port. Roundup-Ready wheat would have been a huge issue. It absolutely would have killed wheat shipments out of the Port of Duluth,” said the marketing director of one of the grain companies that exports wheat from this port.

Although biotech wheat has its supporters, its time hasn't come for Duluth-Superior exporters.

Duluth-Superior handles more grain than any of the other 15 major U.S. ports within the 2,300-mile Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway system. There are three terminal elevators on the Duluth side of the Port (General Mills Elevator A, Cargill and AGP) and three on the Superior side (General Mills Elevator S, Cenex Harvest States and Peavey Connors Point).

The grain companies have systems in place for handling and processing different types and varieties of grain with specialized or “identity preserved” (IP) traits, such as food-grade soybeans and high-protein hard red spring wheat. Along with using processes to clean and segregate different types and classes of grain, companies can “IP” grain by contracting with producers and hauling harvested grain directly to the dock of an ocean vessel.

These practices do a tremendous job of maintaining product purity, greatly minimizing contrasting classes, foreign material and other factors that would diminish grain quality. However, it is virtually impossible to guarantee a shipment of grain with not one genetically-modified kernel. Most of the grain shipped out of Duluth-Superior is spring wheat, mostly to European countries, many of which have zero tolerance toward genetically modified grain.

Thus, one can see where the commercial release of Roundup-Ready wheat could have hurt wheat shipments out of Duluth-Superior.

“The customer base has alternatives. You’re competing with Canadian wheat, German wheat,” said the export marketing director mentioned earlier, whose reluctance to be quoted by name is an indicator of the sensitivity of the biotech issue. “We try to segregate the best we can, and IP all the way through. But we can’t guarantee 100 percent. We are not anti-biotech, we just have customers not willing to accept GMO (genetically modified organisms).”

A demand-driven biotech trait – something that benefits the consumer – might be a better sell in the export market. “We’d love to have our customers requesting a wheat variety with a specific trait unavailable in conventional varieties,” said the export marketing director.

The Port of Duluth-Superior does not have an official position on genetically modified grain. However, it would likely prescribe to the prevailing thought in the U.S. wheat industry: generally supportive of biotechnology but wary of commercialization in an export climate that is not accepting of GMO wheat, particularly in many parts of Asia and Europe that are key spring wheat customers.

“It doesn’t matter if we personally approve of it or not. It’s a consumer-driven issue, and if the end user doesn’t want it, it makes sense to abide by their wishes,” said Ron Johnson, the Port’s trade development director.

Mr. Johnson said the Port does not lobby one way or another on biotech grain, but does make an attempt to keep vessel agents, lawmakers and other officials in the maritime trade informed about various facets of the issue.

Roundup-Ready wheat would have been the first genetically modified wheat on the market, resistant to glyphosate for wide spectrum weed control. Monsanto’s decision to shelve Roundup-Ready wheat effectively ends the company’s wheat biotech R&D, at least for now. In its announcement this spring, Monsanto reported that it will discontinue breeding and field level research of Roundup Ready wheat, turn its attention to other crops and monitor the wheat industry to determine if and when it might be practical to proceed with a biotech wheat product.

U.S. Wheat Associates, which promotes American wheat exports, supported Monsanto’s decision. “While we believe that biotechnology has a definite place in the future of wheat production, the market is not yet ready for the introduction of this new technology. This deferral will reassure our customers that we're not rushing to market prematurely. It also gives us more time to prepare for eventual commercialization of biotechnology traits in wheat," said USW chairman and North Dakota farmer Alan Lee.

Coincidentally, at about the same time that Monsanto announced its decision to shelve Roundup-Ready wheat, grain farmers from North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota organized a new group, Growers for Wheat Biotechnology Inc. (GWB) (http://www.growersforwheatbiotechnology.org/) to advocate the research, development and acceptance of biotechnology in wheat.

"For those of us who believe that biotechnology is a promising tool to keep our industry viable, we felt there was a need for a voice to tell the other side of the story," said Al Skogen, a Valley City, N.D., farmer and chairman of the group. "We felt it was no longer acceptable to stand by and enable other factions to influence producer and public opinion without a reasonable discussion about the sound science and tangible economic and environmental benefits that might be gained with biotechnology in wheat."

Biotech research in wheat still continues, and it is possible that a privately or publicly developed genetically modified wheat could be commercially available by the end of the decade. Syngenta and a separate collaboration of federal and university researchers are using biotechnology to develop wheat that is tolerant to infection of Fusarium head blight, or scab.

Biotechnology is also being used to develop drought-tolerant wheat. In March, the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) took a modest but historic step in the development of drought tolerant wheat when a small trial plot was sown to genetically modified wheat in a screen house at the Center's headquarters in Texcoco, Mexico. This is the first time that biotech wheat has been planted under field-like conditions in Mexico, and extraordinary procedures were followed to isolate the biotech wheat from conventional wheat.

However, CIMMYT researchers point out that the greatest biosafety measures are provided by the wheat plant itself. Wheat is a "perfectly self-pollinated crop," with 99 percent of fertilization occurring within the sheathed spike of the plant, where male and female plant components share the same floret.

Cross-pollination is further limited because wheat pollen is heavy and does not travel far, and because the pollen remains viable for only 20 to 30 minutes.

More information on this drought-tolerant research project (including dramatic photographs comparing the drought-tolerant wheat plants to control plants after 10 days without water) can be found at www.cimmyt.org/english/webp/support/news/dreb.htm.

Ironically, while Japan is one of the leading wheat importers that has expressed opposition to biotech wheat, it was a Japanese research agency, the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, that provided the gene construct that CIMMYT is using to develop drought-tolerant wheat.

Biotech in other crops

According to a University of Minnesota study, four commercial biotech crops — corn, soybeans, cotton and canola — represented $20 billion in value in the United States in 2002, half of the total value of the four crops. Further, growing these biotech crops reduced pesticide use by an estimated 60 million pounds last year in the U.S.

All four crops have shown steady increases in farm adoption rates, a direct result of increases in farm-level profits. Estimates vary by crop and by area, but average profits have risen from $5 to as much as $60 per acre for corn, on the order of $15 per acre for soybeans and from $15 to several hundred dollars per acre for cotton.

The 2003 levels of biotech corn, soybeans, cotton and canola in the U.S. were 40 percent for corn, 81 percent for soybeans, 73 percent for cotton and 70 percent for canola, according to the U of M research.

Ag writer Tracy Sayler, headquartered in Fargo, N.D., can be found at tsayler@prairieagcomm.com.