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JUNE 2016 SEEDWORLD.COM 37 The trade disruptions that can happen from contamina- tion are serious he says. This has been a huge problem for the United States. Just a few years ago there was a genetically engineered wheat that ended up in a farmers field and for three or four months that year markets for wheats in Korea and Japan closed to U.S. farmers. In 2005 an experimental GE rice variety ended up contaminating more than half of all U.S. long-grain rice exports causing more than 1 billion dollars worth of damage to the U.S. rice industry. He says there is also no requirement to disclose the genetic sequence of the inserted GE trait during experimental crop trials meaning its virtually impossible to detect or trace any potential contaminationcross-pollinating coming from such field trials. Were one of the few countries that does not require genetic sequence information for GE traits during field trials he says. Mischa Popoff Popoff says the non-GMO push comes mainly from support- ers of organic agriculture but he believes its all hype and little substance. Theyve created this marketing system and a big part of that system is that they are non-GMO Popoff says. The argu- ment is political. Theres no science there. He says there is cause for concern over contamination of seed crops that must be GMO-free but he adds that the percentage of crops grown for seed is small. He thinks organic advocates will drop the anti-GMO stance in time. I think its inevitable. It might be in 30 years but I hope its in 3 years Popoff says. There are a lot of crops out there and theres a potential for more to exist that would be totally accept- able to organic growers. Kevin Folta Folta believes most if not all of the problems associated with contamination can be dealt with through improved communica- tion. A farmer who doesnt want his non-GMO crop to be cross- pollinated by a nearby GMO crop can talk to his neighbors and develop a schedule that offsets their flowering times. The way around it is that farmers can talk to each other. If youre planting organic sweet corn and you plan on selling it as organic sweet corn you have to be cognizant of when your neighbors are planting transgenic corn and offset the flowering time and work together to create buffer zones Folta says. He says concerns by organic advocates are misplaced because their adoption of GMO products would lead to decreased need for inputs. If you had organic growers planting GMO sweet corn that had insect protection youd have good yields and you wouldnt have to use the large amounts of organic pesticides that are available Folta says. They created an arbitrary standard of avoiding things that dont matter. SW