Christopher Doering

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The discovery of another unapproved variety of genetically modified wheat in Montana has increased pressure to tighten the regulation of biotech crops, a change that could cause havoc for farmers in Iowa and across the U.S. eager to get their hands on the newest varieties.

The popular crops are staunchly defended by farmers who depend on genetically altered seeds to provide them with higher yields, better-quality products, and lower consumption of chemicals to rebuff attacks from weeds or insects. The result is a boon to their bottom line.

The United States is by far the world's largest grower of biotech crops, planting 173 million acres in 2013 — almost 4% of all biotech acreage globally. In Iowa, 95% of all corn planted this year came from genetically engineered seeds.

But food and environmental groups are skeptical about the safety of these crops in everyday foods and in the environment in which they grow. The discovery of unapproved wheat has renewed calls for regulators to adopt a slower, more stringent approval process.

"I'd like to say it was surprising that these events happened, but it's not, really. It's become the norm, rather than the exception," said the Center for Food Safety's Bill Freese, a frequent critic of biotech crops. "They're not able to prevent contamination from these experimental (genetically engineered) crops to commercial crops, and that's just caused headaches, huge headaches, very serious financial losses for American agriculture. What's it going to take to have proper oversight?"

In September, the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which oversees biotech crops, said it found the Monsanto wheat two months earlier on a research field at Montana State University, more than a decade after the crop was legally tested there between 2000 and 2003.

The finding came as the USDA concluded a nearly yearlong probe into a similar wheat discovery in Oregon in May 2013. In that case, the government was unable to determine how the modified seeds developed by Monsanto appeared eight years after testing ended for the biotech variety. Neither wheat strain has been approved for sale or consumption.

Each year, hundreds of tests are conducted around the United States, mostly on corn, soybeans and alfalfa by seed giants including Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont Pioneer.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service authorized the planting of more than 500 crops that could be tested on as many as 11,300 sites across the nation.

The inspection service said that of the 500 crops, 11 incidents of noncompliance with field test regulations were reported. Five were minor violations, largely tied to incorrectly filled-out paperwork. None was considered a major incident, such as unauthorized planting without a permit. APHIS declined to disclose the locations of the violations.

Genetically modified seeds were first introduced commercially in the U.S. in 1996 with the launch of Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans, a plant that tolerates the company's Roundup herbicide while nearby weeds are killed. Since then, biotech has blossomed into a major force in agriculture, including corn, papaya, sugar beets, cotton and squash.

The Center for Food Safety has called for a moratorium on all biotech trials "until the USDA can get its act together." Freese said it is not clear that contamination can be prevented.

He said the department should at least impose stricter regulation, such as larger buffer zones between the test crop and non-GMO varieties, more field trial inspections, and increased fines to penalize companies that violate a testing protocol or fail to do an adequate job cleaning up after a field trial.

"The contamination episodes show how weak and full of holes the regulatory system is, and, frankly, farmers deserve much better from USDA," he said.

Colin Johnson is a fourth-generation farmer who plants 700 acres of Monsanto corn and soybean seeds in Wapello County. He said that while agricultural producers are the beneficiaries of genetically modified seeds, they also have a responsibility to protect the technology by making sure it's not accidentally mixed with conventional crops while it's harvested, stored or transported.

"We have to be very diligent and work together as an industry. This campaign to find holes or poke holes or to look for anything that would be a cause for anyone to go anti-GMO is always at the forefront of some folks' minds," Johnson said. "It has a lot of danger to defeat a lot of the good measures that genetically modified plants and organisms have to a safe food supply and efficient food production."

Michael Firko, deputy administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's Biotechnology Regulatory Services, said the agency believes the current process used to regulate field trials "is more than sufficient," and improvements have made a moratorium unnecessary.

"We have in place science-based requirements for field trials that ensure there is not an introduction of these crops while they are being field-tested," Firko said.

When asked whether the recent wheat discoveries could slow the growth of genetically modified crops, Firko said the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will continue to regulate "and give rigorous review" to new biotech varieties that the agency is asked to review for approval.

Greg Jaffe, director of the Project on Biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the USDA needs to be more transparent about how many inspections it conducts, how those inspections are targeted and what they find. He also said that while the department sets buffer zones between biotech field trials and traditional varieties, it fails to do enough testing to make sure the boundaries are large enough to be successful.

"I would hope that USDA would use this as an opportunity to do some research about the efficacy of their field trail conditions that they put in place," he said.

Still, Jaffe said because neither of the wheat findings had an impact on the environment or food safety, the government feels little impetus to move expeditiously to make changes to its oversight.

"Overall, there are hundreds and hundreds of field trials done every year, and we're talking about some fairly isolated incidences that luckily did not have any trade, food safety or environmental impacts," he said.

John Youngberg, executive vice president with the Montana Farm Bureau, said discoveries such as the recent wheat varieties can provide fodder for critics and make it more difficult for farmers and biotech crop supporters. "We're watching this sort of thing," said Youngberg. "It's easy to say it's bad for you. It always casts a cloud over" the benefits of the technology.

Doering reports for the Gannett Washington bureau