Farmers need access to genetically modified wheat, and sooner or later, they'll get it, two officials with U.S. Wheat Associates said.
"Most of the major players are active in research and looking at wheat for biotech traits," said Shannon Schlecht, the organization's director of policy.
Schlecht, a native of Enderlin, N.D., who earnred his master's degree in agricultural economics from North Dakota State University in Fargo, attended the recent Prairie Grains Conference in Grand Forks.
U.S. Wheat Associates develops export markets by "demonstrating the reliability, choice, and value of U.S. wheat," the organization said. It's funded by U.S. wheat producer checkoff dollars and funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service.
Farmers already can plant genetically modified corn and soybeans, and the lack of biotech wheat puts the crop at a disadvantage, said John Oades, a vice president of U.S. Wheat Associates who also attended the Prairie Grains Conference.
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"It's a battle for acreage, and we're losing," he said. "The evolution of biotech wheat is necessary if we're going to be able to ensure a stable supply of a primary food commodity to the world."
But there's good reason to be optimistic that biotech wheat is coming, Schlecht and Oades said.
For instance, the website of Monsanto, which offers a wide range of seeds to farmers, says biotech products in wheat could be available to farmers in 10 to 15 years.
"All the countries that are exporting wheat are researching biotech. All the major companies that grow wheat domestically for major producers for domestic use only are researching biotech," Oades said.
Last year, wheat and grain organizations in the United States, Canada and Australia approved a joint agreement on wheat biotechnology commercialization.
The six-point statement says "biotechnology is a proven technique to deploy traits of interest with a high degree of precision in agricultural crops" and that biotechnology "is an important tool to feed the world."
Oades said the United States is one of more than 25 countries with biotech crop production, with the production split among both developed and developing-world countries.
"We really try to sell the notion that this is coming for a reason, we aren't doing it alone in the U.S. and that it's going to be a safe and viable product you'll want to feed to your children," he said.
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Schlecht and Oades said giving consumers a choice between biotech and conventional wheat will be essential.
"We clearly want to maintain steady, viable supplies of nonbiotech wheat for those that want it, and we tell them (customers) that," Oades said.
Oades, who travels often to wheat-importing countries, says sentiment toward biotech is changing.
"There was really just extremely aggressive resistance (against biotech) 10 years ago. Today, there's really a level of realization that this has to part of our future," he said.
