The case of transgenic wheat in the states of Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota came to a head in North Dakota. The players in this case are Monsanto, a multi-national company and leader in developing and marketing genetically modified crop seed; the colleges of agriculture at the University of Minnesota, South Dakota State University, and North Dakota State University; the Canadian Wheat Board; local producers (farmers); The Dakota Resource Council; and the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society. The last two are local groups who took on the role of resisting the new technology.
Roundup Ready soybeans and corn are varieties that have undergone genetic engineering-genes from other organisms have been spliced in, making the organism transgenic-to create resistance to Monsanto's herbicide, Roundup. Farmers can plant fields of the modified seeds and spray Roundup, eradicating all plant life except the transgenic plants.
GMOs were banned in the European Union until recently, when the ban was replaced with a law requiring mandatory labeling. So, even though the public in the U.S. continues to be unaware and uninvolved, U. S. farm producers have become very much aware of the controversy because of its effects on their global markets. In Europe, although some farmers see advantages to themselves if they were to adopt this technology, they have not adopted the technology because of market constraints and environmentalist resistance.
Early in 2004, Monsanto announced plans to release transgenic-Roundup Ready-hard red spring wheat for farmers to plant in the spring of that year. This kind of wheat, grown in northern climates, is used by the baking industry, so there is a clear connection between the wheat in the field and the food on the table. The genetic information and the transfer technology belong to them, and they patent all seed into which they transfer their genetic profile, so that they can collect license fees. However, crop seeds have been adapted to local conditions all over the world by long years of breeding and development; that is, seed varieties are localized. Monsanto's technology is not localized until it has been transferred into a viable seed, and so Monsanto seeks to transfer their genetics into seeds that have been developed locally for local conditions. Most wheat varieties (75%) have been developed by land-grant universities that produce varieties of wheat suitable for climate conditions. These seeds belong to the public-they are not patented-because they were developed with public funds. Soybean and corn varieties, conversely, have been developed in the private sector by seed companies like DeKalb and Pioneer and were already patented before GM technology appeared.
The first stage, therefore, of the localization process for transgenic wheat was to gain cooperation from local researchers at land grant universities who had developed local varieties. Already, at North Dakota State University (NDSU) a controlled licensing program, named Roughrider Genetics, had been developed by the University Research Foundation to keep track of licensed materials. The process, then, would be to work out an agreement between Roughrider Genetics and Monsanto that would permit NDSU to develop and begin to multiply Roundup-ready local varieties of hard red wheat. Once these varieties were fully developed, they would be released to seedmen, who would multiply them further, developing registered and certified seed to sell to farmers as "Roughrider wheat." In this case, localization-Monsanto's attempt to find local producers-needed to pass from Monsanto to local researchers to local seedmen to local farmers, the actual producers. If the technology had not become controversial, the process of mediating this technology would have been rather straight forward, consisting primarily of creating business contracts, monitoring the development and multiplication of the new transgenic varieties, and teaching local producers how to work with the new technology.
In the past, such localization efforts in U. S. agriculture had been quite successful: new technology and production methods had diffused through the farm economy pretty much as predicted by Everett Rogers' diffusion theory. In the case of hybrid corn a half century earlier, there had been early adopters of new seed varieties, who had become agents of change persuading other farmers to adopt the new technology. This adoption process has come to be taken for granted because of the land-grant universities' success in establishing extension services and hierarchies of knowledge. Extension programs are charged with bringing the findings of scientific research to novices, in this case to the farmers, who are expected to adopt the innovations and to place their operations on a Ôscientific' basis. Although the extension services at many of these universities are beginning to establish a more dialogic relationship with local producers, recognizing that the farmers' local knowledge complements the researchers' scientific knowledge, the traditional relationship has been unidirectional and asymmetrical, the scientist enjoying the role of expert. Mediation under these two models is markedly different. In the traditional expert-to-novice model, mediation is little more than a transfer of knowledge and skill. In the scientific-knowledge/local knowledge model, mediation involves discussion and adaptation of new knowledge to local conditions. The first instantiates the technological imperative; the second resists it.
When Monsanto approached North Dakota State University about developing transgenic wheat, Duane Hauck, Director of the NDSU Extension Service, felt pressure to buy into the program because the University of Minnesota and South Dakota State University had already agreed to do so through unilateral, executive decisions at the top. The Dean of the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota, Charles Muscoplat, a former Vice President at MGI PHARMA, Inc., a bio-genetics company, was a zealous advocate of GM technology. Having recently made the move from industry to the academy, he was used to making executive decisions and handing them down for implementation, and that is what he did in this case when he announced that Minnesota would work with Monsanto. Minnesota is considerably larger and more influential than either South or North Dakota, and so South Dakota State University's dean made a similar executive decision. The introduction of this technology and the local licenses promised to produce considerable profits for both Monsanto and the universities, an exciting prospect in times when there was reduced government support for education. Despite pressures caused by neighboring universities' quick buy-in, Hauck, having been approached by concerned members of the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture, felt that it was important to open dialog with various constituents in North Dakota and to try to gain consensus before entering the agreement. In other words, Hauck had a scientific knowledge/local knowledge model in mind for mediating the new technology, whereas executives at Minnesota and South Dakota had the traditional expert-to-novice model in mind. Eventually, while continuing dialog with local constituents, NDSU entered an agreement with Monsanto because of fears that NDSU's breeding program would become defunct if varieties of Roundup Ready wheat developed in Minnesota and South Dakota took over the market. Hauck said that they needed to buy in to remain competitive. At this first stage of the localization process, the local situation can be described as being in a state of tension created by fear of losing competitive standing on the one hand and concern for local constituents on the other. This was, in other words, a situation that called for mediation among interested parties.
The adoption process needed to be embraced by most of the major players (universities, researchers, extension agents, seedmen, and large-scale producers) for it to be successful. If any one geographical sector in the wheat-producing area opted out, that area could claim to have non-GMO wheat for the market, and wheat from that area would bring a premium in Japan and Europe. Transgenic wheat, conversely, would be confined mostly to domestic markets and would probably bring lower prices. Therefore, a cooperative spring wheat program was formed among North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, the University of Minnesota, the Western Plant Breeders, and Monsanto. This group set standards that regulated the release of the wheat: the wheat would not be released until
Ultimately, this localization effort failed: Monsanto announced its decision to withdraw its transgenic wheat early in May, 2004. They did not give specific reasons for the withdrawal, but people involved with the case speculate about the reasons. For instance, Kenneth Grafton, Dean of the College of Agriculture at NDSU said, "We had agreed that four things had to happen: 1. markets had to be ready, 2. separate handling systems had to be in place, 3. regulatory approval in US, Japan, and Canada was required, and 4. Canada and the U.S. had to agree to simultaneous release of the transgenic wheat. Also Monsanto may have withdrawn because of potential greater market profits in other crops. Total acreage of hard red wheat compared to other crops is small." Brad Brummon, an NDSU extension agent who worked closely with stakeholders in the case, suggested that Monsanto withdrew for economic reasons, recognizing that they had invested a great deal of money on a project that was not being readily accepted. They were probably cutting their losses. Janet Jacobson, an organic farmer who was active in negotiations about GM wheat, says that she thinks Monsanto under estimated opposition from conventional farmers, who didn't think the technology was needed and who worried about markets and about yet another Roundup Ready crop making crop rotation difficult. Underlying these comments is an unstated acknowledgment that Monsanto withdrew because these standards of release were not met. More specifically, Canada decided that it would not participate, a working group on best practices broke down, a large number of conventional farmers were not convinced that the benefits would outweigh the potential for lost European and Japanese markets, and the issue was beginning to become a public issue for consumers rather than a relatively obscure business negotiation.
The Formation and Collapse of the Coexistence Working Group. The debate about transgenic wheat was centered in North Dakota because of its prime location and because of North Dakota State University's attempt to achieve local consensus rather than to force the new technology on the state. They did not ignore petitions received from organic and conventional farmers, and they did not make executive-level decisions without discussion because they knew that there was a strong local constituency composed of organic farmers, represented by the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society (NPSAS) and a constituency of conventional producers of hard red wheat suspicious of the technology, represented by the Dakota Resource Council (DRC). North Dakota is the largest producer of hard red wheat in the country, and it has the second largest concentration of organic farmers in the country, California being first. Ag Statistics show California at 148,664 organic acres and ND at 144,890 acres. Most of the organic farms in ND are small family farms, but in California there are large corporate organic farms, so the total number of people involved in ND may be higher than in California. In an attempt to be open, NDSU put their policies out on the web in places easy to find. Furthermore, in an attempt to satisfy local constituents, and responding to NPSAS concerns about genetic contamination of organic seeds and crops, they established a coexistence group, consisting of 18 members drawn from various constituencies. Brad Brummon, extension agent in Walsh County, worked with Theresa Podoll of NPSAS to write and receive a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant (SARE) from the USDA to fund the coexistence group. Originally, the group was composed of organic farmers and NDSU representatives, but after the first couple meetings, they decided that they needed to widen participation by inviting conventional farmers, GM farmers, and Monsanto to the table. Monsanto agreed to provide additional money to give release time to Brummon so that he could devote more time to the coexistence project. Noticeably missing from the mix was representation from the general public and from consumer groups.
A professor of sociology from NDSU, Gary Goreham, facilitated the group, which was supposed to work together for two years. Brummon says that he feared he would lose one of the groups before the working group completed its work. He was in an awkward position. Being employed by NDSU Extension, and being released based on a Monsanto grant, but having also been past president of NPSAS, he had to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The working group's original purpose, according to the grant, was to explore ways to protect against genetic contamination by identifying issues associated with the potential release, writing best management practice protocols, and voting on the protocols.
Those representing organic farmers-Janet Jacobson, Theresa Podoll, Annie Kirschenmann, and Richard Gross-along with one conventional farmer, Richard Schlosser, who was sympathetic to their position, pulled out in February 2004 during the voting stage, 18 months into the project. They wrote a letter withdrawing from the group, claiming that it had failed to address overall objectives of the project, and saying: "We will not allow our participation in any way to be used as an endorsement of the Best Management Practices produced or any other materials developed as part of this endeavor." Janet Jacobson, President of NPSAS, who participated in the coexistence working group as an Identity Preserved grower (IP), said that the organic representatives were frustrated because they were not allowed to propose Best Management Practices (BMPs) that started with the words "Producers of GMOs shall . . ." That is, the working group would not permit BMPs to be written that singled out and placed responsibilities on GM producers. According to Brummon, there was no policy against such wording, but any wording of that kind inevitably resulted in the defeat of the proposed BMP.
Although the working group's membership had been expanded to include GM producers and Monsanto, the makeup did not appear to be loaded one way or the other, but it turns out that the NDSU representatives voted with the GM side on most occasions. Gary Goreham thinks that NDSU representatives voted this way because they "knew which side their bread was buttered on" and because they didn't want to be told what kind of research they could do. "For one department head, it was a matter of academic freedom." Because BMPs that were aimed primarily at GM producers never passed, they never made it into the final documentation, and there wasn't opportunity to write a minority position on them. Furthermore, from the organic producers' perspective, the BMPs have no teeth in them because they are only suggested best practices and because the wording isn't specific enough to dictate responsible action.
Recognizing that the votes were producing results contrary to their position, organic producers withdrew and concentrated their efforts instead on educating the public and testifying before the state legislature. After Karl Limvere, a longtime food activist and minister in the Congregational Church, published a statement titled "A Response to Issues and Values Related to Genetically Modified Organisms," on behalf of the Rural Life Committee of the North Dakota Conference of Churches, organic farmers enlisted his help in a campaign to get a law passed that would give the State Agriculture Commissioner authority to form an advisory committee, hold public hearings, and decide whether or not GM wheat could be released in the state. This effort, known as the "Go Slow with GMOs" initiative required 12,884 signatures to get the issue on the ballot, but it never made the ballot, partly because Monsanto announced within a month that they would not release GM wheat.