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HOW FAR CAN GE CONTAMINATED SEEDS AND POLLEN TRAVEL? "The unregulated rise of GMOs world-wide in recent years has led to concern among scientists and government officials alike. Scientists are learning that GMOs know no boundaries, degrading genetic diversity of crop seeds and then expanding beyond farmscapes into adjacent areas of biodiversity. In the process, they degrade complex soil ecology and habitat for beneficial insects, thus ajjechng mammals and birds and killing the very biodiversity that GMO proponents claim to care about. " International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 2004. The lUCN has members from 140 comtlries including 114 government agencies, and 800-plus NGOs. More than 10,000 intenationally-recognized scientists and experts from more dm 180 countries volmdeer their services to its she global commissions. Contamination incidents in 40 countries prove that "co-existence" is a myth: GM crops rapidly contaminate related and unrelated species, agricultural seed supplies, and the human food chain, and would rapidly destroy [Aawai'i'sj image as the clean green food island Excerpt from Monsanto 9%istleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease by Jeffrey M. Smith April, 2007 The industry has been consistently inept at controlling the spread of unapproved varieties. On August 18, 2006, for example, the USDA announced that unapproved GM long grain rice, which was last field tested by Bayer CropScience in 2001, had contaminated the US rice crop (probably for the past 5 yem). Japan responded by suspending long grain rice imports and the EU will now only accept shipments that are tested and certified GM-free. Similarly, in March 2005, the US government admitted that an unapproved corn variety had escaped from SyngenWs field trials four years earlier and had contaminated US corn. By year's end, Japan had rejected at least 14 shipments containing the illegal corn. Other field trialed crops have been mixed with commercial varieties, consumed by farmers, stolen, even given away by government agencies and universities who had accidentally mixed seed varieties. Some contaminates from field trials may last for centuries. That may be the fate of a variety of unapproved Roundup Ready grass which, according to reports made public in August 2006, had escaped into the wild from an Oregon test plot years earlier. Pollen had crossed with other varieties and wind had dispersed seeds. Scientists believe that the variety will cross pollinate with other grass varieties and may contaminate the commercial grass seed supply" 70 percent of which is grown in Oregon.