Idaho farmers recently filed a putative class action lawsuit against “seed giant Monsanto after genetically engineered wheat was found in an eastern Oregon field,” ABC News reported. The farmers seek class-action status on behalf of thousands of soft white wheat farmers across the Western United States.
The class action complaint filed in federal court alleges that Monsanto's development of genetically modified Roundup Ready wheat “resulted in increased production costs and lowered prices because the genetically engineered wheat is likely to infiltrate the non-genetically engineered wheat supply.” The genetically modified wheat has not been approved by the FDA.
The complaint alleges that "Monsanto knew, or should have known, that the existence of genetically-engineered wheat — commingled within the general wheat supply — would cause significant disruptions in the wheat export market, and that such a situation could involve huge disruptions in the wheat trade while imposing additional costs on U.S. wheat farmers and specifically Pacific Northwest soft white wheat farmers. These costs eventually would detrimentally impact worldwide prices for Pacific Northwest soft white wheat, causing significant financial damage to wheat farmers."
