US Growers Willing to Adopt GM Wheat, says Survey

A survey conducted by the US National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) showed that US farmers are willing to adopt genetically modified wheat. More than three-quarters of wheat growers responding to the NAWG survey would like biotech traits, such as disease and pesticide resistance and drought and freezing tolerance, in their arsenal. NAWG said that national wheat organizations support biotech commercialization but private technology providers need to be assured of ground-level support for their efforts before undertaking the decade-long, multimillion-dollar path toward commercialization of a trait.

"Until now, there has only been speculation about the breadth of grower support for biotechnology in wheat," said NAWG CEO Daren Coppock. "This petition was designed to gather those answers from across our wheat producing areas, and now we have an objective and clear answer."

The press release is available at http://www.wheatworld.org/html/news.cfm?ID=1558 More information about the petition and survey is at http://www.wheatworld.org/biotech.