Incident details
| Region/Continent and country: |
| Oceania / Australia |
| Category of incident: |
Contamination
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| What was contaminated: |
| Seed |
| GM organism involved: |
| Cotton |
| Year incident occurred: |
| 2000 |
|
| Route of contamination |
| Failure of segregation systems |
|
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Australia - unapproved GM cotton (grown in a field trial) was mixed with non-GM and approved varieties of GM cotton after harvest
In June 2000, Monsanto reported to the Australian authorities that in May, approximately 57.6 tonnes of Roundup Ready GM cotton seed from field trials were ginned at three gins in Queensland without segregation and identity preservation. This constituted between 4.5 and 9.1% of all cotton seed ginned on that day at the designated gins.
As a result of the lack of segregation and identity preservation, the Roundup Ready cotton seed was mixed with non-Roundup Ready cotton seed. The mixing meant there was no possible means to track the exact fate (export, animal feed or crushing) of the Roundup Ready cotton seed. Sale of whole seed to the domestic market as animal feed is in contravention of Australia’s GMAC’s advice. The seed was not packaged and secured, therefore seed escape was possible.
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Further information
Interim Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, Quarterly Report
September 2000, pp 14-15 >
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