Associated Press | December 27, 1999 | BLAKE NICHOLSON
BISMARCK, N.D. - Charles Ottem would, according to this story, love to see the barley in his fields be immune to disease, but brewing companies worry that beer drinkers might be turned off if genetic engineering made that possible.
Rick Ward, a wheat breeder at Michigan State University, was quoted as saying, "It's something we can't shove down people's throats. We all have to get better at communicating and compromising. The consumer is king, and they will rule no matter what."
In North Dakota, which leads the nation in barley production, this year's crop was, the story adds, the smallest in more than a decade. A fungal disease called scab has cost farmers in the Northern Plains an estimated $2.6 billion in lost crops from 1991 through 1997 alone.
Ottem, a North Dakota farmer and chairman of the state's Barley Council, was quoted as saying, "Scab, for all practical purposes, has devastated the barley industry in this state. That's the only way we're going to find the solution to all of our disease problems Barley is used to make beer, but scab-infested barley can affect the taste and cause the beer to gush out of the bottle.
Mike Davis, president of the American Malting Barley Association, a trade group for major malting and brewing companies, was quoted as saying, "The majority of (research) funds being expended are for traditional breeding programs. Our general thoughts are that (biotech) research should be pursued as a possible avenue to solve the scab problem."
At the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service facility in Madison, Wis., molecular biologist Ronald Skadsen is, the story says, trying to create a barley that has antifungal genes in the right place to ward off the scab fungus.
At the ARS facility in Fargo, N.D., geneticist Lynn Dahleen is trying to insert genes into barley that will reduce the toxins caused by scab.
Both say a biotech solution to scab could be as much as a decade away.
