If the USDA and engineers at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry get their way, they’ll soon be planting a transgenic American chestnut tree in America’s forests.
The trees are designed to resist fungal blight and, if the plan goes well, they will “open the doors to commercial GE trees designed for industrial plantations.” It would be the first GE tree approved in the U.S.
For right now they’re not counting their chestnuts until they know they’ve got the approval in the bag: Indigenous peoples, scientists, students, activists, foresters and others, including the Forest Stewardship Council oppose the GE trees.
The plan is risky, they say, and is well thought out, when the possibility exists that mutations in the plants could occur, and that the plan “ignores the risks posed to organic and other chestnut growers.”
SOURCE: Truthout April 18,2021