KANSAS CITY, Mo. - North Dakota farmer Lowell Berntson considers himself a fan of biotechnology. With thousands of acres of rich black Dakota dirt planted in soybeans and canola crops that are genetically modified to fight weed problems, Berntson knows first-hand how beneficial biotech can be.

But ask Berntson whether or not he'll welcome the world's first biotech wheat, also altered to reduce weed problems and due to be launched as early as 2003, and he sees trouble ahead.

"Our customers don't want it. That is clear," he said from the southeast North Dakota farm where he grows traditional dark northern spring wheat alongside genetically modified (GM) crops. "We darn well better not send them any."

Berntson is one of thousands of wheat producers in the United States who have been thrust deep into the heart of an ongoing global debate over genetically modified foods. With food safety activists and environmentalists on one side and biotech research companies on the other, farmers are caught in the middle.

And nowhere are they feeling more tightly entwined than in North Dakota, the U.S.'s largest producer of spring wheat and a key launch site for Monsanto Co.'s plans to roll out a GM spring wheat seed sometime between 2003-2005. The "Roundup Ready" wheat will resist Monsanto's top-selling herbicide, helping farmers more easily kill weeds without harming their crops.

Corn, soybeans and other genetically modified crops have been out in the marketplace for the last several years. Researchers once believed GM wheat would join the list with little fanfare.

But food safety concerns have mounted around the world recently, and questions continue about whether biotech foods trigger allergic reactions or are otherwise unsafe to eat. Evidence in recent months has shown that it is virtually impossible to keep biotech crops separate from traditional crops. As such, wheat, a main ingredient in bread, cereals, and other basic human foods, is proving to be a hot-button issue.

Even if only a small amount of GM wheat is sown in U.S. spring wheat territory, many fear the entire U.S. spring wheat supply of more than 500 million bushels will be subject to boycott by top buyers of U.S. spring wheat such as Japan and Europe. Those countries have insisted they won't purchase genetically modified wheat and will have little tolerance for any contamination of traditional wheat by a biotech variety.

The threat is a weighty one. Last year, total exports of U.S. spring wheat were worth more than $900 million, with more than a third of that from sales to Japan and Europe, according to industry statistics.

"We could create a train wreck in our own markets," said North Dakota Wheat Commission administrator Neal Fisher. "The concerns are mounting, rather than diminishing. There are producers out there, certainly, who are clamoring for the technology. But we can't afford to 40 percent of our markets."

Fears of lost export business are so strong that North Dakota legislators tried this spring to enact a moratorium on a GM wheat release in their state. But intensive lobbying against the bill by Monsanto, including threats to pull research investment dollars out of the state, effectively quashed the efforts, moratorium proponents said.

Monsanto representative Michael Doane outraged some in a legislative hearing on the moratorium proposal when he told lawmakers that "we're investing heavily in this technology... if this legislation passes I simply cannot ask (Monsanto) to continue to fund and develop the research that is necessary to develop biotech traits in wheat."

The threat was effective, said Democratic state legislator Ken Kroeplin, who backed the moratorium effort.

"They were aggressive, they got everything they wanted," he said.

"We're all struggling with this," said Cole Gustafson, director of North Dakota State University's agricultural experiment station where Monsanto and university scientists have collaborated in wheat breeding research.

"North Dakota producers are way of this technology, but they want to make sure research progresses," he said. He would not disclose how much Monsanto has invested in university research.

The answer for now, many say, is to simply slow down and wait for market acceptance to grow to embrace GM wheat and other crops. Indeed, wheat leaders not just in North Dakota, but throughout the U.S., say they want Monsanto to back off its timetable, which includes filing applications for U.S. regulatory approval later this year.

"It needs to be longer than 2005 before they introduce," said the wheat commission's Fisher. "We're for whatever it takes to slow the process up."

Monsanto has so far refused to budge from its 2003-2005 release target. But it has formed a wheat industry advisory committee to help guide it on key issues and says it is working hard to warm foreign buyers to the new wheat.

Meanwhile, North Dakota spring wheat farmers wait and worry.

"The biotech thing is the most exciting thing happening by far in agriculture right now," said farmer Berntson. "But it is a big concern too. I'm really torn."

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