The Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP) has requested that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Inspector General investigate what has been described in media reports as a potential lack of transparency by the New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), regarding fundamental errors in its attempt to produce a GM American chestnut tree, the Darling 58. In its letter to USDA OIG, GJEP cited a statement by The American Chestnut Foundation’s president in where he reportedly stated to New York Times Magazine, “as a nonprofit organisation, we can’t hide things from our members or the public. If we wouldn’t have brought this out, we would be complicit with a cover-up.” The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) originally was a strong supporter of ESF’s petition to deregulate the Darling 58 with the intent of releasing it into the wild to contaminate its wild relatives. On 8 December 2023 TACF publicly withdrew its support, citing “significant performance limitations” as well as a fundamental error which resulted years of field trials on the wrong variant. GJEP

 

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