Environment - Mycoherbicides - 8-25-11

(Fusarium Oxysporum) "Fusarium oxysporum is a well-known plant pathogen causing damage and large losses in food and industrial crops worldwide. Researchers of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed highly virulent strains that attack cannabis (marijuana) and coca plants, the source of cocaine. The coca-killing strain favored by the US is named EN-4 and was isolated in 1987 during USDA-funded experiments at a government coca plantation on Hawaii. Work to isolate F. oxysporum strains to attack cannabis has been ongoing at least since the early 1970s, when the US Drug Enforcement Agency and USDA funded research at the University of California at Berkeley.[5] After extensive investigation of 1970s and 80s US Fusarium research, including interviewing participants and extensive Freedom of Information Act requests, MacArthur Foundation grantees Jeremy Bigwood and Sharon Stevenson recently concluded that most of the early US work conducted on Fusarium was a project of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA later passed control of the work to other government institutions to allow overt US Congress funding."