----- forwarded message -----
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 07:30:10 -0700
From: Teresa Binstock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: In Key Test, U.S. Allows Sale of Genetically Engineered Corn (Monsanto)
In Key Test, U.S. Allows Sale of Genetically Engineered Corn
By Justin Gillis Washington Post Staff Writer Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2177-2003Feb25.html
Monsanto Co. won government approval yesterday to sell genetically altered corn
designed to combat the most significant pest in the largest crop grown in the
United States, setting up a major test of whether the plant biotechnology
industry can deliver on its long-standing promise to reduce the use of chemical
pesticides.
The new corn is genetically engineered to resist corn rootworm disease. That
problem, which plagues farmers nationwide, is the biggest single reason they
apply toxic pesticides to their fields. Monsanto, of St. Louis, estimates that
the corn could eventually be grown on 12 million acres, or 15 percent of the
nation's cornfields.
In granting permission, the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged that
some environmental questions remain but declared that on balance the corn
appears to offer more benefits than risks.
"What this decision means is that the environment will have literally millions
of pounds of very toxic pesticides not being used," said Stephen Johnson, the
assistant EPA administrator in charge of pesticide regulation.
People would be unlikely to eat much, if any, of the new corn. Like most corn
grown in North America, the new crop is likely to be used overwhelmingly as
animal feed, so people would eat it only indirectly -- as poultry, beef or other
meat. But a small amount might be turned into products such as corn syrup, a
sweetener.
The approval is a victory for Monsanto, a company struggling to gain public
acceptance of gene-altered crops. "This is a new tool to help farmers fight
insects," said Robb Fraley, Monsanto's chief technology officer. "But the real
beneficiary is the public, which is getting a more sustainable agricultural
system. This will allow growers to be better stewards of the land."
For years, the backers of agricultural biotechnology, which involves inserting
new genes into plants to confer traits such as improved insect or weed
resistance, have claimed that their techniques hold the potential to replace
toxic herbicides and insecticides with more benign control methods.
But big reductions in chemical use have been achieved only with gene-altered
cotton. For genetically engineered crops grown as human food or animal feed, the
data have been far murkier. Corn rootworm, nicknamed the "billion-dollar bug"
because it costs farmers nearly $1 billion a year in lost yields and control
expenses, is such a huge agricultural problem that the new gene-altered corn is
likely to serve as the definitive test of whether big chemical reductions can be
achieved in a food crop.
"This is a blockbuster," said Gregory Jaffe, director of biotechnology programs
at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington consumer group
that favors the use of agricultural biotechnology under tightly regulated
conditions. "It's the first product to come down the line in a while that really
could cut insecticide use and help the environment."
Jaffe and representatives of some other watchdog groups, however, expressed
disappointment that the EPA had yielded to Monsanto on one key issue.
Most members of a scientific advisory panel had urged the EPA to require farmers
to plant sizable "refuges," or strips of conventional corn, around the
genetically altered crops to provide food for the rootworm and slow the pests'
ability to develop a resistance to the new corn variety. Panel members wanted
the EPA to require that 50 percent of a farmer's cornfield be planted as
refuges, while Monsanto pushed for 20 percent, similar to requirements already
in place for other crops. The EPA sided with Monsanto.
"What we have here is companies doing as they usually do: profiting in the short
term" even if it shortens the life of the product, said Jane Rissler, senior
staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington group.
Johnson, of the EPA, rejected criticism on the issue, noting that the 20 percent
requirement will be in effect for only three years while the resistance issue is
studied further. New plans may be put in place if resistance proves to be a
problem, Johnson said.
Corn rootworm is the common name for the larval stage of four species of beetles
that grow in fields throughout the United States. The immature beetles feed on
the roots of corn plants, sometimes damaging them so much that the plants blow
over in storms or yield little corn.
To create resistant corn, Monsanto, through molecular engineering, inserted a
gene that contains instructions for making a protein toxic to most varieties of
the worms, but one that can be easily digested by people or other mammals. The
new crop does pose theoretical risks to some other species, including beneficial
insects, and the EPA said it would monitor that issue.
Monsanto hopes to put limited supplies of the new corn on the market for the
2003 growing season, but the corn is not expected to gain wide use until 2004,
when additional seed becomes available. The company intends to cross the new
corn with an older gene-altered corn designed to resist a lesser worm, the
European corn borer. And, in a first, Monsanto will create a variety with three
genetic modifications: the two anti-worm proteins plus a gene that helps farmers
fight weeds.
This latter variety, designed to solve virtually all common problems that
farmers confront in growing corn, may serve as the first real test of whether
large-scale, industrialized agriculture is possible in the United States without
significant use of toxic chemicals.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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