Food fight

Genetically modified crops prompt fierce debate

photos & story by patrick wellever

The USDA reports that in 2001, the number of certified organic farms in the United States reached 6,949 — nearly double the 1992 number.

In early 2000, agricultural biotechnology came under fire when a report in the scientific journal Nature suggested pollen from Bt corn was lethal to monarch larvae in lab tests.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which had recently approved Bt corn, launched a study, ultimately showing toxin levels in the major varieties of Bt corn were not significant enough to pose a serious threat. But this was too late to squelch concerns about a perceived lack of government vigilance prior to Bt’s approval.

Today, agricultural biotechnology continues to break longstanding barriers and challenge traditional food production techniques. While supporters tout benefits such as higher crop yields, critics maintain not enough is known about possible biotech impacts to guarantee human and environmental safety.

Proponents of genetically modified (GM) crops point to potential benefits ranging from pesticide resistance (or resistance to pests themselves), to using vitamin-enriched rice to combat third-world illness and malnutrition. Researchers in Australia have even developed a method of genetically removing allergens from ryegrass, creating a product they claim doesn’t cause hay fever.

The Council for Biotechnology Information, a trade organization representing biotechnology companies and associations, hails new GM crops for their high yields and reduced pesticide requirements.

Monsanto, a U.S. biotechnology industry leader, offers several varieties of GM corn, cotton and soybeans. The company claims its products are extensively tested for safety, and actually promote sustainable agriculture by reducing the amount of pesticides needed and supporting tillage techniques that reduce soil erosion.

A unique aspect of the biotech debate is that, ironically, people on both sides use the environment as a selling point. While GM seed producers argue they are promoting sustainability, critics claim genetic modification actually harms the environment.
In late 2003, Charles Benbrook, a pesticide policy consultant and former executive director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Agriculture, released a study contesting biotech companies’ claims that GM crops reduce pesticide use. In the study, researchers cite evidence that while GM crops caused a reduction in pesticides during the initial years of their commercial sales, the effect was short-lived: the amount of pesticides applied to GM cropland climbed dramatically from 2001 to 2003.

Despite industry assurances about GM crop safety, consumer demand for certified organic foods is growing. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports significant increases in recent years in both the amount of organic food supermarkets offer and the acreage farmers devote to organic farming.

Going Organic

Rodney Kiger said going organic saved his Elsie, Michigan farm from going under. Facing grave economic conditions, he decided to begin the organic certification process seven years ago. Kiger said that though he is not “breaking the bank,” his business has picked up significantly since gaining organic certification in 2000.

Thomas Judge outside his Otsego, Mich., organic farm (above) and reprairing a fence (below). Guidelines for organic certification outlaw any use of genetically modified seed.

As an organic grower, Kiger must adhere to strict federal guidelines that regulate techniques for raising livestock and crops. Among other things, these rules ban the use of GM seed and all synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

For Kiger, the move was ideological as well as economic; he has strong concerns about the safety of modern agricultural practices, including genetic modification.
“We’re opening up something here we have no control over,” he said.

European Union governments have taken a far more cautious approach to GM crops. But despite Europe’s strict line on biotechnology regulation, the United Kingdom approved in March the limited cultivation of GM maize. The decision comes after three years of scientific crop trials, and its conditional nature suggests continued skepticism over possible consequences of the technology.

UK Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said licenses giving consent to produce GM crops would expire in October 2006, and farmers seeking to renew them would have to conduct scientific analysis of their fields. But regardless of such limitations, the policy represents a radical shift from the EU’s 1998 blanket ban on all GM crops and has UK organic farmers up in arms. They are concerned that potential contamination of organic seed through the natural spread of pollen from GM plants would devastate their business.

In the United States, organic farmers already complain of widespread seed contamination due to cross-pollination of their crops with adjacent GM fields.
Lisa Dry, communications director at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry-lobbying group, is confident that the EU will come to accept GM crops.

“Wherever growers have had access to biotech crops they have embraced them,” she said. “Over time, the desire to be competitive in a global marketing environment will be the determining factor to resolve this issue.”

Dry said biotech products are safe. Before the crops reach the market, she said, they undergo testing for human and environmental safety from three federal agencies — the USDA, EPA and Food and Drug Administration.

“These biotech-enhanced crops are subject to more scientific scrutiny than any foods in history,” Dry said.

Old School

While the level of scientific scrutiny given to GM foods may be historic, it isn’t enough for some consumers.

After 17 years as a research chemist with the drug company Pharmacia, Thomas Judge decided to go organic. Judge, who owns the organic-certified Abronia Acres Farm near Otsego, Mich., fears the worst from modern genetic modification techniques. The safety of American crops, he said, relies on genetic diversity within each species. Judge made an example of the increasingly popular “Roundup Ready” GM soybeans. If the single gene that makes these plants herbicide-tolerant were to be attacked by crop blight, he said, about 70 percent of the U.S. soybean crop would be in danger.

Judge also worries that natural tendency of pests to acclimate to whatever farmers can dish out will soon lead to a horde of “Roundup Ready weeds,” displaying a new tolerance to the herbicide.

Staring the future of modern agriculture in the face, Judge says he will stand by tried-and-true methods.

“They have yet to come up with a weed that’s resistant to steel.”

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