Genetically modified crops' results raise concern
Washington -- Biotechnology's promise to feed the
world did not anticipate "Trojan corn," "super weeds" and the
disappearance of monarch butterflies.
But in the Midwest and South - blanketed by more than 170 million
acres of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton - an
experiment begun in 1996 with approval of the first commercial
genetically modified organisms is producing questionable results.
Those results include vast increases in herbicide use that have
created impervious weeds now infesting millions of acres of cropland,
while decimating other plants, such as milkweeds that sustain the
monarch butterflies. Food manufacturers are worried that a new corn made
for ethanol could damage an array of packaged food on supermarket
shelves.
Some farm groups have joined environmentalists in an attempt to slow
down approvals of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, as a newly
engineered corn, resistant to another potent herbicide, stands on the
brink of approval.
Vote on labels
In November, Californians are likely to vote on a ballot initiative
to require labeling of genetically engineered foods, which backers of
the measure say would give consumers a voice over the technology that
they lack now.
The initiative is part of a nationwide drive to thwart the Obama
administration's expected clearance of a new genetically modified corn
that could flood the nation's cornfields with 2,4-D, a 1940s-era
herbicide used mainly on lawns and golf courses to kill broadleaf weeds.
More than a million people have signed a petition to the Food and
Drug Administration to require labeling of genetically engineered food.
That is "more than twice the number who have ever commented on any food
petition in the history of the FDA," said Gary Hirshberg, chairman of
organic yogurt maker Stonyfield and a leader of the "Just Label It"
campaign.
The stakes on labeling such foods are huge. The crops are so
widespread that an estimated 70 percent of U.S. processed foods contain
engineered genes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved more
than 80 genetically engineered crops while denying none.
Mushy corn feared
Organic farmers have long fought the spread of such crops, fearing
pollen contamination of their fields. Environmentalists have warned of
long-term health and environmental effects.
Now, even biotech supporters fear collateral damage. Vegetable
growers warn of plant-killing fogs that they say will accompany the new
genetically modified corn. Snack and cereal makers fear that a new corn
engineered for ethanol may escape its fields and turn their corn chips
and breakfast cereals to mush.
Midwest fruit and vegetable growers this month petitioned the
Department of Agriculture to block approval of the 2,4-D-tolerant corn,
called Enlist and made by Dow AgroSciences. Similar crops, including a
soybean engineered by Monsanto to tolerate dicamba, a similar herbicide,
wait in the regulatory pipeline.
Current forms of the herbicides are prone to vaporization and can
travel miles from their target, falling back to Earth with rain or fog.
Vegetable growers predict the new corn will unleash rampant use of 2,4-D
and dicamba, potentially damaging every broadleaf plant in their path
other than those engineered to tolerate them.
"Suddenly we are looking at a very dangerous system, because more
dangerous herbicides in America are going to be far more extensively
used," said John Bode, executive director of the Save Our Crops
Coalition, a group working to protect nontargeted plants from
herbicides. It has asked the USDA to conduct a full environmental impact
analysis.
Preliminary OK
The USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, which has chief
regulatory authority over genetically engineered crops, has given a
preliminary recommendation that the new corn be fully commercialized
without restriction.
Michael Gregoire, who heads the agency, said any genetically modified
crop that does not meet the definition of a "plant pest," which attacks
other plants, falls outside the agency's authority.
"Once we determine that a genetically engineered plant is not a plant
pest based on a risk assessment, our jurisdiction and our authority to
continue to regulate that ends," Gregoire said.
The Environmental Protection Agency has found that 2,4-D poses "a
reasonable certainty of no harm," but will evaluate the effects of using
it with genetically modified crops later in the growing season after
plants have leafed out and temperatures are higher.
If approved, the new corn could be planted as early as next spring.
Charles Benbrook - a former head of the agriculture board of the
National Academy of Sciences who is chief scientist of the Organic
Center, a Colorado group that researches the environmental benefits of
organic farming - projects a 1,435 percent increase in the amount of
2,4-D applied, or 283 million pounds, within seven years.
Hardier weeds evolve
Corn and soybean farmers are clamoring for the new genetically
engineered crops because those now in use have spawned an infestation of
"super weeds" now covering at least 13 million acres in 26 states. The
crops are engineered to tolerate glyphosate, commonly known by its
Monsanto trademark Roundup. They greatly simplified weed control by
allowing farmers to apply the herbicide to their fields yet leave their
corn and soybeans unharmed.
The crops led to a 400-million-pound net increase in herbicide
applications throughout corn, soybean and cotton growing regions,
according to Benbrook.
The resulting overexposure to glyphosate encouraged the evolution of
hardier weeds that can tolerate it. Dave Mortensen, a weed ecologist at
Pennsylvania State University, said the number of "super weed" species grew from one in 1996, when genetically modified crops were introduced, to 22 today.
Scientists warn that the next generation of genetically modified
crops will likewise encourage overuse of 2,4-D and dicamba, creating
still hardier weeds that can tolerate virtually every herbicide on the
market.
"It's like pouring gasoline on a fire," Benbrook said.
"We're talking about a lot of pesticide," Mortensen said. "Whether it
moves as a vapor or physical drift or surface water runoff or comes
down in rainwater, the more of something you use, the greater the
likelihood you will see it appearing in places where you did not apply
it."
Mortensen worries that 2,4-D and dicamba will damage not just fruit
and vegetable crops, but also wild plants on field edges that harbor
pollinators. In the Midwest, where there is little plant diversity,
"those field edges become critically important reservoirs for hosting
beneficial insects," Mortensen said.
Butterflies in decline
Last month, scientists definitively tied heavy use of glyphosate to
an 81 percent decline in the monarch butterfly population. It turns out
that the herbicide has obliterated the milkweeds on Midwest corn farms
where the monarchs lay their eggs after migrating from Mexico.
Iowa State University ecologist John Pleasants, one of the study's
authors, said the catastrophic decline in monarchs is a consequence of
the genetically engineered crops that no one foresaw.
Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, a
nonprofit group that has waged a litigation battle against biotechnology
companies, said the new crops are part of "a chemical arms race, where
biotechnology met Charles Darwin."
Dow AgroSciences spokesman Garry Hamlin said the company has created
new formulas for 2,4-D that reduce vaporization by 92 percent and that
farmers using the new corn will be obligated to use the new formulation.
Dow will also train farmers to make sure they correctly use the new
seed and herbicide package, which Hamlin said is needed.
"Farmers haven't been able to control certain difficult weeds because
of resistance," Hamlin said. "That resistance issue is going to get
worse if the new technology doesn't come into play to intercept it."
Food makers worry
Food manufacturers and grain millers lost a three-year battle at the
USDA against a new genetically modified corn approved last year for
ethanol. Hailed by ethanol backers as "Trojan corn," it turns its own
starch to sugar and so speeds the process of making ethanol to fuel cars.
Food manufacturers worry that even a tiny contamination of food corn by
the new crop could turn their corn chips and cereals soggy.
Made by Swiss-based Syngenta under the trademark Enogen, the corn was
approved over the objections of the biggest names in the U.S. snack and
cereals industry. Syngenta tests show that one kernel in 10,000 can
liquefy grits.
Jack Bernens, head of marketing for Syngenta, said products like corn
puffs can have as much as 14 percent contamination before the foods
would show any change in consistency. He said strict contracts with
farmers and a sophisticated set of controls will keep the corn
contained. Contamination is unlikely, he said, because of the wide
geographical separation between ethanol and food-corn regions.
Still, food manufacturers and grain millers remain worried that the
corn will spread through pollen or inadvertent mixing. Genetically
modified crops have escaped at least six times in the past, according to
a 2008 General Accounting Office report, in one case leading to produce
recalls and more than $1 billion in losses to rice farmers. The agency
said that "the ease with which genetic material from crops can be spread
makes future releases likely."
For food manufacturers, the ethanol corn that dissolves starches is
"a disaster about to happen," said Lynn Clarkson, president of Clarkson
Grain, a grain dealer in Cerro Gordo, Ill.
"We are face to face with a corn that won't process the way it's
processed for the last 150 years," Clarkson said. "We have a corn that
ruins food for starch uses. If it goes into shipments to Japan, if you
were the Japanese, would you want to be buying from an area that grew
this corn, that approved this corn?"
Carolyn Lochhead is the San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent. clochhead@sfchronicle.com
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