Corn Farmers may have broken “Gene-Altered Crops” rules

Andrew Pollack has a story on the New York Times’ website that reports “[a]s many as 25 percent of the American farmers growing genetically engineered corn are no longer complying with federal rules intended to maintain the resistance of the crops to damage from insects, according to an advocacy group’s report released Thursday.”

The report was authored by Gregory Jaffe, who is the biotechnology project director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The CSPI is based out of Washington, and while the group does not oppose genetically engineered crops, it is in favor of stricter regulations. Jaffe’s report “raises questions about whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the agricultural biotechnology industry are adequately enforcing the rules.”

As the New York Times reports, the crop the report is focused on is called BT corn. BT corn has bacterial genes “spliced into their DNA that cause the plants to make toxins that kill certain insects when they feed on the crop.” In 2008, 49 million acres of BT corn were grown, which amounts to 57 percent of the total acreage of domestic corn.

One concern with genetically-altered crops is that the insects they target may ultimately evolve enough to where they are resistant to the new-crop-strain insecticides. To prevent this from occurring, federal regulation requires Corn Belt farmers “to plant 20 percent of their fields with no-BT corn to serve as a refuge for insects.” The thinking is that if the insect did evolve to point where it became resistant to the toxin, “it is likely to mate with a non-resistant insect from the refuge, so the offspring might not be resistant.”

Interestingly, the biotech companies that developed the gene-altered corn is responsible for ensuring its costumers follow the rules. Five large biotech companies jointly survey their growers, and annually report the results to the EPA. Jaffe used a Freedom of Information Act request to gain access to these reports. Jaffe found that only 78 percent of farmers were planting the required buffer crop while growing corn genetically altered to be resistant to the corn in 2008. This is a decline from the 90 percent compliance rate from 2003 to 2006.

For their part the industry recognizes the downward trend. Dr. Nicholas Storer, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Stewardship Technical Committee, which is the industry group that conducts the surveys, told Pollack that the companies have undertaken a ‘“Respect the Refuge”’ campaign aimed at curbing the current trends.

Dr. Storer believes that one factor leading to the decline could be the increased prices in corn in 2007, which may have prompted more and more farmers to grow the BT variety. Additionally, different refuge requirements for different gene-altered species may have caused some confusion among some farmers. The EPA responded to the report by saying the agency may take action if deemed necessary.

To read the Pollack article in the New York Times, click here.

Posted: 11/05/09