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| HIGH-TECH CROPS | |
 August 12, 1999 
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A new variety of corn has been genetically altered to kill invading pests. It has worked wonders fending off insects, but will it harm the environment?
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TOM BEARDEN: Corn farmer Tim Hume is up to his |
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| The battle against insects | ||||||||||||||||||||
| TIM HUME, Farmer: The corn-borer insects, the damage can
be amazing. It can be up to 70 bushels per acre, which is 40 percent of
our yield in this area.
TOM BEARDEN: The bioengineered seeds cost more but Hume hopes they will more than pay for themselves by resisting insects.
TOM BEARDEN: A lot of farmers have jumped on the bioengineered corn
bandwagon because corn borers cost them more than $1 billion a year
in lost yields. Although BT corn has only been on the market for three
years, it's now growing on 20 million acres, a quarter of the entire
U.S. corn crop. But critics of bioengineered food products are worried
the new seeds threaten human health and the environment. The biggest
outcry is in Europe, where protesters who want to halt U.S. imports
dumped genetically altered seeds on government officials'
TOM BEARDEN: Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed. |
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JOHN LOSEY: This is milkweed with the pink flowers. And, if you notice,
if you break off a leaf or a stem, it TOM BEARDEN: Losey says the risk to the butterflies is significant, because they breed mostly in U.S. corn belt states. But the industry says Losey's laboratory study doesn't reflect real life. Val Giddings is a vice president of BIO, the Biotechnology Industry Organization. VAL GIDDINGS: The crucial thing to look at is would Monarch larvae in the wild be exposed to corn pollen, and if so, how much effect would there be? The corn pollen is only around for an extremely short period of time during the growing season, so the potential for exposure is extremely low. Therefore, the probability of a negative impact is commensurately low. TOM BEARDEN: Both the industry and Losey agree that more fieldwork is needed. Losey and his team are now measuring how pollen migrates from real cornfields, and what impact it has on Monarchs.
TOM BEARDEN: Because the Cornell study is the first evidence that pollen blowing from a genetically- modified plant can kill non-target insects, Losey says it should be seen as a heads-up for any bioengineering in the future. JOHN LOSEY: It's not just Monarchs. If you look above them on the food
chain, there's a lot of animals like bats, birds, other insects that
eat either the caterpillars or the butterflies and moths. And so, if
you start really having an impact on these populations, it's going to
ripple both up and down the food chain. And it's really hard to predict
what impact that's going to have on the total ecosystem. So I guess
why you should be concerned about the Monarch is TOM BEARDEN: Bioengineering critics also worry that genetically-modified crops could pose a threat to people, particularly those with uncommon allergies. Jane Rissler is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. JANE RISSLER: If someone were allergic to bananas, she wouldn't buy foods with bananas. But if a banana gene were transferred to tomatoes, let's say, to give a yellow color, and that tomato were not labeled or processed-- tomatoes were not labeled-- then she could well get the protein from bananas, and she might be allergic to it. TOM BEARDEN: The FDA already requires that foods which contain a gene from a common allergen, like peanuts, to be labeled. The biotech community says agriculture is being unfairly singled out, even as other bioengineered products are highly praised.
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AL GIDDINGS: Some critics of biotechnology have argued that this takes
man into realms best left to |
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TOM BEARDEN: But Rissler says people with health problems are willing to take risks on bioengineered drugs.
TOM BEARDEN: But agriculture says consumer benefits are clear: Cheaper food crops that are much more friendly to the environment because they don't require pesticide to be sprayed. In fact, industry giants like Monsanto tout their DNA innovations as a green revolution. They've invested millions in gene splicing technologies for other crops like cotton and soybeans that also reduce the use of chemical pesticides. The huge expense of developing these new plants has started another argument, this time with farmers. Monsanto requires farmers who buy bioengineered seeds to sign a contract agreeing not to save seeds from their crops for replanting the following year. They say it's an intellectual property rights issue. VAL GIDDINGS: It costs a good deal of money to TOM BEARDEN: Ohio farmers Dan and Roger Peters resent Monsanto's claim of ownership. The father and son operate a seed cleaning business. Farmers bring plants to them to extract the seeds for use the next year. It's an age-old farming practice. The Peters go so far as to say it's a right.
TOM BEARDEN: Monsanto asked the Peters and other cleaners to post signs warning legal action against farmers planning to reuse genetically modified seeds, and the company has hired investigators to sample crops, looking for violators. It has a hot line; it encourages people to call to report others, and has taken some farmers to court. But a private company's ability to patent a gene-modified plant is now being challenged in an Iowa Federal Appeals Court. The issue is bound to get even more contentious when Monsanto introduces a seed now in development. Called the "terminator seed," it becomes sterile after one harvest. JOHN LOSEY: So it definitely looks like they're eating less of the
ones with pollen. TOM BEARDEN: Since the Cornell Butterfly Study, members of Congress have proposed increased funding for further research on bioengineered food crops. The industry has also pledged more money for further investigations. |
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ears
in hope. After years of battling farm pests, Hume planted a new kind
of corn this year, a genetically altered variety that actually kills
invading insects. It's called BT corn. Scientists took a gene from a
common soil bacteria called bacillus thuringiensis, and combined it
with corn. The result is a sort of built-in pesticide. Hume says it's
a godsend when it comes to fighting corn borers. 
TIM
HUME: They're simply less scouting for insects. And we have to spend
less money on sprays that are costly. 
doorsteps.
British tabloids refer to the products as "frankenfood," and
the European Union has refused entry of any new genetically-modified
crops. Fueling much of the current debate is a study published last
may in the journal "Nature." Researchers from Cornell University
reported that BT corn pollen can kill not just pets but also the larvae
of Monarch butterflies. John Losey was the lead author for the study.
JOHN
LOSEY, Cornell University: All of the caterpillars on the no-pollen
treatment and all of the caterpillars on the regular-pollen treatment
were still alive. Forty-four percent or almost half of the caterpillars
feeding on the BT pollen treatment were dead. And those that weren't
dead were significantly smaller. 
produces
a latex sort of substance, and it looks like milk. And that's where
it gets its name: milkweed. And what will happen -- when this corn grows
up and sheds pollen -- is these milkweed right here on the edge, they
are the ones that are going to get the highest dose of the pollen, and
so the female monarchs will come in, and they will lay their eggs right
on the bottom of leaves, and when the larvae hatch out, they'll start
eating, and if it's been dusted with pollen, then they'll consume that
and they'll get a dose. 
JOHN
LOSEY: That's one of the behaviors that we're looking for, when it sort
of does that head bob thing. 
that the Monarch is sort of like the canary in the mine. And if the
Monarch is going to be impacted, we know other butterflies and moths
are going to be impacted, and that could be a real problem for the ecosystem
as a whole. 
God and God alone, that it is unnatural to meddle with nature. But then
they say that it's okay to use biotechnology for pharmaceutical applications.
Well, you know, this starts out as a fundamental statement of principle
but all of a sudden mutates into one which is flexible. And, you know,
we can ignore it when it suits us. I mean, if you're opposed to biotechnology
in food, on a matter of principle, then why are you not opposed to biotechnology
in terms of pharmaceuticals? Are you going to tell a patient suffering
from breast cancer that she cannot have access to Herceptin, or the
breast cancer cystability diagnoses that biotechnology makes possible?
There is a fundamental inconsistency here philosophically in the minds
of those who find biotech in pharmaceuticals okay but not in agriculture.
JANE
RISSLER: In Ag-biotech, let's look at who's benefiting and who's taking
the risk. Biotech companies are benefiting; some farmers are benefiting.
Consumers are eating the food -- are they benefiting? Should they be
asked to take any risk, if they are not getting any benefits? Whereas
if I take a drug that might prevent breast cancer, I'm benefiting directly.
develop
these new products. Farmers can save seed every year, and what that
means then is that for a company to invest a vast amount of research
and development money into that, they would have to recoup all of their
R&D costs from the first generation of seed sales. You know, and
you just can't do that. You'd price yourself out of the market. 
DAN
PETERS: Farmers have saved seed for years. And I mean, what the difference
is, is -- I mean, a guy went out here and had a good field that yielded
good - I can't save that for seed. I've got to haul it to town. I've
got to go buy new. I mean golly, that's going to cost a lot of money.
