Last spring, when Blair Hoerbert planted a new, genetically engineered hybrid corn that is toxic to the rapacious European corn borer, he was hoping for a pest-free crop that would improve his bottom line.
This month, with the 1996 harvest almost complete, the results did not disappoint Hoerbert. In fact, he is nothing short of ecstatic.
“The technology works,” Hoerbert said. “It’s really amazing.”
Not only did the 80 acres of corn, which contains a gene from a soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, come through without a single corn borer, it yielded 210 bushels per acre–about 10 bushels more than his conventional corn.
That translates into 800 additional bushels or, with corn running about $3 a bushel, about $2,400 more in Hoerbert’s pocket for the 80 acres of Bt corn he planted.
The corn borer, which tunnels into the stalk of the plant and dramatically reduces the size and number of kernels that grow on an ear of corn, can severely impact a farmer’s bottom line. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that this year American farmers will lose corn crops worth about $1.5 billion to the pest, out of a total crop of roughly $25 billion.
“When I walked through the fields planted with Bt corn, I couldn’t find one corn borer, not one,” said Hoerbert, who added that his 220 acres of non-Bt corn were heavily infested. “I plan to plant 60 percent of my corn crop in Bt corn next spring.”
But Hoerbert’s euphoria over the world’s first significant commercial crop of genetically engineered corn is not universally shared.
The issue of genetically engineered plants, such as Bt corn and a transgenic soybean that is resistant to Monsanto Co.’s powerful Roundup herbicide, is generating a storm of protest among a small but vocal group of environmentalists, consumers and scientists.
Despite approval by the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, opponents of genetically engineered corn and soybeans insist that those agencies have rushed to judgment on transgenic crops.
Of the 80 million acres of American farmland planted in corn this year, only about 500,000 acres were Bt corn. And only about 2 percent of the 64 million acres planted in soybeans contained genetically altered plants.
Industry analysts, however, predict that in the next 5 to 10 years, about half of America’s farm acreage will be planted with crops genetically engineered to be toxic to a predator, to enhance a certain property, such as oil or sugar, or to be resistant to weed killers such as Roundup.
That translates into a market for genetically engineered seeds produced by companies like Ciba-Geigy Seed, Monsanto Co., Mycogen Corp. and DeKalb Genetics Corp. that will be about $5 billion by the year 2000 and $25 billion in 2010, say analysts.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, worry that the overuse of genetically engineered plants will result in “gene-jumping,” creating herbicide-resistant weeds and insects that are immune to the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium, which also is used as a natural pest control by organic farmers.
Some scientific groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, have raised questions about the transferal of gene-altered proteins between organisms that can cause allergic reactions in humans.
“I would like to have seen another two or three years of large-scale experimentation and research on the issue of resistance,” said Jane Rissler, a plant pathologist and senior staff scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “If the issue of resistance is not managed properly, in a few years farmers will have to go back to large-scale spraying of herbicides and pesticides.”
Greenpeace and other organizations have gone so far as to attack and trample test plots of genetically engineered corn and soybeans in Iowa and Europe.
Other groups, such as the Foundation on Economic Trends, based in Washington, D.C., have announced a boycott of 10 products, ranging from Coca-Cola and Karo corn syrup to McDonald’s french fries and Green Giant Harvest Burgers, until the companies that make them agree not to use bio-engineered corn and soybeans–or at least agree to label them.
Soybeans and corn are found in more than 30,000 food products from soft drinks to margarine, and scientists worry that people with allergies will not be able to control their intake of harmful allergens if the products aren’t labeled.
“This is a pivotal point in the history of agriculture,” said Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends. “If these crops are allowed to enter the food chain, we anticipate tremendous health and environmental risks.”
The USDA, FDA and EPA all say protests and boycotts against genetically engineered crops and the companies that use them are misguided and insist that years of study have gone into genetically engineered crops.
“Time marches on,” Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said recently. “The fact of the matter is, these crops are safe.”
Despite such assurances, the European Union, whose 15 member nations last year imported $530 million worth of U.S.-grown corn and $1.5 billion in American soybeans, is balking.
In June, all European Union nations except France refused import permits for genetically engineered corn and the European Commission is still trying to decide if it will approve it.
Even though the EU earlier this year approved the import of genetically engineered soybeans and Japan earlier this month approved the import of livestock feed containing Bt corn, some nations and their consumers are having second thoughts.
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“Nobody thinks that eating products made from Bt corn or Roundup-ready soybeans will cause us to grow corn cobs on our heads or soybeans in our armpits,” said Uwe Schmidt, an agricultural adviser to the European Union. “This is not a Frankenstein-type issue. . . . We want consumers to have the choice of buying products that are genetically engineered or not. . . . Why the U.S. grain industry is refusing to do this is puzzling.”
Consumer groups in Europe have called the U.S. position “arrogant” and have threatened boycotts of products made with genetically engineered crops unless they are labeled.
A survey conducted recently in Europe by EuroCommerce, the organization that represents the European Union on retail, wholesale and international trade issues, found that 90 percent of the EU’s 370 million consumers wanted clear labeling of all modified food products.
Earlier this month, Washington dispatched USDA senior trade adviser Paul Drazek to Europe to lobby on behalf of both Bt corn and Roundup-ready soybeans. With the harvest of both crops in full swing and the presidential election nearing, Washington is not eager to lose a major customer for America’s two biggest cash crops.
Gene Moos, USDA undersecretary for international affairs, insists it is virtually impossible to segregate and label genetically engineered soybeans and corn.
“There’s no need for labeling,” Moos told reporters recently. “We see no reason why labeling should be required and we think it would be impossible on top of that.”
That unyielding view is not shared by everybody in America’s corn and soybean belts.
Dan McGuire, executive director of the Interstate Grain Commission, a marketing arm for grain farmers in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wyoming and New Mexico, says farmers and grain companies need to give customers what they want.
“We don’t condone the arrogance of the U.S. grain industry that says, `You take the product as we raise it,’ ” McGuire said. “The U.S. grain industry should work with its customers and give them what they want, the way other industries do. Otherwise, the American farmer could be stuck with a product (of genetically engineered) crops that nobody wants.”
One option is to require farmers to separate genetically engineered crops from others–a procedure that some say would add between 15 and 20 percent to the cost of harvesting, processing and distributing the crops.
McGuire disputes that claim and points out that members of the Interstate Grain Commission already have shipped a special order of 10,000 tons of soybeans to a European importer who wanted them certified as “non-Roundup-ready.”
But most grain dealers, including Cargill Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland Co., say they will handle genetically engineered crops the same way they handle conventional crops.
“To handle genetically engineered corn and soybeans any differently from conventional crops implies there is some difference in them–and that’s just not the case,” said Linda Thrane, vice president of public affairs for Minneapolis-based Cargill. “The plan is to accept the beans our farmers deliver to us. The scientific testing is complete. The approvals are in. It’s business as usual now.”
Companies like Ciba-Geigy Seed, Monsanto, Mycogen and DeKalb Genetics insist that opponents of the products are overreacting or are drawing conclusions based on spurious evidence.