Modified Crops Finding A Friendlier Playing Field

CQ WEEKLY – IN FOCUS
July 24, 2006 – Page 2021

On a warm day in May, more than 200 Vermont farmers dropped their plows and made a pilgrimage to a Franklin County dairy farm. They journeyed to witness Republican Gov. Jim Douglas veto the Farmer Protection Act, which would have allowed organic farmers whose crops were contaminated by genetically modified crop seeds to sue the seed manufacturers.

“It was planting season,” said Margaret Laggis, a Vermont-based lobbyist for the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), an industry trade group that fought the bill, marveling at the unprecedented turnout of conventional farmers to support the veto. “Usually you can’t beg a farmer to leave the field.”

The veto of the bill — the first of its kind in the nation to pass a state legislature — was a triumph for the biotech industry that also illustrates growing acceptance among farmers for genetically modified crops. Efforts to pass similar legislation has stalled in other states, forcing conventional farmers and organic farmers to figure out how to coexist side-by-side. Even in Robert Frost’s home state, it turns out that good fences — or in this case good buffers — really do make good neighbors.

Moreover, makers of genetically modified seed are also enjoying a friendlier climate in Washington, where the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is gearing up to overhaul regulations governing biotech crops and is widely expected to ease some restrictions. Such a vote of confidence in the safety of modified crops would allow the industry to claim a larger share of the seed market and help start-up companies enter the marketplace, advocates say.

“There are only a few players who can get to market because of the current regulatory requirements,” said Nathan Danielson, a consultant for the National Corn Growers Association, who says the expensive and cumbersome process of winning regulatory approval for new biotech products discourages innovation by smaller companies. “It would be nice to see some restrictions for products that are not hazardous alleviated.”

That, say people familiar with plans to rewrite the regulations governing biotech crops, is exactly what the USDA has in mind. Since 1986, genetically modified crops have been regulated by a system known as the “Coordinated Framework,” which involves the USDA, Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. The USDA issued a notice in 2004 that it was considering whether to update its biotechnology regulations and would conduct an environmental impact statement to evaluate the regulations, a first step in the rulemaking process.

The new approach, according to people involved with the process, would create a tiered system for regulating biotech products, based on such things as their safety and length of time on the market. Such well-established products as genetically modified corn and soybeans, for example, would face loose governance, while emerging products such as plants manipulated to suck the toxins out of contaminated soil would face stricter regulation.

Bob Ehart of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture said the USDA’s imminent announcement signals that federal regulators have greater faith in the safety of common biotech products and want to dedicate more resources to emerging products. The new approach, he said, should soothe fears about the safety of biotech crops.

“This is a long way from the ’80s, when the framework was written,” he said. “USDA understands it needs to be more germane and streamlined. Technology is evolving; why shouldn’t our regulation evolve with it?”

Environmental Concerns
Genetically modified seeds are manipulated at the molecular level to carry certain characteristics, such as natural resistance to pest infestation or tolerance to herbicides that would otherwise kill the crop along with weeds. Scientists can select a trait from one organism and insert it into another organism. Backers say the technology can make such biotech crops an environmentally friendly alternative, because there is no need to spray them with pesticides. Hardier crops also can produce higher yields and help feed countries suffering from food shortages, and crops might be engineered to be made more nutritious.

Critics, meanwhile, say engineering crop varieties that don’t naturally occur may pose unknown risks to the environment. For example, there are concerns that pollen from herbicide-tolerant seeds could cross-breed with wild species to create superweeds that might threaten biodiversity. Also, consumers may be wary about eating foods made from bio-engineered plants, perhaps fearing allergies.

Questions about the safety of genetically modified crops have contributed to global trade disputes. The U.S. plants 59 percent of the 200 million acres of herbicide and pest resistant crops worldwide, according to the USDA, but has faced difficulty exporting its farm products to nations wary about the safety of modified crops.

The U.S. has challenged a de facto European Union moratorium on approvals of new genetically modified crops before the World Trade Organization. The EU counters that a series of food-safety scares in recent years has damaged consumer confidence and requires a careful approach to regulating genetically engineered products. The U.S. also objects that EU labeling requirements for products containing genetically modified agricultural products sends the unfounded message that the products are somehow dangerous or different.

The dispute has spilled into the developing world. Some famine-stricken southern African countries refused to accept modified U.S. corn offered in response to a 2002 United Nations appeal for food aid.

Trade concerns have also inhibited companies from seeking regulatory approval for new products. In March 2004, Japanese consumer groups told U.S. officials in North Dakota that their country would stop importing American wheat if Monsanto’s application for approval of modified wheat was approved, according to published reports at the time. Two months later, Monsanto withdrew its application.

Organic Farmers
In the United States, the conflict has been mainly between organic and conventional farmers.

Organic crops are grown according to Agriculture Department standards that generally prohibit pesticides and require farming practices that preserve land and soil quality. Genetically modified crops are prohibited from being labeled as organic. Farmers are able to command a premium from consumers willing to pay extra for organic products that they view as safer or more environmentally friendly.

Contamination of organic crops can have serious financial consequences. Terra Prima, a producer of organic corn chips, lost $200,000 in 1998 because it was forced to recall almost 90,000 bags of chips after discovering that corn it bought from a Texas farm had been cross-pollinated with genetically modified corn in neighboring fields.

Testing for the presence of genetically modified produce isn’t required under USDA regulations for organic certification, but producers and distributors of organic foods can require third-party tests. Many say they rely instead on trusting their suppliers.

“We don’t do [genetically modified crop] testing at the door,” said Joe Dickenson, who oversees quality standards and organics for Whole Foods grocery stores. He said the company is confident that any “presence [of non-organic material] is accidental.”

Disputes between organic farmers and neighbors using genetically modified seed led Rural Vermont, a 21-year-old organization that promotes sustainable agriculture, to press for a state law that would allow organic farmers whose crops were contaminated by pollen from genetically altered crops to sue the company that produced the seed.

Amy Shollenberger, the group’s policy director, said such “strict liability” is justified because the genetically modified seeds are owned by the company that engineered them — not the farmer — even after they are planted.

“We wanted to make sure farmers would never have to sue each other and that the company would pay for the damages,” Shollenberger said. “But on the other hand, we wanted the farmer with the economic damage to get the best possible compensation.”

The biotech industry and its allies among conventional farmers called the bill overkill, arguing that there are no studies showing that genetically modified crops are dangerous. Holding manufacturers liable for damage caused by their products is a model usually applied to makers of dangerous products, such as explosives.

The successful campaign to block the liability bill in Vermont with a gubernatorial veto demonstrated the industry’s success at rallying conventional farmers to its cause. BIO’s intense lobbying included a campaign on the ground to persuade farmers using genetically modified seed to fight as vigorously as organic farmers for their farming practices.

“I asked them, ‘Are you going to let other farmers whittle away at the way you farm?’ ” biolobbyist Laggis said. “ ‘Are you going to stand up for the way you do your thing?’ ”

In states where liability legislation has stalled, such as Hawaii, state agriculture officials are instead promoting farming practices that will allow organic and conventional farmers to coexist side by side.

Though organic farmers in Vermont backed the liability law, growers elsewhere say they are working out differences on their own and don’t need new laws. A few years ago, Ohio farmer Fred Yoder worried that he could be sued if genetically modified corn in his fields was found in his neighbor’s organic crop.

“First he looked at me as an enemy,” Yoder said. “There was a moment when we first started out when he had the perception that I was out to destroy him.”

But instead of yelling at each other, the farmers decided to talk. They figured out how setting up borders between the farms and alternating planting schedules could prevent cross-pollination — and a lawsuit. “Once we started communicating and once he realized I wanted him to be able to have a salable product we learned to work together,” Yoder said.

In the end, said Roger Johnson, North Dakota’s agriculture commissioner, neither the political clout of organic farmers and environmentalists nor that of the biotech industry will determine what farmers grow.

“That’s what consumers are for,” he said.
FOR FURTHER READING:

Biotech foods, 2001 CQ Weekly, p. 4; Congress drawn into bioengineering battle, 2000 CQ Weekly, p. 938.
Source: CQ Weekly
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