June 10, 2001
As Biotech Crops Multiply, Consumers Get Little Choice
By DAVID BARBOZA
CHICAGO, June 9 — Despite persistent concerns about genetically modified
crops, they are spreading so rapidly that it has become almost impossible
for consumers to avoid them, agriculture experts say.
More than 100 million acres of the world's most fertile farmland were
planted with genetically modified crops last year, about 25 times as much
as just four years earlier. Wind-blown pollen, commingled seeds and
black-market plantings have further extended these products of
biotechnology into the far corners of the global food supply — perhaps
irreversibly, according to food experts.
"The genie is already out of the bottle," said Neil E. Harl, a professor of
agriculture and economics at Iowa State University, speaking of genetically
modified organisms, or G.M.O.'s. "If the policy tomorrow was that we were
going to eradicate G.M.O.'s, this would be a very long process. It would
take years if not decades to do that."
Most of the biotech fields are soybeans and corn planted in North and South
America, the biggest food exporters. But biotech crops — genetically
altered to do things like release their own insecticide or withstand the
spraying of weed-killing chemicals — are being shipped or experimented with
in many other countries, including China, India, Australia and South
Africa.
<Picture>
Jim Lee for The New York Times
Gary and Chad Dreckman grow modified corn in Oyens, Iowa.
<Picture >
Expanded Coverage
Issue in Depth: Genetically Modified Food
<Picture>
They are even turning up where people least expect them: in countries where
they are banned but a black market has developed; in food supplies where
they are forbidden or shunned, like organic products; even in fields that
farmers believe are completely free of genetically modified crops.
The rapid adoption and proliferation means that even as scientists and
others debate the safety of altering foods' genetic codes to produce
cheaper and bigger supplies, a large share of the world's population has
little or no choice but to consume genetically modified crops.
One indication came last year when Starlink, a variety of genetically
modified corn not approved for human consumption, accidentally entered the
global food supply, leading to extensive food recalls in the United States
and Japan over fears it could cause allergic reactions.
Starlink has not been shown to be harmful; indeed, there is little evidence
that biotech foods are dangerous to humans. But the episode showed that
seeds planted on less than 1 percent of America's corn acreage could easily
spread from farm to farm, contaminate the nation's grain handling system
and seep into global food supplies.
Seed companies, farmers, processors and food makers have spent more than $1
billion in the last six months trying to eradicate Starlink. But most
experts agree that will take years.
In the meantime, experts say the spread of biotech crops creates an
entirely new set of trade, regulatory and legal problems:
¶ Large countries with policies limiting the use of genetically modified
crops may soon have to change course, because they will not be able to get
enough nonbiotech crops to meet their import needs.
¶ Regulators are under pressure to develop new standards to determine what
is and is not genetically modified — a situation complicated, as the
Starlink episode demonstrated, by the commingling and cross- pollination of
different crops.
¶ Big food and agriculture companies are facing legal and public relations
challenges, because some farmers and consumers believe their products have
been contaminated.
Gene-altered crops are already ubiquitous in the United States, where the
Food and Drug Administration has deemed them "entirely safe." But Europe
and parts of Asia remain wary of the crops, and there have been moves in
those regions to halt or slow their import.
Skeptics say that tampering with nature could inadvertently alter species,
harm wildlife and give rise to new problems, like herbicide-resistant
"superweeds." They also worry about the long-term health consequences of
eating foods that are armed with insecticides and foreign genes. And the
critics suspect that the industry has intentionally flooded the world
market with genetically altered seeds to pre-emptively settle the question
of whether or not to adopt biotechnology
Opponents expected Starlink to be a turning point in the fight against
genetically altered crops. But while the episode helped stall the advance
of genetically modified wheat, potatoes and sugar, it seems to have served
as proof, over all, of biotech's inexorable spread. Most food makers in the
United States continue to use biotech crops, insisting they are safe and
far too pervasive to avoid; meanwhile, relatively few American consumers
seem to care.
Perhaps more important, the bulk of American grain sold for domestic and
international use goes into animal feed, and thus far few farmers or big
companies have opposed feeding biotech grain to livestock.
Indeed, biotech industry officials believe the game is nearly won. The
United States, Brazil and Argentina account for about 90 percent of the
world's corn and soybean exports. Bulk shipments from the United States and
Argentina are predominantly biotech. And Brazil is widely believed to have
a black market in biotech soybeans.
If Brazil legalizes biotech production, Europe and Asia — the world's two
biggest purchasers of soy — would have almost nowhere to turn for adequate
supplies of nonbiotech soybeans. Environmentalists in Brazil have protested
biotechnology, and though the government there is split, industry officials
in the United States say that Brazil is leaning toward allowing the use of
genetically modified seeds.
"We are very hopeful that last domino will fall," said Bob Callanan, a
spokesman for the American Soybean Association, a trade group that supports
the use of gene-altered crops. "That's why the environmentalists are
putting up a stink down there in Brazil. They know if that goes, it's all
gone."
That would be a huge victory for biotechnology companies. Monsanto,
Aventis, Syngenta and others have spent billions of dollars to create the
crops, and some independent groups, including the United Nations, promote
them as one answer to world health and hunger problems.
###
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]
|
