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From: Laurel Hopwood <[log in to unmask]>

Farm News from Cropchoice
An alternative news service for American farmers
http://www.cropchoice.com

6/15/02
EPA needs a biotech crop policy
by Robert Schubert
CropChoice editor
(June 15, 2002 -- CropChoice commentary) -- The EPA has failed to
regulate
properly and comprehensively plants that contain pesticides, namely the
insecticidal bacterium bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that scientists
insert
into the genetic structure of corn, cotton, and other commodity crops.

First, the Agency has no policy to prevent the genes of these engineered
crops from "drifting" to their conventional and organic counterparts.
Second, it has surrendered to biotech companies the job of ensuring
compliance with requirements for use of these so-called Plant
Incorporated
Pesticides.

Genetic drift

Farmers increasingly face difficulty growing conventional and organic
corn
and canola because of cross-pollination with genetically modified
varieties. When their crops test positive for genetic contamination,
farmers often have to accept less money for them; in some cases, they
lose
the customers who don't want food containing genetically modified
organisms. (The EPA is not responsible for policing the bigger cause of
contamination -- the mixing of seed during processing, transportation,
storage and planting. However, USDA is, but it likewise has done little
to
address the problem.)

Section 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, Rodenticide Act
authorizes
the EPA to consider economic impacts, along with the ecological and
health
effects, of pesticides as part of its regulatory authority. Yet the
Agency
has chosen to ignore the issue. Why? It has no data, says Janet
Anderson,
Director of the Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division at EPA.

Maybe she should talk with David Vetter, a Nebraska grower of organic
corn.
He has lost money over the last two years because of foreign genes
ending
up in his corn.

Only now, some 6 years AFTER licensing the sale of these
insect-resistant
crops for large-scale commercial release, is the Agency beginning to
establish a research agenda to define the scope of the problem with
genetic
drift and with enforcement of planting protocols.

Compliance oversight

The EPA attaches terms and conditions to its commercial registration of
a
plant incorporated pesticide. It requires the growers of Bt corn, for
example, to plant buffer zones and refuges of conventional corn in an
effort to prevent
or delay corn borers and other pests from developing resistance to the
insecticide that's part of the plant. (Over time, insects and weeds
develop
resistance to pesticides.)

But when it comes to enforcement, the EPA is not out there at the field
level. Instead, third party companies contract with the registrant to
annually survey growers to ascertain whether they're following the
planting
rules. The results go back to the biotech purveyors. Theoretically,
Monsanto, Aventis and others are supposed to strip
violators of the "privilege" of purchasing any more of their Bt corn
seed.
If they don't the Agency can revoke their product registration.

Several problems with this nascent national compliance strategy come to
mind.

Again, why didn't the Agency examine the problem before approving the
crops
for sale? Do the biotech companies pay these neutral third parties to
survey the farmers? How neutral can they be if they're being paid? How
can
the
government verify that its assumptions about the safety of these
products
are correct without participating directly in compliance oversight as it
does with every other class of pesticides? Has it chosen a different
oversight strategy in order to support this class of products based
largely
on biotech proponents' unproven claims of lower
risk? And how can anyone make such a case in the absence of any field
monitoring data to prove it?

Perhaps the biggest question is why the EPA has assigned the
responsibility
for regulating these genetically modified, plant incorporated pesticides
to
the industry that wants to profit from them?

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