Herbicide Resistant Crops a Huge Concern

Story first appeared in The New York Times.

To a local farmer, it was a telltale sign that one of his tomato fields had been poisoned by 2,4-D, the powerful herbicide that was an ingredient in Agent Orange, the Vietnam War defoliant. Oklahoma City Agriculture Lawyers are concerned about the health and crop risks from extensive spraying of these hericides.

The leaves had curled and the plants were kind of twisting rather than growing straight. The local farmer in Lowell, Ind. is convinced the chemical, as well as another herbicide called dicamba, had wafted through the air from farms nearly two miles away. These distant farms in Kasbeer, Ill. were using Monsanto’s Roundup, a popular herbicide that some say has been used too often to control weeds.

Many farmers are concerned that the Dow Chemical company is on the verge of winning regulatory approval for corn that is genetically engineered to be immune to 2,4-D, allowing farmers to spray the chemical to kill weeds without harming the corn stalks.

That would be a welcome development for some corn farmers, who are coping with runaway weeds that can no longer be controlled by Roundup, the herbicide of choice for the last decade.

But some consumer and environmental groups oppose approval of Dow’s corn, saying it will lead to a huge increase in the use of 2,4-D, which they say may cause cancer, hormone disruption and other health problems. They are being joined by a coalition of fruit and vegetable farmers and canners like Red Gold and Seneca Foods, which filed petitions with the government last week seeking a delay in the corn’s approval.

The Save Our Crops Coalition, as it calls itself, says it is not opposed to biotechnology. But it fears that fruits and vegetables, which will not be immune to 2,4-D, will become unintended casualties of herbicide drift as the chemical is sprayed on tens of millions of acres of corn.

The dispute is the latest iteration in the intense and often bitter battle over genetically modified crops, made even more emotional in this case because of the connection between 2,4-D and Agent Orange, the notorious defoliant that has been linked to birth defects, cancer and other health problems in Vietnamese civilians and American veterans.

Some opponents of Dow’s product call it “Agent Orange corn.” Dow and its allies call that a misleading scare tactic.

Most experts agree that the harm from Agent Orange was caused primarily by its other ingredient, 2,4,5-T, which was taken off the market long ago. By contrast, 2,4-D, first approved in the late 1940s, is considered safe enough for use in many home lawn care products.

The Environmental Protection Agency, after repeated reviews, continues to say that there is not enough evidence to call 2,4-D a human carcinogen. This month, the agency rejected a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council seeking the removal of 2,4-D from the market on health and safety grounds.

The Agriculture Department is leaning toward approval of the 2,4-D-resistant corn, according to its draft environmental assessment. But it is accepting public comments until Friday, and has already received more than 5,000. Opponents say that 267,500 people have signed a petition asking the government to deny Dow’s request. Dow hopes the approval will come in time for planting next year.

For some farmers, the approval couldn’t come too soon. He said that without new chemical approaches, farmers would have to plow more, increasing soil erosion.

The corn is just the first of a new wave of herbicide-tolerant crops. Dow is also developing soybeans and cotton immune to 2,4-D. Close behind, Monsanto is developing soybeans, cotton and corn that can tolerate dicamba, another old herbicide in the same family as 2,4-D. Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont are developing crops resistant to other herbicides. too.

Of the 20 genetically engineered crops awaiting approval, 13 are intended to be resistant to one or more herbicides.

The activity stems from the huge success, at least initially, of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops, which are genetically engineered to tolerate its herbicide Roundup, also sold generically as glyphosate.

Those crops made it so easy for farmers to control weeds by spraying glyphosate that Roundup Ready crops now account for about 90 percent of soybeans and around 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States. And use of glyphosate skyrocketed, at the expense of rival herbicides.

But farmers relied too much on glyphosate, allowing weeds to develop resistance to the chemical. The problem has been worst in the South, where a particularly strong and prolific plant called Palmer amaranth, or pigweed, has overrun cotton fields, forcing many farmers to hire crews to remove weeds by hand.

Dow says its crops will provide a way to control the glyphosate-resistant weeds using 2,4-D.

Dow’s crops contain a gene from a soil bacterium that causes them to make a protein that breaks down 2,4-D into other chemicals that are not harmful to plants.

But some critics say the new crops will lead to a manyfold increase in use of 2,4-D and dicamba. Neither is used that much now on corn and soybeans — the two leading crops by acreage — out of fear of harming the crops.

Critics say that weeds will eventually develop resistance to those chemicals as well and that more sustainable methods are needed to control weeds, like planting cover crops and rotating crops.

The new crops ratchet up dependence on the use of herbicides, which is very much a treadmill. Scientists in Nebraska have already discovered a small amount of waterhemp — perhaps the most troublesome weed in the Corn Belt — that is resistant to 2,4-D.

But some other scientists say there is little choice but to turn to the new crops and their matching chemicals. Without them, we’re going to get to a situation where we have no tools at all.

Dow and its supporters say resistance is not that likely to develop because various herbicide-tolerant crops will be competing, meaning no herbicide will be as dominant as Roundup has been.

Then there is the issue of drift. Droplets of any pesticide can drift onto adjacent farms as the chemical is sprayed. But 2,4-D and dicamba can also vaporize — known as volatilization — days after they are sprayed and then travel in the air for miles.

To the extent they now use 2,4-D and dicamba, corn and soybean farmers usually apply the chemicals before the crops are growing, he said. But with resistant crops, the chemicals will be sprayed later in the growing season, when the hotter weather increases the chance of volatilization.

Dow said it had already addressed the concerns by developing a new formulation of 2,4-D that is far less prone to vaporize or drift. BASF, the German chemical company, is working with Monsanto on a new versions of dicamba to limit drift and volatility.

Older formulations will remain on the market, so farmers may use them, especially if they are cheaper. But Dow says it will require buyers of its genetically engineered seeds to use the new formulation. It also says that older formulations will not have been approved for spraying on corn during certain parts of the growing season.

In a statement last week, Dow criticized the coalition’s attempt to delay approval, that there is a better way to address concerns than for one group of ag stakeholders to attempt to deny access to tools that are urgently needed by their neighbors.


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This Genetically Altered Salmon Is No Fish Story

Bloomberg / BusinessWeek

 

For 15 years, AquaBounty Technologies has tried to win U.S. approval to sell a genetically modified salmon that can reach full size up to twice as fast as its naturally occurring brethren. Now the effort by the Waltham (Mass.) company may be drawing to a close. U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers last week held what may be the agency's final hearing on whether AquaBounty's salmon is safe to eat.

The FDA hasn't set the timing of a final decision. Its staff, though, has already agreed that the meat from the altered fish is safe and has no biologically relevant differences from that of the naturally occurring variety. So AquaBounty's fish finally may be headed for American kitchens. FDA approval could make the salmon the first in a series of animals with mix-and-match DNA that have the potential to change the U.S. food chain.

AquaBounty's Atlantic salmon contain a growth gene implanted from another variety of salmon that's activated by DNA from an eel-like creature called the ocean pout. The altered fish can grow to "market weight" of as much as 13 pounds in two or three years, compared with three to four years required for natural salmon, says Chief Executive Officer Ronald L. Stotish.

The company would sell its AquAdvantage brand salmon eggs to fish farms isolated from the ocean that then could see their catch reach supermarkets in about two years. Stotish says the enhanced fish could "increase the availability of a high-quality product that is indistinguishable from the traditional food."

Not everyone is firing up their grills just yet. Groups opposed to genetically modified foods on Sept. 16 held a protest in Washington. "Today it's a fish that we're talking about. But very soon it will be genetically engineered pigs, chicken, and our beloved cows," Ben & Jerry's CEO Jostein Solheim told protesters.

Critics say they're particularly miffed that the FDA is reviewing AquaBounty's altered fish as a veterinary drug rather than creating a new review process for gene-altered foods. FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey says the genetic material used in the AquaBounty fish meets the statutory definition of a veterinary drug because it alters the structure and function of the animal. She says veterinary drug approval is stringent: "The review of the AquAdvantage salmon, conducted under that process, includes a rigorous analysis of food safety and application of a stringent safety standard: 'reasonable certainty of no harm.'"

The FDA's decision, critics say, allows some testing data reviewed by regulators to be kept confidential, as trade secrets. "They're obviously using this veterinary designation to keep the data confidential," says Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, an environmental and food-safety group in Washington. "I think they're afraid of the public reaction."

Alaska Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski, whose state harvested 163 million commercial salmon last year, are also against AquAdvantage. "Let's call this genetically engineered fish for what it is: Frankenfish," Begich said in a statement. "Approval of genetically modified salmon, the first such hybrid to be considered for human consumption, is unprecedented, risky, and a threat to the survival of wild species."

The modified fish, all female, are sterile, so they can't reproduce with regular salmon, Stotish says. "People who take the time to look" at the regulatory data "will satisfy themselves that the FDA has taken a very cautious, very robust regulatory approach," he says.

Stotish says 97 percent of the total tonnage of salmon now consumed in the U.S. is imported. Almost 427,000 tons, valued at $1.39 billion, was imported last year from countries led by Chile, Canada, and Norway, according to Agriculture Dept. data. Although he says it's too early to project the sales potential of AquAdvantage eggs, Stotish says the fast-growing salmon could help domestic fisheries gain a larger share of the market.

The genetically engineered salmon eggs are produced at an AquaBounty facility in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the fish are grown to market weight at an AquaBounty farm in Panama. If the FDA approves the aquaculture company's salmon, another company would sell the Panama-grown fish in the U.S., Stotish told reporters at a Sept. 20 FDA advisory panel meeting. He declined to identify the company because the product hasn't been approved yet. "AquaBounty does not plan to be in the fish business," he said. "We're a technology company."