EPA Reviewing Bioengineered Crops

Independent Panel to Release Results

Anthony Shadid / Boston Globe 12mar01

EPA Chicago hearing 1999 AP photo

Washington -- After months of study, the Environmental Protection Agency soon will be wrapping up its first comprehensive review of the country's major genetically engineered crops: corn, cotton and potato plants that deliver their own pesticides.

The agency is awaiting a report this month by an independent panel of scientists on the safety of the crops, which represent a growing share of the nation's farm production.

The EPA then will decide for how long to approve their continued use and how those crops must be planted to make sure that pests such as the bollworm and corn borer don't build up a resistance.

"It's significant, and it's groundbreaking," said a spokesman for the EPA, which works with the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to regulate biotechnology products.

Since their commercial introduction in 1995, the use of genetically engineered crops has surged, saving farmers more than $100 million in reduced pesticide use and markedly increasing yields not damaged by pests.

An estimated one-fifth of the nation's corn production comes from genetically engineered seeds. The seeds account for an even bigger portion of cotton -- more than 60 percent in such states as Arizona, Louisiana and Mississippi. The adoption of engineered potatoes lags far behind.

SEED CARRY BT GENES

The seeds are spliced with a gene that produces protein naturally made from strains of bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis. (The crops' shorthand -- Bt corn, for instance -- comes from the name.) The plant then delivers the protein that kills the pest by starving the insect larvae.

One example of the engineered corn is StarLink, whose presence prompted a costly nationwide recall last year of corn chips, taco shells and other food products. The EPA had approved StarLink only for use as animal feed out of concern that it might cause allergic reactions in humans -- a regulation that the agency now acknowledges was a mistake.

Its discovery and the recall highlighted the anxiety that genetically engineered crops have caused both in the United States and abroad, particularly in Europe, where many worry the plants could have unforeseen consequences on health and the environment. The farm industry is especially worried since U.S. agricultural exports earn billions of dollars a year.

All the seeds now under EPA review were approved for human use, but some activists on biotechnology issues insist that more studies are needed.

"This is one of the first times they've had a real chance to thoroughly look at these crops," said Matt Rand, biotechnology campaign manager for the National Environmental Trust in Washington, D.C. "They have not done nearly enough studying on these crops to introduce them into the marketplace."

Despite the seeds' popularity, a minority of farmers echo the complaints. To them, the EPA's five-year review may not foresee long-term impacts on other plant and animal species or the quality of soil.

"I don't believe that the science of genetically engineered organisms is anywhere sophisticated enough or accurate enough to be able to reasonably predict outcome or consequences of using these kinds of organisms," said Juli Brussell, who farms 600 acres of corn, soybean and other crops with her husband in a region of rolling hills in southeastern Illinois.

EPA FINDS SEED SAFE

The EPA's initial assessment has determined that the corn, cotton and potatoes pose no threat to health or the environment, a finding that awaits the determination of the independent panel this month.

In the end, it's unlikely that the EPA would take a step as drastic as rescinding its approval for the use of the seeds, most of which are produced by Monsanto Co. and Syngenta Seeds Inc.

More likely, EPA officials said, is a renewal of the agency's conditional approval that will last anywhere from one to five years. After that, the agency will be expected to conduct another review of their health and environmental impact.

The EPA will deliver revised recommendations by summer in order to give farmers time for the 2002 season. The entire review will be completed by fall.

The industry has supported the regulation as a way to increase the public's confidence in the use of the engineered seeds. Some worried the scare over StarLink and concerns in Europe over genetically engineered foods were reasons that sales of Bt corn stalled last year. (The corn borer, one of the main pests, also posed less of a threat last season.)