Please see mindfully.org notes at bottom of this article.
The battle over biotech plants could be moving from the cornfield to the golf course.
An environmental group based in Washington, D.C., filed a legal complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday, demanding that the agency deny Scotts Co.'s request to sell a grass seed that has been genetically engineered to resist Monsanto Corp.'s Roundup herbicide.
Monsanto, based in St. Louis, has bioengineered corn and other plants to withstand Roundup, a trait many farmers find appealing because they can spray a field to kill the weeds without hurting the crop.
Scotts, whose lawn-care products are well known to consumers, sought USDA approval in May to sell its herbicide-resistant grass to an estimated 17,000 golf courses in the United States.
"This would allow golf course managers to control their weed problems with a single herbicide," said Jim King, spokesman for Scotts, which is based in Marysville, Ohio.
He said the company has no plans to sell the seed to consumers because the bent grass variety used on golf courses requires too much mowing to appeal to the average lawn owner.
But in its legal petition the International Center for Technology Assessment said the bioengineered grass could cross-pollinate with wild grasses, potentially creating herbicide-resistant superweeds.
"They (the seeds) would represent a unique man-made form of biological pollution," ICTA said in its filing.
King said other herbicides could still kill any wild grasses that picked up the Roundup resistance trait.
USDA spokeswoman Hallie Pickhardt said the department had not reviewed ICTA's challenge. She said USDA has not decided whether to let Scotts sell the bioengineered grass and it is likely to be several months before the agency acts.
The practical effect of Thursday's filing was to give ICTA legal standing to challenge USDA in federal court should the agency decide that the new grass does not pose a risk to other domestic or wild crops, as its opponents contend.
Because the Scotts product is not meant for consumption, the safety debate will revolve around the risk that the herbicide-resistance trait might jump from lawns to wild grasses, and what would happen if it did.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture's Plant Division recently reviewed that issue in the course of approving Scotts' request to create a farm where the company could grow its new seeds in bulk, if USDA approves its commercialization.
"The expectation is that there will be outcrossing of the (herbicide- resistance) gene" into related wild grasses of the Agrostis genus, said Dan Hilburn, director of Oregon's Plant Sciences department.
Hilburn said Oregon approved Scotts' farming request because the company will be growing the bioengineered grass in a dry, remote region where any genetic drift would have a minimal ecological impact. He said scientists at Oregon State University would monitor the issue.
The ICTA petition says prominent environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy, as well as the American Society of Landscape Architects, have objected to release of the new grass because they think it will leak into the wild and prove difficult to control.
ICTA also said the bioengineered grass would find its way into lawns and schoolyards where it would encourage increased use of the Roundup herbicide.
"Monsanto and Scotts are asking for government approval to massively increase the chemical contamination of our neighborhoods," said Andrew Kimbrell, ICTA executive director.
King, the Scotts spokesman, said ICTA was inaccurate in suggesting there will be a consumer market for the seed, and argued that it would reduce herbicide use on golf courses.
mindfully.org notes:
Roundup Inhibits Steroidogenesis by Disrupting StAR Expression - Environmental Health Perspectives Aug00
A case-control study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and exposure to pesticides - Cancer 12mar99
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |