Monsanto drops bid to register DNA-altered corn

BANGOR — Maine farmers won’t be planting genetically altered corn anytime soon. Monsanto Co. has dropped a request that the Maine Board of Pesticides Control register the DNA-engineered product, which produces a pesticide for European corn borers.

Monsanto had been scheduled to present information about its YieldGard corn last November at a meeting in Bangor, but canceled after the company’s key scientist was unable to attend because of scheduling conflicts.

Maine is the only state in America that does not allow genetically altered corn to be planted. The pesticides board has approved Monsanto’s New Leaf potato, which contains the same genetic pesticide as is in YieldGard.

In December 1997, the board voted 4-3 to deny applications by DEKALB Genetics and Novartis Seeds for marketing corn in Maine similar to that proposed by Monsanto. The board’s majority said that the two companies did not present scientific data that the new product was needed, a statutory requirement for board approval.

Opponents of the corn believe that not enough is known about the long-term effects of genetically altered seeds on the environment. The corn produces Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, which is a naturally occurring bacterium that makes proteins that kill certain insects. Bt is one of the most important pesticides allowed for use on organic crops.

Nancy Oden, a Jonesboro resident and coordinator of a group called New England Resistance Against Genetic Engineering, said she believes Monsanto’s pullback from Maine is due largely to the vocal mobilization of activists.

Oden and other opponents believe that the pesticides and antibiotics engineered into crop seeds are ultimately absorbed by human beings. “No one knows what the effects from that are,” Oden said.

It’s impossible to prevent engineered corn from pollinating with regular corn, she said, because the wind blows pollen far afield. And once a pesticide like Bt is overused, insects become resistant to it and an effective weapon used by organic farmers will be lost, she said.

To allay some of those fears, Monsanto announced last week during a meeting at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., that a coalition of seed producers plans to require farmers to grow large plots of nonaltered corn along with the engineered corn. That could reduce the chances of insects becoming immune to the poison.

Even though Monsanto officials did not attend November’s meeting, the board discussed the request anyway, compiling a list of questions for the company to answer concerning its application. The board requested that Monsanto make its presentation in January.

According to a letter sent to the pesticides board last week, the company asked that its application be “tabled indefinitely” pending a cost-benefit review of the data required by the board.

“It’s expensive and time-consuming,” Dan Holman, a spokesman for Monsanto, said Tuesday. He said he did not know how long the review would take.

Monsanto is not likely to devote great resources to its corn application in Maine because the state grows relatively little corn. According to Monsanto, about 30,000 acres of corn are grown here each year. By comparison, Iowa raises 12 million acres each year, and Illinois grows 11 million acres.

According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bt-altered corn was planted on 15 million to 18 million acres nationally in 1998, or about 20 percent of total acreage planted.

Eric Sideman, director of technical services for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, said on Wednesday that Maine farmers don’t currently use pesticides for corn borers on field corn, which is used to feed livestock, as opposed to sweet corn, which is directly consumed by people. Monsanto’s application had been only for field corn.

“It would be hard to justify the need for the seed when farmers aren’t even spraying in the first place,” Sideman said.

Lauchlin Titus, who works as a crop adviser for Agway Agricultural Products, a farmers cooperative in the eastern United States, said that had the seed been available for this growing season, about 40-50 acres would likely have been planted in Maine. This state requires a corn hybrid that has a short growing season, and only a limited amount of Bt-altered seed with a short growing season is available, he said.

Titus said some growers have told him that they simply want the seed available so they can remain competitive with farmers in other states.

Robert Batteese Jr., director of the pesticides board, said Tuesday that the application request will not be on the board’s agenda for its next meeting on Jan. 22. “I don’t see the board changing its request for further information,” Batteese said.

Holman said boards in other states that reviewed Monsanto’s request based their approval on information compiled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But Batteese said that it is Monsanto’s responsibility to answer questions specifically about the need for the corn in Maine. “It’s their request, their product,” he said.

The board had asked Monsanto for more information about three test plots that had been planted in Waldo and Penobscot counties by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service last summer at the behest of the Maine Department of Agriculture. The plots were examined for corn borer damage, but data were not compiled about silage yield, Batteese said, which was information the board needs.

However, the study was done using seed from Novartis — a Monsanto competitor.

“We’d have to do our own studies to answer the board’s questions,” Holman said. The company will review whether it is feasible to conduct such a study, he said.