Biotech battle is costing Maine’s farmers

This fall, Rolande and Doug Poland will load 250 dairy cows on trucks and ship them to Indiana. They’re also shipping most of their farm equipment.

Then they will sell off what’s left of their 400 acre farm in Richmond and leave the state for good. Two sons, both farmers, are already gone. When the Polands leave they will take with them 30 years of knowledge and hard work and a profitable dairy farm.

“You have to go where you feel comfortable,” Rolande Poland said. “In the last five years it hasn’t been comfortable. There are too many opposition groups [in Maine].”

Welcome to the battle over agricultural biotechnology, a battle that pits activist groups like Greenpeace and Co-op Voices Unite against farmers like the Polands.

In Washington, D.C., activists trying to stop the use of modern biotechnology to improve agriculture have struck out. Congress has refused to buy the activists’ scare stories, listening instead to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, all of which find biotech crops and biotech treatments for animals to be safe for humans and for the environment. Shut out in Washington, the activists moved the battle to states like Maine.

The first shots were fired over bovine somatotropin, a hormone found in cows. Scientists developed a synthetic version that, when given to cows, increases milk production. Recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and dairy farmers, like the Polands, began using it. The activists didn’t like that and began a disinformation campaign that continues to this day.

Visit the Co-op Voices Unite Web site and you can read about the horrible things that supposedly happen to cows receiving rBST.

“We’re very cow-oriented people,” Rolande Poland counters. “I wouldn’t harm my cows.” Since the Polands started using rBST they haven’t seen any bad effects – no health problems and the cows don’t get as fat.

Milk production has increased.

Nevertheless, the state instituted a quality seal for milk that lets milk producers label their products as coming from cows that are not treated with artificial growth hormones. That program, coupled with the disinformation from groups like Co-op Voices Unite, has made it harder and harder for farmers like the Polands to sell their milk. So they are leaving.

“The use of biotechnology on this farm helped to put three kids through schools that were very expensive,” Rolande said. “As long as my milk meets quality standards I should be able to sell it.” She can do that in Indiana.

In 1997, the battle shifted from cows to corn. Under pressure from activists, the Maine Board of Pesticide Control refused to license insect-resistant biotech corn. Because the corn produces its own, naturally occurring insecticide, there is no need to spray it with chemical pesticides. The corn is popular with Midwestern corn growers who will plant biotech corn on one-third of their acres this year. Maine farmers don’t have that option.

An insect-resistant potato did make it past the Board of Pesticide Control and was being tried by Maine potato growers when it caught the attention of activists. Unable to block its approval they threatened to boycott fast food restaurants serving them. The restaurants caved in. Maine potato processors stopped buying biotech potatoes so Maine farmers stopped planting them. As a result, Maine potato farmers must continue spraying chemical insecticides on their potatoes.

Jim Crane, who grows 1,300 acres of potatoes in Exeter, was one who planted the biotech potatoes. “There were no yield differences, no quality differences,” Crane said, “and it eliminated insecticide sprays. If I’m playing by the rules, why shouldn’t I be able to plant them.”

Crane is worried that a biotech potato resistant to both insect damage and viruses, like late blight, might be available to farmers in other states but not in Maine. In the summer, Crane sprays weekly for late blight, as many as 10 to 12 sprays a season. “We would be at a disadvantage, no question about it,” Crane said.

Crane’s concern stems from this year’s biotech battle – a proposal to place a three-year moratorium on the planting of any biotech crops in Maine. Organic growers are touting the ban as a way to boost Maine agriculture by promoting Maine as “biotech free.”

But Maine farmers aren’t buying the idea. The moratorium is opposed by the Maine Farm Bureau and the Maine Potato Board. To them it comes down to choice. If a technology is approved by government regulators, why shouldn’t Maine farmers be able to use it if they want to, the farm groups argue.

A backup proposal to require farmers planting biotech crops to establish buffer zones around their fields is also meeting opposition. Organic growers say they are concerned that pollen from biotech crops will drift onto their fields and cause them to lose the ability to sell their crops as organic. Not so says the USDA.

When the organic standards were thrashed out in Washington, organic growers tried to get the USDA to establish a zero-tolerance standard for any biotech crop material in organic produce. The USDA wouldn’t go along, noting that traces other nonorganic crops are permitted in organic produce, so why should biotech crops be treated any differently.

Shut out in Washington, the activists have moved their anti-biotechnology crusade to the states. Bill after bill has been submitted that would hamstring Maine farmers and food producers and increase their costs. For some it has become too much. It’s one reason Rolande and Doug Poland are leaving. “I love Maine. I’ve lived here all my life,” Rolande said. “We decided not to stay and fight.”

Douglas R. Johnson, Ph.D. is executive director of the Maine Biotechnology Information Bureau in Stonington. His e-mail address is djohnson@mainebioinfo.org.