Biotech crops safe

I was disappointed to see that the Bangor Daily News printed the oped piece, “Biotech fears are growing” (Jan. 26), because it contained so many inaccuracies and incorrect information. The sheer number of fallacies in the oped is indicative of an author who has no agricultural background or knowledge of canola or biology.

Robert Fish [an organizer with GE Free Maine] writes that “foreign genes were never intended to be in a canola plant,” and that it is poses a danger to “traditional or organic harvests.” He is obviously not aware that canola is a “genetically modified” plant. Canola, by definition, is a man-made creation that was developed through the insertion of so-called “foreign genes.” It was developed by a team of Canadian scientists to reduce carcinogenic properties in rapeseed, a naturally occurring plant that is used for lubricants, in order to make it edible. If it were not for “genetic engineering,” canola as we know it today would not even exist.

Farmers have been conducting “genetic modification” for thousands of years – the development of hybrids is an example of breeding plants based on their superior genetic qualities in order to improve yields and qualities. Biotechnology is the latest and most precise tool in a long history of genetic modification. It allows plant breeders to select single genes that produce desired traits, and move them from one plant to another.

Fish is also mistaken when he says there are no economic benefits to farmers to grow biotech varieties of canola. In North Dakota, where 90 percent of America’s canola is produced, about 75 percent of the canola grown is biotech herbicide-resistant varieties. Why would farmers grow more than half a million acres of biotech canola if there were no economic advantages in growing biotech varieties?

In addition to economic benefits, biotech canola offers significant environmental benefits. Mainers who want to maintain the environment will be happy to learn that a study by the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) found that in 2004, biotech varieties of canola reduced herbicide use by 420,000 pounds per year, and save farmers nearly $8 million on weed management costs. Fish is clearly wrong if he doesn’t believe there are any economic or environmental benefits from biotech canola. What’s more, biotech varieties allow canola to be grown in weedy areas, or areas where farmers could not normally grow canola.

Studies have shown that biotech crops can be grown alongside organic and conventional crops, without causing any economic or marketing problems to conventional or organic growers. Mainers do not have to worry about Fish’s so-called “legal risks” posed by this “uncertain technology.” In the decade since biotech crops have been commercially grown, billions of people and animals have eaten biotech food and feed without a single recorded health incident.

Additionally, since organic and biotech crops have been grown alongside each other, not a single organic farmer has lost certification or suffered economically. Maine farmers should have the right to every approved tool available in making decisions about the products and practices that best fit their crop and pest control needs – including agricultural biotechnology.

Robert J. Tardy is a former House chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture (1986 to 1994), and currently is a lobbyist for the Biotechnology Information Organization (BIO).