Engineered crops need study
By Chris Petersen, President, Iowa Farmers Union

This was sent on to me by the IFU. It appeared as a Letter in Iowa Farmer Today.

To the editor:

Iowa agriculture secretary candidate Bill Northey this summer told an audience new farm technologies, such as the potential to produce industrial chemicals in corn, “are coming faster than most of us even realize.”

He offered this example to illustrate new opportunities for Iowa’s farmers, many of whom are desperate for new approaches to make a comfortable living in agriculture.

Northey is not the first Iowa leader to embrace crops that have been genetically engineered to produce industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Gov. Tom Vilsack once called this technology “the future of our state.”

But, the part of Northey’s message that should give us pause was contained in that throw-away line: “faster than most of us even realize.” Faster than we realize it, we are being asked to put great faith in this new agricultural biotechnology. Faster than we know it, new generations of biotech crops are already being tested in fields around the country, including Iowa, without a sober assessment by government leaders of their relative benefits and risks.

The biggest risk corn, soybeans and other crops genetically engineered to produce drugs or chemicals could contaminate our food or feed supply has not been adequately addressed by government regulations or voluntary industry practices. Consumers don’t want drugs accidentally winding up in their corn flakes. And, farmers, food processors, retailers, exporters and others in the food supply chain don’t want to face potentially enormous financial losses if such a contamination event is discovered. Pharmaceutical and industrial crops are indistinguishable to the naked eye from conventional crops. The very real potential for contamination of the food supply through cross-pollination of crops or seed mix-ups necessitates air-tight containment systems more rigorous than those already in place.
    
Analysis by an Iowa State University economist last year found the projected financial benefits of these crops to consumers and farmers remain “highly tentative” and should factor in the potentially large costs of adequate containment systems. This report also questioned the practice by many government leaders of luring pharmaceutical and industrial-crop companies to locate in their states by offering financial incentives. It notes the “intense competition” among states to attract these companies “has the potential to result in overlapping incentives and unnecessary duplication of investment.”

All of this comes along with recent evidence the government agency with oversight of pharmaceutical and industrial crops, the USDA, is not equipped to handle the job of keeping unwanted drugs and chemicals out of our food. Last year, the agency’s internal auditor publicly criticized the USDA’s oversight of these and other genetically engineered crops, finding the USDA “lacks basic information about the field test sites it approves and is responsible for monitoring, including where and how the crops are being grown, and what becomes of them at the end of the field test.”

Until and unless all risks to farmers, consumers, the food supply and the environment have been adequately studied and addressed, the Iowa Farmers Union is calling on Iowa to enact a moratorium on cultivation of pharmaceutical and industrial crops in the state. Such a move is necessary to counter the hype surrounding this technology, which seems to be coming at us faster than the ability of government leaders to weigh the facts and address the potential risks.

Chris Petersen

President
Iowa Farmers Union
Clear Lake, Iowa