GE Crop History Revisited

Researchers Talk About Food Safety, Regulations, Markets and Growing Weed Resistance

Chris Clayton
By  Chris Clayton , DTN Ag Policy Editor
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Several speakers at a National Research Council hearing on crop biotechnology Monday pointed to problems with weed resistance, particularly the expansion of Palmer amaranth in Southern states as the weed also advances farther northward every year as well. (DTN file photo by Pam Smith)

WASHINGTON (DTN) -- John Linder, a grain farmer from Edison, Ohio, offered the closing public comments Monday in the opening discussion by scientists and laypeople on the past experience and potential future of agricultural biotechnology in the U.S.

"As farmers, we are looking for the new innovation if we are really going to have the population growth going forward that has been spoken about so many times," Linder said. "We need the next products to get us there and actually achieve what needs to be done for the world. I think biotech is going to be key to that."

The National Research Council has put together an ad-hoc committee to study the food safety, environmental, social, economic and regulatory aspects of genetically-engineered crops over the past 20 years and offer recommendations on how policymakers should handle biotech crops moving into the future.

The committee will hold a series of meetings through next spring before coming out with a report sometime in 2016. The initial forum continues Tuesday as representatives from non-governmental entities get a chance to speak. Tuesday's talks will include more presentations from groups that are outright opponents of biotechnology as well.

It's clear from Monday's half-day discussion that the National Research Council committee is going to have no shortage of scientific and policy issues to consider.

Major Goodman, a professor of crop science, statistics, genetics and botany at North Carolina State University, started the forum off by defending the health track record of foods derived from biotech crops. Goodman said studies and Americans' history of eating foods from biotech crops prove the track record of the technology.

"Essentially, we have had 18 years of a clinical experiment with GMOs," Goodman said. Noting there are no known medical problems, Goodman added the use of biotech crops has been "a pretty definitive and successful experiment."

Yet Goodman, a plant breeder, also said he believes biotech advocates have oversold the production increase that comes from biotechnology. He said biotechnology has added about 5% to crop yields in 18 years while plant breeding has steadily added 1% in yield every year, or about 18% over the same period.

"So basically, standard breeding has had three times as much success as GMOs from a plant breeding point of view," Goodman said.

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Goodman also expressed concern about one or a small number of crop varieties dominating crop production in a state or region. Goodman said that could lead to major disease pressures.

Goodman was one of several speakers who pointed to the problems with weed resistance, particularly the expansion of Palmer amaranth in Southern states as the weed also advances farther northward every year as well. Goodman said farmers struggle to get rid of Palmer amaranth, which can grow eight-feet tall, has roughly one million seeds and the base of the stalk can have the diameter of a baseball. Palmer amaranth has to be removed from the field to be destroyed, a task that can be laborious in infested fields.

"I see no reason why it won't reach the Corn Belt," Goodman said. "It has destroyed the use of Roundup and Roundup-like materials in the Southeast."

James Cook, a professor emeritus of plant pathology at Washington State University, complained about the expensive regulatory regime at USDA and EPA that have made it so only a few major companies can afford to get biotech trait approved for commercial use. Cook said the regulatory challenges lead businesses to put technology on the shelf. Then there are the market challenges as technology is shelved because companies do not want to risk market disruption. He cited the commercial approval of BT potatoes that was stopped after one large fast-food company resisted buying such potatoes.

"That ended it," Cook said. "All of those potatoes had to be destroyed."

A biotech raspberry also was stopped because growers were concerned about losing markets in Asia if Japan and South Korea became concerned about possible biotech raspberries. Then there are the wheat and barley research programs that were stopped for similar reasons.

"So there is a huge impact right there and it just complicates the whole thing," Cook said.

Chuck Benbrook, who worked on similar National Academies of Science committees in the 1980s and '90s, now is a research professor at the Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University. Benbrook is considered one of the foremost experts on pesticide policies and pest management. He said most scientists working on academic committees largely only saw the upsides of biotechnology early on, though some warned about the risks of relying heavily on a single chemical. Benbrook noted how well Roundup worked for producers controlling weeds early on.

"It was just really hard to screw up weed management planting Roundup Ready crops in the first years," Benbrook said. "It's totally obvious why these technologies were adopted." He added shortly later, "Those days are a distant memory. All of that progress has been lost in the wake of universal adoption of that technology."

In hindsight, Benbrook said it would have been more reasonable early on to demand that farmers could only use Roundup Ready technology on a field as part of a three-year rotation. That would have reduced some of the weed resistance farmers are facing in some areas of the country now. "They (farmers) are going to look back on what they lose with great yearning," Benbrook said.

Earlier, Goodman noted the approval of 2,4-D-resistant soybeans coming on the market. Goodman added, "I guess we're soon going to have resistance to 2,4-D, a 70-year-old herbicide," Goodman said. "Somehow I can't get excited about that."

Benbrook sees lower crop prices leading to more producers questioning the value they get from multi-trait biotech varieties. "There are a lot of farmers who do not want all six BT genes in smart-stack," Benbrook said.

While Cook questioned the redundant regulatory schemes at USDA and EPA, Benbrook said the Food and Drug Administration has been lax in looking at biotech foods and largely accepts the reports produced by companies. Cook said FDA needs to take a more active role looking at BT and glyphosate intake by people. He said the National Institutes of Health should be looking at toxicology issues.

"In other areas where this has come up, we have poured tons of research into it," Benbrook said.

If some of the problems and gaps in past regulation and research on biotech crops are not "aggressively addressed" in the current study, then the problems are going to worsen. Benbrook also noted that scientists did not realize the depth of emotion that has been sparked in the general public about biotech crops and foods. Benbrook also encouraged the committee to keep its report focusing on a small number of key points if the committee wants policymakers to take note. "You can't solve all of the problems with agricultural biotechnology with one report," Benbrook said.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN

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Chris Clayton