Bugging Out

Max Woodfin / Sierra v.82, n.1 Jan/Feb97

How Monsanto's biotech miracle undermines organic farming.

Monsanto advertises its new genetically engineered cottonseed as the end of chemical pesticides. Imagine not having to spray for budworms and bollworms ever again, it boasts. But Monsanto's biotech experiment could have another terminal effect: it could ruin the best pest control method available to organic farmers.

In order to control insects, many organic farmers rely on Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring soil bacteria approved for use under every organic certification program in the United States and also widely applied by home gardeners. Now Monsanto has developed Bollgard, a cotton plant that produces the toxin in Bt, theoretically making the plant toxic to the bollworm, a major cotton pest. Responding to Monsanto's pitch, farmers across the South planted 2 million acres with Bollgard last season.

Bollworms continued to ravage that acreage, however. At best, this means that farmers will have to continue using insecticide. At worst, it could lead to super-resistant strains of bollworms and other pests. The tobacco budworm, for example, another cotton scourge, has been shown to become 10,000 times more resistant to Bt after three years of exposure to Bollgard.

Gary Barton, Monsanto's biotechnology spokesman, acknowledges that half the acres planted in Bollgard had to be sprayed with chemicals. Still, he denies there is a problem. Growers were forced to spray, he says, only in areas with unusually high bollworm infestations.

If you accept their claim about why this damage occurred--high infestations--there is no way in hell they can stop resistance, says Margaret Mellon, director of the Agriculture and Biotechnology Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. According to Michael Sligh of the Rural Advancement Fund International, They've just described the perfect scenario for resistance development.

The organic industry has long feared this moment. Organic farmers use Bt in a spray form, which decomposes after a few days, greatly reducing the danger of resistance. In addition, they farm a relatively small number of acres, and use many other natural pest management techniques. Intensive use of Bt on 14 percent of the national cotton crop, however, has radically changed the circumstances--as will the imminent commercial release of a new bioengineered, Bt-enhanced corn seed.

The Union of Concerned Scientists and others are now asking the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend Bollgard sales. Jim Aidala, an EPA pesticide official, says the agency is conducting an inquiry, and that while the potential for resistance is its top concern, nothing found to date would lead to a suspension.

Keith Jones of the Texas-based Sustainable Food Center wants to know who is going to take responsibility should the worst happen. Those who make the mistakes seem never to pay the price, he says. In this case, farmers will have to spray more, we may have stronger pests that require stronger pesticides, and Bt could be rendered useless on a wide range of crops. Organic farming could be crippled, but Monsanto will just move on to a new poison.