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  • From: STEVE GILMAN <stevegilman AT verizon.net>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Bt Corn
  • Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:21:27 -0500

Hi Kristen,
I don't think the Cornell presentation exonerates transgenic Bt at all, although it certainly attempts to. It's a bit dated for one thing -- recent studies are showing bollworm resistance on Bt cotton, for example. And while damage to Monarchs as well as other beneficial pest-controlling and pollinating insects DOES indeed occur on a regular basis, this has become somewhat of a PR red herring -- it is this resistance potential that is most worrisome. Organic farmers have successfully used the non-transgenic, short-duration-in-the- field spray varieties for 40 years, but with the Bt genetics fully expressed in every part of the plants -- stalks, leaves, roots as well as the corn or cotton, there's a very real danger of intractable insect resistance, ultimately rendering it useless. And now that the corn growers are planting fence post to fence post for the highly subsidized ethanol market, the requisite "refugia" -- the adjacent fields that are supposed to be planted to non-biotech varieties to thwart insect resistance -- are falling by the wayside in the scramble to increase production.

Finally, totally under-investigated is what the transgenic Bt is doing to the soil ecosystem. Bt is derived from a natural soil organism and the Bt transgenes -- expressed through the crop's root exudates -- are extremely persistent and very much at home there. Just as "superweeds" are a very real concern with the transgenic Round Up Ready plant varieties, they pale with the potential down sides to possible "super-microbes." Add in the toxic effects when fed to rats and further recent accidental releases of uncertified-for- human-consumption varieties (a la Starlink) we find ourselves starring as Guinea pigs in one of the largest uncontrolled proprietary experiments ever foisted on the environment and on human eaters -- all because the Biotech Big Boys got a green light from the start under the Quayle/Reagan Council of Competiveness -- the jury's not out ... it's non-existent.

Steve
Ruckytucks Farm
On Feb 26, 2008, at 9:58 PM, market-farming-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:38:08 -0500
From: "Wilmer, Kristen" <kristen.wilmer AT uconn.edu>
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Bt Corn
To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID:
<40AC6D73C2B95C4CA21B26B7BF380C4001C68C6F AT EXCHANGED.mgmt.ad.uconn.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi folks,

For anyone who is interested, there is a good, brief summary of the
studies that have been conducted on Bt corn and monarch butterflies at
the following website:

http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/issues/monarchs.html

This website is in my opinion a pretty objective source of information
about the topic (it doesn't present any analysis, just information from
the studies). It's hosted by Cornell, the institution where the
research team was based that originally published the Nature article
suggesting that Bt corn harmed monarchs, and goes into some detail about
the research findings and how the later studies were organized and
funded (there was some industry funding as well as public funding). I
agree that it's important to be skeptical of any studies that are funded
by people with interests in particular research results, but I think
it's also important to take this on a case by case basis and judge
studies on the full mix of funds that contribute to them, the mix of
scientists involved, and the quality of methods and peer review. The
USDA is a very diverse organization with many different programs and
scientists (as is Cornell, to a somewhat lesser extent) so I have
trouble thinking of it as a single entity with clear motives in any one
direction. The motives of industry are certainly clearer, and any study
with industry funding introduces some doubt, but at the same time public
funding is limited and industry is under pressure to take responsibility
for funding studies to assess the risk of GM products.

For what it's worth, my own subjective judgment from reading these
studies is that it looks like the varieties of Bt corn that are
currently grown are unlikely to have a negative impact on monarch
butterflies in the field, and there is evidence that the impact of Bt
corn on beneficials may be less than that of spraying Bt or other
insecticides. That still leaves uncertainty about these and other
impacts, and I'm not inclined to plant Bt corn myself for various
reasons, but in this case I don't think the evidence points to clear
environmental costs. I think the jury's still out on many of the
overall costs/benefits of Bt corn (as with many other farming
practices).

Kristen
Northeast CT






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