"Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions." -- From This Compost by Walt Whitman
Summer has come to Ridgeview Farm. Birds take eagerly to the air as Matt Madison tends to well-ordered ranks of vegetables. It's a busy time.
Everything here is grown organically.
"This is our business, and this is what we want to do," Madison says, from the 65-acre family-owned farm near West Union in Adams County. "When we started, we had no tractor. We started with a clean slate."
But there's a new business -- genetically engineering food -- that poses a very real threat to places like Ridgeview Farm.
Many Americans might be surprised to learn that much of what they eat contains genetically engineered ingredients. Few are aware of the risks they present.
Certainly, no one will die eight hours after eating a genetically engineered tomato. But critics believe there are risks.
"There's going to be a price to pay," says David Fankhauser, professor of biology and chemistry at the University of Cincinnati's Clermont College. "What's more important to protect than our food supply?"
Six years since the introduction of genetically engineered foods, they're now probably impossible to avoid, says Gary Rhodes, a spokesman for the Kroger Co.
"I'm not aware of any manufacturers who currently label their products as containing or not containing modified foods," he says. "There is no evidence that genetically modified foods that are now available on the market are unsafe to eat."
An increasing number of opponents, though, believe there's plenty of evidence to support their safety concerns -- evidence the government is ignoring, and biotechnology companies are actively hiding. New findings, including a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that genetically engineered foods are potentially damaging to the environment.
With the clamor of opposition steadily on the rise, recent months have seen significant changes in both the regulation of these foods and the policies of high profile companies such as McDonald's Corp. that now have chosen to avoid them.
Regardless, many critics wonder whether these changes are a case of too little too late.
Lock, Stock and Barrel
Based in St. Louis and established in 1901, Monsanto Co. is one of the largest producers of genetically engineered crop varieties. In addition to modified potatoes, corn, soybeans, tomatoes and cotton, it also holds the patent for Posilac -- or recombinant bovine growth hormone -- controversially injected into cows daily to increase milk production.
Bryan Hurley, a spokesman for Monsanto, says the proliferation of such genetically engineered foods is fairly widespread -- and perfectly safe.
"These products are absolutely safe," he says. "For the most part, you wouldn't know (if you were eating genetically engineered foods), but the point being that you wouldn't need to know."
Opponents of genetically engineered foods think otherwise, claiming that altering our food supply could have extreme long-term physiological and ecological effects.
For instance, evidence recently found buried within 40,000 pages of federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) documents from 1993 indicates that 20 percent of rats suffered gross stomach lesions when fed Flavr Savr tomatoes. The product's manufacturer, Calgene Inc., now a wholly owned subsidiary of Monsanto, judged the lesions to be incidental because they were also present in rats not fed the tomatoes.
Another study, from 1998, polarized the scientific community when a researcher in England found that genetically modifying potatoes altered their basic biochemistry.
Fankhauser is not at all surprised. Last year, the UC professor testified at a symposium opposing genetically engineered foods. He's concerned by Monsanto's claims that genetically engineered foods are safe.
"There's no way that they can make that claim with a straight face, because they haven't been testing them for more than a couple of years," he says.
Tests have already shown that rats fed genetically engineered potatoes gain weight slowly and have altered digestive tracts, Fankhauser says. He believes that future complications will be compounded by the fact that labeling laws prevent the public from knowing whether or not they've ingested genetically engineered products.
"It's frightening," he says, "because it's so unavoidable and we have just lock, stock and barrel committed ourselves to this."
Genetically engineered foods are produced when DNA from one species is inserted into the DNA of another, unrelated species. The process usually passes advantageous features from one species to another that lacks them.
For instance, some species of Arctic fish produce a protein that acts as a biological antifreeze, protecting the fish from injury in sub-zero temperatures. The gene for this protein has been inserted into the DNA of strawberries. The resulting "transgenic" strawberries are tricked into producing the same protein as the fish, allowing for storage at lower temperatures and for longer periods without damaging the fruit.
Many of the genetically engineered foods already commercially available from companies such as Monsanto, Dekalb Genetics Corp. and DuPont are transgenic versions of staple crops such as corn, potatoes, soybean and cotton. A common process inserts a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a commonly occurring bacterium, into the crop's DNA. Present in soils throughout the world, Bt produces insecticidal proteins that are lethal to insects.
Different subspecies of the bacterium are lethal to different species of insects. By inserting a Bt gene into the crop's DNA, vegetables such as Monsanto's NewLeaf potatoes and YieldGard insect-protected corn are tricked into producing their own insecticide.
As a result, farmers no longer need to spray crops twice a year as part of a strict regimen. But, because Bt-protected crops produce insecticide in every cell, discerning shoppers can no longer simply wash them from the surfaces of vegetables.
Other crops, such as glufosinate-tolerant corn produced by Dekalb, are made genetically resistant to otherwise lethal herbicides. Farmers can now eradicate competing plant species by spraying an entire crop with previously lethal chemicals, leaving only the genetically engineered crop to survive.
Frankenfoods
Back on the farm, Madison's crops are doing just fine. There are lettuces, greens, French melons and Shiitake mushrooms. He and his brothers supply vegetables for many of Cincinnati's restaurants and sell their produce at Findlay Market every Saturday.
Madison says he's seen his business grow quickly in the two years since the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association certified his farm "organic." But he doesn't frown on the practices of farmers who use genetically engineered crops.
"There's a lot of cooperation and eagerness to learn between the two methods," he says. "I wouldn't condemn or point fingers at anybody if they're making a farm decision. Some of these guys don't have a choice."
Madison also is quick to stress that his profit margins are as important as his beliefs.
"We are for profit," he says. "There was a business direction and drive there. The customers are the people, I think, who spoke up and said, 'We want it organic.' "
At this time, there are no laws requiring the labeling of genetically engineered crops or the processed foods that contain them. Roughly 60 percent of cotton and soybeans and 30 percent of corn planted every year in the United States are genetically engineered varieties. The percentages for genetically engineered potatoes are lower but continue to rise every year.
There also exist genetically engineered varieties of papaya, flax, chicory, squash, rapeseed, rice and canola. Experts estimate that 70 percent of processed food produced in the United States contains genetically engineered crops -- including potato chips, french fries, popcorn, breakfast cereals, brands of soft drinks that contain corn syrup and many of the vegetarian products that use soybeans as a meat substitute.
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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Carolyn and Matt Madison of Madison Ridgeview
Farms at their Findlay Market store
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According to critics, unless a food label states otherwise, it's safe to assume a product contains genetically engineered ingredients.
A growing number of critics feel that the safety of genetically engineered foods hasn't been adequately tested. Whether or not this is true, Americans have been eating them since 1994, when Calgene first introduced the Flavr Savr tomato, a variety that stays on the vine longer to improve flavor. Monsanto's Bt-protected NewLeaf potatoes followed later that same year, as did a number of other genetically engineered varieties.
In Europe, where they're called "Frankenfoods," genetically engineered foods have been the cause of widespread opposition. The demonstrations of environmental activist groups have resulted in a governmental moratorium on the marketing of any modified foods.
In recent months, similar demonstrations have taken place across the United States. On March 26, Boston saw more than 3,000 demonstrators gather at Bio2000, a Biotechnology Industry Organization conference, to protest the lack of stringent testing and clear labeling of genetically engineered foods.
The United States National Research Council released a 261-page study on April 6 calling for tighter monitoring of genetically engineered crops. According to the report, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, modified crops are safe for human consumption but more research is needed to ensure they won't harm the environment.
Critics accused the panel of overlooking possible health risks because of panelists' strong ties to the biotechnology industry. A letter to the NAS signed by 26 organizations, including Greenpeace and the Campaign for Food Safety, was among more than 200 letters of complaint received in the 10 days immediately following the report's release.
The panel's chairman, Dr. Perry Adkisson of Texas A&M University, is an avid supporter of genetically engineered crops and has written extensively on the importance of biotechnology. "The impact of biotechnology on agriculture is no longer a promise," he wrote in a 1997 Council for Agricultural Science and Technology report. "The most direct way to use biotechnology to improve crop productivity is to genetically engineer plants so they have new characteristics to improve the efficiency of production."
According to the Council for Responsible Genetics, three of the four regulatory experts on the NAS panel Stanley Abramson, Fred Betz and Morris Levin -- are former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff who now work for institutions or companies that will benefit greatly from an unimpeded biotechnology industry. Critics claim other panel members hold positions at institutions that have significant financial connections to biotechnology companies with numerous private sector interests.
In response to complaints, the NAS appointed as an additional committee member Dr. Rebecca Goldberg of the Environmental Defense Fund in New York and stated that other members were chosen for expertise in their respective fields. But many environmental and consumer watchdog groups remain unconvinced.
Regulations and Regulators
The safety of genetically engineered food is regulated by the FDA, the EPA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Each has a specific responsibility: The FDA is charged with determining genetically engineered foods safe for human consumption; the USDA regulates the movement, importation and field-testing of genetically engineered crops via the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; and the EPA is responsible for addressing the safety of their pesticide levels. (See sidebar, "Taking a Trip with the Three Stooges.")
The FDA set up laws as early as 1992 to address the issues presented by genetically engineered foods.
"We made a determination that they were safe for human consumption ... by looking at the data," says Brad Stone, the FDA's public affairs director. But the agency doesn't test the safety of genetically engineered crops.
"We're a relatively small agency, and it would cause a lot of problems," he says. "Instead, what we do is put the burden on the sponsors."
In other words, it's the responsibility of the company marketing the modified crop to prove the safety of its products.
Last month, the Clinton administration released a plan requiring biotechnology companies to give the FDA four months advance notice before marketing new products that contain genetically modified crops. Under the plan, the agriculture department also will become directly involved in validating new methods to detect foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients.
Labeling of modified foods still isn't required, but the FDA hopes to introduce a system by which foods not containing genetically modified ingredients can be labeled as such for the first time. Also, biotechnology companies must provide both the FDA and the public with research results proving the safety of engineered foods.
Some critics believe this method of biotechnology companies regulating themselves makes little sense.
"I agree," says Dr. Eric Flamm, policy analyst for the FDA. "The question is, how do we address that issue? It's pretty rare that we find the company has lied."
But Flamm says companies sometimes resort to hiding results or placing information in the middle of a report instead of at the top, where the FDA would prefer it to be. He believes the biotech companies should be responsible for proving safety because it's the companies that receive all the profits, not the government.
According to FDA regulations, genetically engineered crops don't require labeling because they're identical to unmodified crops. The same is true for the processed foods that contain them, since the FDA found no differences in their biochemistry, toxicity and allergenicity compared to unmodified crops.
But some critics expect genes to mutate more quickly when inserted into unrelated species.
"For one thing, you don't know the stability of the inserted genes in the species," Fankhauser says.
More importantly, Monsanto's claims that genetically engineered varieties are identical to unmodified crops are misleading. Differences undoubtedly do exist. Biotech companies wouldn't have invested millions of dollars developing and marketing modified varieties if they were no different from naturally occurring crops.
"It's a concept of substantial equivalence," says Hurley from Monsanto's St. Louis headquarters.
Whether substantially equivalent or not -- whatever that actually means -- the chorus of public disapproval grows louder. In response to pressure from many quarters, the FDA addressed label laws at three public meetings in Chicago, Washington and Oakland, Calif., last November and December. The meetings were well attended, comments were reviewed and the FDA helped formulate new guidelines included in the plan released on May 3.
The EPA also quickly accepted genetically engineered foods as safe. Farmers have used the bacterially derived Bt as a pesticide since the 1940s, and the EPA didn't consider genetically engineered crops any different from those sprayed with the chemical.
"We only look at the pesticide," says Phil Hutton, chief of the EPA's Microbial Pesticide Branch. "The food issues are addressed by the FDA."
Hutton said Bt insecticide, along with other chemical substances, would also be present if the crop had been sprayed -- but the public wouldn't be informed of that either.
"There are a number of things in the potato that aren't declared," he says.
On an individual's right to know what he or she is eating, Hutton says, "I think they lost that right a long time ago."
Superbugs and Superweed s
Critics believe the most damaging effects of genetically engineered foods will be ecological. Insecticides in genetically engineered crops are present year-round and expressed in every cell of the plant -- and that poses a problem.
Many ecologists expect insects eventually to develop resistance to the Bt-protected varieties that have the inserted bacterial gene.
"The chance of resistance is far greater than if you were just spraying Bt derived insecticide over the top," Hutton says.
Resistance would give rise to insects unaffected by insecticide either produced in genetically engineered crops or applied by old-fashioned spraying techniques.
And this might even affect the vegetables thriving organically at Madison's Ridgeview Farm, whose crops are neither trademarked nor registered products. Farmers such as Madison will be left with no defenses against insects that have developed an unforeseen resistance to organic approaches.
According to Monsanto, insect resistance will never be a problem.
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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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David Fankhauser, professor of biology and chemistry
at the University of Cincinnati's Clermont College
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"For more than 15 years, Monsanto has been working toward insect resistance programs," Hurley says.
Insects won't be provided with an opportunity to develop resistance, he says. Monsanto hopes to accomplish this by adding to its genetically engineered varieties genes from some of the other 20,000 known Bt sub-species.
"Certainly, insects are going to develop resistance eventually," Fankhauser says. "I'm sorry, but that's the way evolution works."
Studies also indicate insecticide produced by genetically engineered crops might affect beneficial insects and species threatened with extinction, such as the Monarch butterfly.
In an effort to prevent insect resistance, the EPA has required farmers to surround their genetically engineered crop with areas of non Bt-protected crop called "refuge areas." The hope is that, by providing insects with normal plant varieties, any evolved resistance will be diluted out.
To develop resistance, two resistant insects would have to mate and their multitudinous offspring also would have to mate with resistant insects, and so on. The EPA maintains that this is an unlikely prospect -- though critics argue it's still possible.
The EPA's refuge area requirement proved unpopular with biotechnology companies.
"Believe you me, they didn't want refuges," Hutton says from the EPA's Washington headquarters. "But they knew that, legally, there wasn't much they could do."
Even the size of mandated refuge areas has become a contentious issue, with critics claiming the requirements were chosen arbitrarily by experts with links to the affected companies. And the refuge areas might lead to yet another problem.
In most plant species, pollen is wind-borne or carried by insects and can pollinate plants many miles away. Some experts think the proximity of Bt-protected crop to non-protected crop might result in cross-pollination. If that's true, crops in the surrounding refuge areas will become genetically identical to the Bt-protected crop over time as genetic information is shared between the two strains. And if this occurs, any prevention of insect resistance will be thwarted.
Still, biotech companies maintain cross-pollination isn't possible.
"Pollen drift doesn't become an issue," Hurley says resolutely, adding that the 200-meter barrier separating Bt-protected crop from normal crop prevents it.
But Fankhauser, like many other geneticists, disagrees.
"I don't know what he's talking about," he said. "That's already been demonstrated in test fields."
Won't Know Until It's Too Late
On April 28, suppliers of fast-food chains, including McDonald's, asked farmers to stop growing the modified potatoes developed by Monsanto. Frito-Lay Co. has asked the same of its suppliers and also recently stopped using modified corn in its snack food products. Other food manufacturers might follow suit if public opposition grows.
But the debate rages on, mostly unheard by the American public. Every aspect of the debate is as hotly contested.
The sad truth, however, is that we won't know the harmful effects of genetically engineered foods until it's too late. None of the initial aims of agricultural biotechnology have been addressed, such as combating human disease and hunger.
Scientists have inserted into indigenous African crop species genes that code for vitamins that many Third World children lack. Flood- and drought-resistant African species have been developed. But none of these ideas have been made available to the poorest countries that need them.
The biotech industry is driven more by its need to increase profits than to reduce human suffering. Companies like Monsanto that have already successfully lobbied attempts at regulation will fight any opposition to genetically engineered foods, governmental or otherwise. Fankhauser claims Monsanto was even allowed to participate in the writing of laws that regulate genetically engineered crop production.
He expects to see detrimental effects within the next five years and maybe within a year. Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are probably hoping he doesn't. And so, too, should an American public that's been ingesting these products for several years already.
Meanwhile, autumn will come soon to Ridgeview Farm, bringing with it the reward of the harvest for those who worked its soil. Insects drift lazily over the crops, finding respite from the heat of the day in the cool of the shadows. Clouds lumber overhead.
This year, Matt Madison is attempting to grow Heirloom tomatoes, varieties with a genetic heritage that can be traced back for centuries. He's optimistic.
For Madison, success will be its own reward. ©
