Seeds of Destruction

Last fall, a University of California, Berkeley researcher announced the discovery of genetically engineered corn in the remote highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. The corn was popping up along roadsides, out of cracks in the sidewalks and seemingly anywhere else it could find soil, in scores of mountain settlements.

The discovery sent alarms through the scientific community: Mexico banned the use of such corn in 1998. Scientists say it provides yet more evidence that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) cannot be controlled once they are released into the environment.

The discovery is especially significant because the contamination occurred in the ancestral homeland of corn. Crop homelands must be preserved because they contain important genetic information scientists return to for developing blight-resistant crop strains when catastrophic pests or diseases strike. Oaxacans speculate the transgenic varieties sprouted after falling off government trucks that brought subsidized bioengineered corn as food aid to local communities. "Genes flowing from genetically modified crops can threaten the diversity of natural crops by crowding out native plants," Ignacio Chapela, the Berkeley scientist who discovered the contamination (published in Nature in September), said in a statement.

GM contamination like that in Mexico is one reason many countries have strongly resisted the introduction of GMOs, especially in the genetically diverse developing world. In January 2000, more than 130 developing nations led the fight for an international treaty, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, that would permit a country to refuse transgenic imports if it believes the shipment would endanger its population.

The United States has long argued there is no reason for such a protocol at all, and successfully weakened the accord, which is currently being ratified by signatories, with help from a handful of other grain-trading nations. According to Ben Lilliston of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the United States has not yet ratified the protocol, nor is it expected to do so anytime soon.

Last year, an estimated 130 million acres of biotech crops were grown by 5.5 million farmers in 13 countries. In the United States, which planted 88.2 million acres of bioengineered crops last year-68 percent of the global total-genetic pollution is already rampant. Virtually all Midwestern organic corn samples tested in 2000 showed some degree of transgenic contamination, says Fred Kirschenmann, executive director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. "It's becoming clear that transgenic contamination can only escalate."

Conventional corn farmers who grow non-GM varieties are suffering as a result of the introduction of GM crops. International markets for U.S. corn have shriveled, if not evaporated, since a global consumer revolt against bioengineered foods began in Europe in 1998. Bill Cristison, president of the National Family Farm Coalition, says the market disruption due to biotech corn has slashed nonorganic corn prices about 30 cents a bushel, or roughly 15 percent. It is a drop growers can ill afford, since it costs them more to produce their crop than the market returns.

Aside from market trouble, farmers are being targeted by biotech companies-especially Monsanto-when bioengineered seeds show up on their land (see "Bad Seeds," June 25, 2001). Biotechnology companies hold patents on their seeds, and Monsanto is currently suing more than a dozen farmers across Canada and the Midwest for "patent infringement." Many more farmers are reported to be under active investigation. Considering that transgenic contamination is proving impossible to prevent, such legal action may eventually force farmers to buy bioengineered seed whether they-or their customers-want it or not.