Agriculture Sows Seeds of Discontent

Missouri farmer Bill Christison cuts $20,000 off the annual cost of growing soybeans by saving seed from one year’s crop so he can plant it the following spring.

So he does not like the idea that seed companies could stop him from doing that by genetically engineering seeds so they cannot reproduce. Worse, to Christison, the federal government invented a “terminator” process for rendering seeds sterile and now is trying to get it to market.

“Our hope is that the U.S. government will wake up and look at what they are facilitating here,” Christison said.

Agriculture Department researchers say the terminator process is misunderstood and has applications that could benefit farmers all over the world. The same technique that renders seeds sterile--by turning certain genetic traits on and off--also could be used to make plants resistant to drought or pests, for example.

But opponents of genetic engineering in the United States and especially in Europe have made the terminator issue into a symbol of what they see as the evils of biotechnology. To them it is immoral for the U.S. government to promote and profit from such an invention, even if private companies are developing terminator processes of their own.

The department developed the terminator technology at a laboratory in Texas and secured a joint patent in 1998 with research co-sponsor Delta & Pine Land Co., the world’s largest cottonseed company.

The process is officially known as the “technology protection system.” “Terminator” is a reference to the on-screen robotic killer played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Monsanto Co., which is seeking Justice Department approval to acquire Delta & Pine Land, recently announced it would not use terminator technology.

But the government is continuing research and is close to finishing negotiations with Delta & Pine Land for commercializing the technology, Agriculture Department officials say.

If Monsanto refuses to use the technology, the department would have the right to find another company that would. Officials will not say what they will do.

One critic of genetic engineering, Hope Shand of Rural Advancement Foundation International, said: “The specter of genetic seed sterilization is particularly alarming given the rapid rate of consolidation of the global seed industry. Seed is the first link in the food chain. Whoever controls the seed has a stranglehold on the food supply.”

In this country, an estimated 57% of the soybeans, 38% of the cotton and 30% of the corn planted last year was genetically engineered to resist pests or herbicides.

The department believes companies must be allowed to protect their investment in new varieties of seed if they are to continue developing crops that are hardier, more nutritious and require less pesticide.

Moreover, the terminator process is still several years away from being commercially available, said Sandy Miller Hayes, a spokeswoman for the department’s Agricultural Research Service.

To date, it has been shown to work only in tobacco and cotton.

It only would be used in crops that do not cross-pollinate, such as cotton, soybeans and wheat, she said. In cross-pollinating plants like corn, fields of non-terminator varieties could be made sterile.