Organic Farming Faces Biotech Corn Threat

“EPA Allows Planting Of Biotech Corn” [Oct. 17] fails to address the threat to the fastest-growing segment of agriculture in this country: organic farming.

It ignores the crisis that organic corn farmers face every summer as they wonder whether genetically engineered corn pollen will drift into their fields and contaminate their crops. It leaves out the fact that foreign markets are increasingly rejecting U.S. corn harvests due to the presence of biotech corn, and many countries are adopting stringent standards to detect contamination.

Furthermore, the article fails to note that farmers in the Midwest are actually spraying as much pesticide as they did before they began planting biotech corn. Scientists from Iowa and Cornell universities concluded in published studies this June that “the use of transgenic corn will not significantly reduce insecticide use in most of the corn growing areas of the Midwest.”

The only threat that has been diminished by the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to re-register biotech corn has been the threat to Monsanto’s corporate profits.

Kimberly Wilson

Genetic Engineering Specialist

Greenpeace San Francisco