News
A commission backs Ventria's
proposal to plant the genetically altered
grain to make medicinal proteins
March 30
Los Angeles Times
The state's rice industry on Monday
narrowly backed a Sacramento company's
plan to launch the first large-scale
planting in California of a genetically
engineered crop for use in medicines.
Ventria Bioscience needs approval from
the state Department of Food and Agriculture
before it can begin growing so-called
pharmaceutical rice, which has been
modified to produce two types of human
proteins. The endorsement by the California
Rice Commission was forwarded to the
agency with the request that it quickly
review the plan so Ventria could begin
planting in mid-April, the start of
the rice season.
Ventria's rice plants act as mini-biological
factories to produce two proteins, lactoferrin
and lysozyme. The proteins, which inhibit
the growth of bacteria and viruses,
would be extracted from the rice after
harvest. . The rice isn't intended for
human consumption.
Privately held Ventria sees a market
potential of as much as $500 million
for the compounds, which could be administered
as pills or in oral-rehydration solutions,
such as electrolyte drinks, said Chief
Executive Scott Deeter.
Such products would require U.S. Food
and Drug Administration approval.
California farmers already grow genetically
engineered cotton for commercial use,
and there are other modified crops grown
elsewhere around the country.
But the rice commission's 6-5 vote,
which came after three hours of debate,
underscored the larger controversy surrounding
the use of genetically modified organisms.
In particular, the planting of genetically
altered crops intended for use in pharmaceuticals
became a hot-button issuetwo years ago
when corn modified to make a pig vaccine
tainted soybeans in Nebraska.
The incident forced ProdiGene Inc.,
the College Station, Texas, company
that produced the engineered corn, to
destroy half a million bushels and compensate
farmers $3 million.
Just last week, the North American
Millers Assn. sent a letter to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture urging more
stringent regulatory oversight of such
crops.
The letter warned that "the risk
of adulteration from genetic material"
modified for pharmaceutical or industrial
uses entering the food chain was, in
its view, "unacceptable."
On Monday, environmentalists and a
number of rice farmers objected to Ventria's
plan for fear the genetically engineered
grain could contaminate California's
existing rice crop and hurt exports.
Greg Massa, who farms 700 acres of
rice in Colusa and Glenn counties, said
that growing such a crop in California
would be "bad news" for the
state's rice industry. The decision,
he said, endangers sales to Japan, the
industry's biggest rice buyer, and other
countries.
"We need to be able to say for
marketing purposes that there is no
genetically modified rice grown commercially
in California," Massa said.
About 43% of California's $372-million
rice crop was exported last year. All
told, farmers produce 2 million tons
of rice grown on more than 500,000 acres,
mostly in Northern California.
The rice commission approved Ventria's
plan after agreeing the company had
adequate safeguards for keeping the
grain out of the food supply.
Most significantly, the rice would
be planted in Southern California, hundreds
of miles from the counties — Colusa,
Sutter, Butte, Glenn and Yuba —
where nearly 90% of the state's rice
is grown.
The firm also has stringent rules on
how the pharmaceutical rice will be
processed and on how equipment to farm
and transport it can be used, said Tim
Johnson, chief executive of the rice
commission.
"We feel very confident that we
will be able to keep this completely
separate," Johnson said.
Rice typically is a self-pollinating
plant — it doesn't use pollen
from other rice plants to reproduce.
When it does cross-germinate, the pollen
lasts for just a few hours, only long
enough to reach plants that are within
10 to 20 feet, according to biologists.
Although "you can never be 100%
certain," said Peggy Lemaux, a
plant biologist at UC Berkeley, Ventria
appears to have developed a prudent
plan for containing the genetically
engineered rice.
Small plots of Ventria's modified rice
are being grown at undisclosed sites
in the state under an experimental exemption.
March 30
Wired News
The California Rice Commission on Monday
approved a biotech company's request
to grow the state's first crop genetically
modified to contain a drug.
The rice commission narrowly passed
the proposal by a 6-5 vote. The commission
advises the California Department of
Food and Agriculture, which has the
final decision on whether Ventria Bioscience
of Sacramento can plant its pharmaceutical
crop. If the agency approves, the company
could be the first to commercialize
such a product.
The rice is genetically modified to
produce two human proteins that fight
infection: lactoferrin and lysozyme.
Some rice growers and environmental
groups oppose the project, saying the
rice could contaminate regular crops
and damage the export market.
"Consumers in Japan will not accept
(genetically engineered) contamination
of any crop," said rice farmer
Greg Massa in a statement. "The
decision to approve Ventria's guidelines
is bad news for farmers and California's
rice industry."
But Ventria's proteins could be a big
step forward in preventing infections
in infants. Lactoferrin and lysozyme
are present in breast milk, and protect
babies from ear infections, diarrhea,
respiratory tract infections, meningitis
and other infections. But these protective
proteins disappear when a baby stops
breast feeding or doesn't receive breast
milk at all. Researchers at Ventria
were first to develop a human form of
these proteins that could become therapies.
Ventria believes growing rice that
produce proteins like lactoferrin and
lysozyme in rice could be a cheaper
way to develop drugs than building and
maintaining expensive manufacturing
plants.
But environmental groups and consumer
advocates sued the U.S. Department of
Agriculture in November 2003 for inadequate
oversight of pharmaceutical crops. Companies
like Dow Chemical and Monsanto are experimenting
with corn, soybeans, tobacco, rice and
sugar crops to find a cheaper way to
mass-produce drugs.
Opponents say growing the crops in
open fields endangers organic and conventional
crops, as well as human health. And
it's not just an issue environmentalists
and consumer advocates are worried about,
said Paul Achitoff, managing attorney
of Earthjustice in Hawaii.
"Even food-processing corporations
are very upset about this as well, because
they know all you need is one shipment
of corn flakes that has a contraceptive
in it and there's a real problem, obviously,"
Achitoff said.
In 2002, federal officials ordered
ProdiGene, of College Station, Texas,
to burn 155 acres of corn and 500,000
bushels of soybeans because the crops
had been contaminated by the company's
pharmaceutical corn, which had been
genetically engineered to produce an
experimental diarrhea vaccine for pigs.
"Contamination is inevitable under
this protocol, and the CRC did not act
in the best interests of California
rice farmers or consumers," said
Renata Brillinger of Californians for
GE-Free Agriculture.
"Instead of the normal 30-day
public comment period that would exist
with any other regulation, this fast
tracking allows a 10-day review by CDFA,"
said Rebecca Spector of the Center for
Food Safety. "The CDFA level is
really the time where we depend on the
public to be able to submit comments.
We hope that the secretary of agriculture
will review the proposal under the normal
public review process."
"This is kind of a big mess,"
she said. "We requested that they
wait to see how FDA and USDA are going
to regulate this before approving this
planting protocol. Ventria is taking
advantage of this regulatory vacuum
and in the meantime has gone through
the regulatory bodies in California."
Ventria executives were not immediately
available for comment.
Ventria's proposal restricts the production
to counties that do not currently grow
rice: San Luis Obispo, Kern, Santa Barbara,
Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino,
Riverside, San Diego and Imperial.
March 17
ZNet
Just when the global diatribe over
food and genetically modified crops
(GM) is heating up in tone and breadth,
the corporations that create them are
staging a showcase for a fresh batch
of transgenics.
These new GM crops, known as biopharmaceuticals,
or biopharms for short, produce industrial
and pharmaceutical chemicals within
their tissues. The plants, including
soy, rice, corn and tobacco, are genetically
altered to produce substances such as
growth hormones, curdling agents (coagulants),
vaccines for humans (as well as farm
animals), human antibodies, industrial
enzymes, contraceptives and even pregnancy
deterrents.
Scientists and corporations alike embrace
biopharmaceuticals with glee: "Imagine
being able to harvest enough globulin
(a compound that fights arthritis) for
the whole world in all of fifty acres?"
writes Dr. William O. Robertson for
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Imagine
being able to find the protein healthy
people use to prevent arthritis or breast
cancer and being able to produce it
in large quantities in rice and tobacco."
ProdiGene, a leader in the field, calculates
that by the end of this decade, 10%
of the corn produced in the US will
be biopharmaceutical. The volume of
biopharmaceutical drugs and chemicals
could reach the $200 billion figure,
according to Dow AgroSciences' Guy Cardinau.
Warnings
But some scientists and ecologists are
concerned. Will it be possible to contain
and segregate such crops, fruit and
seed, in order to avoid a biological
Chernobyl?
Is there any guarantee that these products
won't accidentally end up at the supermarket?
And how can we keep their pollen from
fertilizing other fields and reproducing
out of control?
"One single mistake from a biotechnology
company and we'll be having someone
else's prescription medicine for breakfast
in our cereal," warns Larry Bohlen,
spokesman for Friends of the Earth,
an international ecology organization.
"What will happen if the pollen
of a transgenic plant containing some
kind of drug fertilizes a nearby edible
crop?" argues the Erosion, Technology
and Concentration Action Group (ETC)
in a report published in 2000.
The report continues to ask: "How
will the soil microorganisms and insects
which benefit agriculture be affected
by crops genetically designed to produce
industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals?
What will happen if animals eat the
biopharmaceutical crops? Will the biopharmaceutical
proteins be altered during the various
stages of growth, harvest and storage?
Will they cause allergic reactions?
According to biologist Brian Tokar,
professor at the Institute for Social
Ecology, the most serious problems concern
cross-pollination and unknown effects
to insects, soil microorganisms and
other native life-forms.
A Little Mishap In Nebraska
There have been mistakes with these
crops already. In November 2002, at
an agricultural cooperative in Aurora,
Nebraska, 500,000 bushels of soy were
contaminated with biopharmaceutical
corn. One of the coop members harvested
an experimental batch of corn for ProdiGene
the year before and then proceeded to
plant a crop of soy for human consumption
in the same field.
During a routine inspection, federal
officials from the Department of Agriculture
found the corn stalks for ProdiGene
growing among the soy plants. By the
time they made the discovery, soy from
that field was already being stored
mixed with the soy of other coop members.
Fortunately, the authorities were able
to segregate the contaminated grain
just before it reached the supermarket
aisles.
The company was slapped with a $500,000
fine for negligence; yet, and in spite
of such gross near disaster, the government
still allows the corporation to continue
with biopharmaceutical research as well
as keeping the precise nature of the
contaminating batch in Nebraska a trade
secret. Mark Ritchie, president of the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, describes the incident as the
"Three Mile Island" of biotechnology,
in reference to the emergency caused
by a nuclear reactor in the 70s.
After the ProdiGene scandal, two industrial
corporations which had so far supported
transgenic research began to reconsider
their positions. The Grocery Manufacturers
Association, a group which represents
supermarket distributing companies,
expressed concern about the possibility
that biopharmaceuticals could end up
contaminating food supplies; such concern
was also shared by the National Food
Processors Association. The president,
John Cady, requested strict and mandatory
regulations in order to protect food
products from being contaminated by
biopharms.
Other people don't share such concerns.
The Biotechnology Industry Organization,
a group that represents biotech companies,
and the American Farm Bureau Federation,
an organization dedicated to Big Farming,
are currently lobbying in Washington
to obtain support from the federal government
in order to weaken biopharmaceutical
regulations.
Biological contamination
Transgenic products unfit for human
consumption have already contaminated
the food chain. At the end of the year
2000, environmental and consumer advocacy
groups in the United States discovered
that hundreds of american products in
the supermarkets had been contaminated
with traces of Starlink, a genetically
enhanced GM corn that was declared unfit
for human consumption by the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA).
Although the Starlink strain was farmed
in just 0.04% of the US corn production
area, and was only meant for farm animal
consumption, it ended up tainting 430
million bushels and to this day keeps
showing up regularly in US exports.
"The Starlink discovery in Japan
and South Korea, two of the most important
US corn consumers, indicates that it
could be found anywhere," remarks
Meena Raman, from Malaysia, coordinator
in Asia for Friends of the Earth Transgenics
Program. "Until the US and Aventis
(the biotechnology company that created
Starlink) controls contamination, no
other countries should allow corn imports."
A more severe case of genetic contamination
is taking place in Mexico, where the
presence of GM corn has been documented
since 2001. It continues to show up
in rural farming communities, both peasant
and indigenous, sown by small farmers
who are not aware of the transgenic
threat; and it is proliferating rapidly,
across wild and mixed varieties, in
spite of the Mexican government's ban
on transgenic crops, in effect since
1998. This contamination deeply concerns
environmentalists, scientists and farmers,
since Mexico is the cradle of corn and
axis of its diversity, rendering the
long term consequences on the environment
and human health uncertain.
In Mexico, people are distressed by
the possibility that biopharmaceutical
corn could be introduced in the country.
Silvia Ribeiro, of the ETC organization,
expresses great annoyance about the
California-based company Epicyte, which
ostentatiously declared having developed
a spermicidal corn to be used as a contraceptive.
Ribeiro stated in La Jornada: "The
potential of spermicidal corn as a biological
weapon is outrageous, since it easily
interbreeds with other varieties, is
capable of going undetected and could
lodge itself at the very core of indigenous
and farming cultures. We have witnessed
the execution of repeated sterilization
campaigns performed against indigenous
communities. This method is certainly
much more difficult to trace."
We cover the world
Where are biopharms cultivated? All
over the world. At the molecularfarming.com
website, investors solicit the collaboration
of farmers willing to lease their land
for biopharmaceutical experiments anywhere
in the world. They have signed agreements
in Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Greece,
Zimbabwe, Panama and many other countries.
Activist Beth Burrows first denounced
the claims at the Molecular Farming's
website. Burrows is president of the
Edmonds Institute, a nonprofit dedicated
to bioethics and biosecurity issues.
Award-winning journalist Devinder Sharma,
an expert in agricultural and nutritional
matters who lives in India, comments
on molecularfarming.com: "This
is part of a global scheme to transfer
dirty industries onto the Third World."
"First came the exporting of toxic
and industrial recycled waste to developing
countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Now comes the biopharms. In the US there's
a huge problem regarding these crops.
What are they gonna do? Transfer dirty
technology."
Don't worry, be happy
In spite of all this, biopharming advocates
assure us that they're perfectly safe.
Doctor Allan S. Felsot, an environmental
toxicologist at Washington State University
considers the use of plants to produce
pharmaceuticals and other chemicals
"not even a new concept, if we
take into account that we've used medicinal
plants for centuries."
Felsot insists there's nothing unusual
about our breeding human proteins in
the tissues of transgenic plants. "The
proteins (in question) are the same
found in our bodies. Most of them are
used as medicine through cellular fermentation.
They are very well defined and have
been subject to exhaustive research
and clinical trials on humans."
Doctor Robertson adds: "The possibilities
boggle the mind, the opportunities are
impossible to grasp in their totality
and the risks appear minimal when they're
compared with the risks we have encountered
in medicine throughout the years."
What's ahead?
"What will have to happen before
the Department of Agriculture takes
seriously the fact that millions of
people almost ended up consuming experimental
drugs and chemicals?" asks Brandon
Keim, of the Council for Responsible
Genetics in reference to the ProdiGene
scandal. "A few sensational deaths?
Maybe an increase in debilitating disorders
which will only be noticeable some decades
later, when it's already too late?"
Biopharmaceuticals are in an experimental
stage but the corporations producing
them anxiously await the day when federal
authorities give them the go-ahead to
enter the market.
Carmelo Ruiz is a journalist
and a research associate of the Institute
for Social Ecology. He has previously
published in Grist, E Magazine, the
New York Daily News, Corporate Watch,
IPS and other media.
French firm eyes Phillips
County test plot for crop altered to
grow pharmaceuticals
March 13
Rocky Mountain News
HOLYOKE -- Sally Brinkema placed her
slight, suntanned hand on the gear shift
and pulled the tractor-trailer into
reverse.
As gold-yellow corn poured from a silver
Quonset hut into her truckbed, Brinkema
gazed at the winter stalks of her family's
cornfields as she talked about the risks
of farming.
There's the 50-cents-a-bushel less
she's earning on this feed corn because
of the mad cow scare. The monthly $21,000
electricity bills to pump ground water
for irrigation. The three years that
rain hasn't come, killing her winter
wheat. And the two families down the
road who went bust and sold their land
to Sally Brinkema and her husband, Harry.
Slim margins and flat prices force
farmers such as Brinkema to question
the risk of each decision about the
land. And risk lies at the heart of
a new type of farming that may come
to Phillips County, bringing higher-paying
jobs and more expensive crops.
French pharmaceutical company Meristem
Therapeutics received a permit last
year to test a plot of genetically engineered
corn at a secret site in Phillips County.
The company wants to stake a claim in
the U.S. pharmaceutical market, and
its corn would solely produce ingredients
for medicines.
Proponents argue that plant pharmaceuticals
and processing plants - a growing billion-dollar
industry - will revitalize depressed
rural areas, ushering in a Silicon Valley
of high-tech jobs to Holyoke and surrounding
Phillips County. That, in turn, could
lure young people back to the farm.
Farmers in this close-knit, eastern
Colorado town of 2,800 are torn.
They understand they must embrace new
technologies and take chances to prosper.
But the project's secrecy bothers them,
and they can ill afford an accident
that might reach the news and stigmatize
Colorado crops, which make up 40 percent
of the county's economy.
"Farmers want to make sure they
are protecting themselves, and ultimately,
making some money," said Michelle
Finley, executive director of Phillips
County Economic Development Corp.
Environmental groups emphasize the
risk of contaminating the food supply
and the ecosystem.
But plant-made medicines are also 10
to 20 times cheaper to produce than
current medicines, leading to cheaper
drugs and drugs for hard-to-treat diseases.
"Wouldn't it be fabulous if you
could raise medicine?" said Sally
Brinkema, adding in her next breath,
"I really don't see how it would
fit into our current operations."
Corn for cystic fibrosis
After a morning of loading grain and
ferrying it to the hog feedlot, the
Brinkemas sit down to a lunch of ham
sandwiches and homemade caramel cake.
They live in a brick ranch house down
a dirt road in the sand hills outside
of Holyoke, amid 1,600 acres of farmland.
Harry Brinkema, who grew up farming,
muses on the irony of a French company
trying to grow genetically modified
corn in the U.S.
France won't buy U.S.-grown GMO corn,
a ploy most farmers believe is sheer
protectionism.
Just a week ago the Brinkemas got a
letter from their seed vendor asking
them to promise to sell their genetically
modified feed corn only to certain markets.
"We don't buy French wine anymore,"
Harry Brinkema said. "You'll find
that most farmers are acutely aware
of the business aspects of what they
buy."
In fact, about 40 percent of U.S. corn
seed is genetically modified, altered
to resist insects and herbicides. And
Meristem's corn follows that American
tradition. It's made the same way that
chemical maker Monsanto manufactures
Roundup Ready corn, for instance. Except
it has been jiggered to produce abnormal
amounts of lipase.
The enzyme lipase is produced in the
bodies of healthy adults. But it's missing
in the digestive systems of people with
cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder
that affects about 30,000 Americans.
Meristem has already produced one kilo
of pharmaceutical-grade lipase from
fields in France. The company is four
months from completing phase II clinical
trials to test this plant-grown lipase
to create cystic fibrosis medicine.
Currently, patients consume lipase derived
from pancreases of pigs.
Meristem has said it can produce lipase
14 times more cheaply in corn.
"The cost savings could be significant,"
said Dr. Frank Accurso, a cystic fibrosis
expert at Children's Hospital. "It's
currently in the thousands of dollars
per year per individual for cystic fibrosis."
Other companies are quietly following
this trend: In 2002, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture allowed more than 34
field trials of "pharm crops"
across the country. Industry experts
project the market for plant-produced
pharmaceutical and industrial proteins
could reach $200 billion by year 2010.
Most of this activity has taken place
away from informed public discussion.
Farmers fear that city folk, ignorant
of farming, see only frightening images
of "frankencorn."
"The world has such a scary perception
of GMO corn," said Sally Brinkema.
"But yellow peppers are a modification
of green peppers. So are red. For some
reason, the world panics at the thought
of GMO corn.
"I'm worried that this 'pharma
corn' will cause more fear."
Wooing the French
Meristem hasn't broken ground in Phillips
County, but could any time during the
planting season, which ends at the beginning
of June. The company has also expressed
an interest in greenhouses in Rifle
and lab space at the former Fitzsimons
Army Medical Center.
The company won the planting permit
from the Colorado Department of Agriculture
last year after three Colorado scientists
approved its application.
"We had a long discussion with
them. They answered questions and told
us their strategies," said Pat
Byrne, Colorado State University associate
professor of soil and crop sciences.
"They were very honest with us."
In September, a delegation of Colorado
politicians visited Meristem's facility
in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The delegation
included Sen. Mark Hillman. R-Burlington;
Rep. Ray Rose, R-Montrose; Rep. Diane
Hoppe, R-Sterling; Jim Rubingh, director
of markets of the state Department of
Agriculture; and John Stencel, executive
director of the Rocky Mountain Farmers
Union.
They brought a letter from Gov. Bill
Owens in which he expressed his "enthusiasm"
for Meristem locating a pharmaceutical
processing facility in Colorado.
They also toured a small test plot.
"It was the same color as normal
corn," Stencel said. "It doesn't
glow. It looked like a normal corn crop.
No fence. No guards. A sign in French
that said it was a research plot producing
lipase."
Following the September visit, Meristem
executives returned to Colorado in December.
They toured a Rifle greenhouse as well
as Fitzsimons. They met with Owens,
state legislators, venture capitalists,
University of Colorado President Betsy
Hoffman and city officials from Rifle,
Glenwood Springs and Battlement Mesa,
said John Cevette, executive director
of the Colorado Corn Growers Association.
"The climate of the discussions
had been exceptionally positive with
the people we met in Colorado,"
Meristem Chief Executive Jean-Paul Rohmer
said in an e-mail.
Cevette said the company was very interested
in Colorado.
"They felt very comfortable here,"
he said. "When they left in December,
they had pretty much made up their minds
that they would move to the U.S. and
that Colorado would be their location."
A crop of questions
In the winter, Holyoke farmers gather
daily at Schmidt's, a sandwich and pizza
shop on Main Street.
With caps pulled down and vests pulled
tight, a half-dozen men encircle a red
table and quietly discuss the town's
news. Few secrets escape this group,
and controversy is avoided.
"Issues like this (pharmaceutical
corn), they can quickly become divisive
and painful," said Tom Balding,
a furniture maker. "I don't put
bumper stickers on my bumpers. I don't
want anybody to know how I think."
If Meristem ever comes to Holyoke,
these farmers have some questions. First,
where is the site?
"In a small town, once you have
secrecy, people don't trust you. The
location is all secret," said farmer
Kathy Schneller, 62.
Up until now, the company hasn't revealed
the plot's location out of fear of vandalism.
Second, how much will the company pay
farmers?
"The money will have to be pretty
substantial," said Schneller.
So far, no monetary terms have been
made public. Meristem says farmers will
be paid per acre farmed.
Third, can the community live with
the controversy?
"You have fanatics," said
farmer Harry Brinkema. "People
who start fires in ski cabins."
Fourth, why here?
"Why don't they want it in France?"
Schneller asked. "They have a lot
of trade barriers against us with GMO
corn. That kinda gets me worked up."
Meristem says that the French public
is "very supportive" of the
development of new medicines, but "the
information has been very biased, raising
unjustified and irrational fear about
any new technology."
The company wants to relocate some,
or possibly all, of its operations to
the U.S. because most of its potential
partners are in the U.S. and because
the scientific and political community
here is more supportive of its work.
Further, the company wants to enter
the U.S. because FDA approval is the
gold standard, and finally, U.S. investors
appear to be interested in Meristem's
work.
Colorado would appear ideal because
the cornfields are not as crowded as
in the Midwest, allowing for greater
separation between Meristem's corn and
regular corn.
GMO in the wind
For Holyoke residents, the biggest concern
is the wind.
The wind reaches 50 miles an hour here.
Tumbleweeds skitter across the road,
branches shake and car doors yank out
of hands.
Farmers fear the wind will carry Meristem's
corn pollen to neighboring fields, breeding
genetic mutants.
Meristem calls for a 1.5-mile swath
around its field. Tom Holtzer, who heads
the department of Bioagricultural Sciences
and Pest Management at CSU, says that
should be enough.
Two studies done last year under Colorado's
hot and dry conditions showed the farthest
distance a corn plant could be pollinated
by airborne pollen was one-tenth of
a mile, Holtzer said.
Furthermore, Meristem's plants will
be male sterile and detasseled every
day. The fields will use dedicated equipment,
and lie fallow for two years after harvest.
Still, some say these precautions don't
go far enough.
Wildlife could graze in the corn. Insects
might take microscopic amounts on their
wings. The genes could enter the soil
or groundwater. Farm workers could be
exposed to unhealthy amounts of biopharmaceuticals.
A study published last month by the
Union of Concerned Scientists said some
unmodified corn, soy and canola seeds
in the United States have been cross-pollinated
by genetically engineered crops.
In the study, plant pathologist Jane
Rissler said scientists should assume
that engineered sequences originating
in any crop could potentially contaminate
the seed supply.
"Among the potential contaminants
are genes from crops engineered to produce
drugs, plastics and vaccines,"
Rissler wrote.
The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union urges
caution.
"We are moving really quickly
on an issue we don't know much about.
We feel we need to go slow," said
Stencil, the group's executive directorl.
"It's very dangerous," said
Peter Crowell, vice president of the
Uncompahgre Valley Association and board
member of the Western Colorado Congress,
a grass-roots citizens organization.
"If you are going to raise these
crops, you should do it in non-food,
non-feed crops. Or do it indoors. The
third option is to not do it at all."
Remember the hog farms
Holyoke seems a fairly prosperous rural
town. Along its neatly manicured streets
with tidy, green lawns it boasts a school,
library, courthouse, hospital, drugstore,
hardware store, grocery store and movie
theater.
Still, it will need to grow.
"We need jobs," said Jim
Keinholz, an innkeeper. "Jobs bring
people. We need people to create taxes
to pay for roads. You can't stay stable
with the cost of government services
going up."
Most farmers here see plant- made pharmaceuticals
as a risk, but they know some risk is
necessary.
"Everything in life, to me, is
a risk," said economic developer
Finley. "Opening a business is
a risk. Progress is often a risk."
Meristem's processing facility would
bring up to 50 white-collar technology
jobs, each paying up to $50,000 - a
generous salary in a town where houses
cost $88,000, on average.
Nearly 15 years ago, Holyoke was equally
divided over another issue: hog farms.
Proponents said the indoor pens would
bring jobs and bigger markets for Holyoke
corn. Detractors complained about the
smell, water pollution and workers from
outside the county.
The hog farms were built, and for a
time, not a single house was for sale
in Holyoke. The local trucking firm
added trucks to transport swine, and
local stores enjoyed more customers.
The townspeople are proud to point
out that their hog farms followed environmental
regulations carefully, and as a result
have suffered no problems.
These days, the swine operations buy
the lion's share of the town's corn,
and Finley doesn't know if anybody still
objects to them.
"At this point," she said,
"it would be a travesty to remove
them."
