St. Louis, Missouri
September 5,  2001

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a report stating Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn poses little risk to monarch butterflies, putting to rest controversy stemming from a two-year-old Cornell University study that asserted the Bt pollen was harmful to monarchs.

The EPA report, issued Tuesday, said while there is a small chance that one in 100,000 monarch caterpillars could be affected by toxic corn pollen, research suggests even those larvae will mature into healthy butterflies.

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has said in the past Bt corn poses no threat to the Monarch Butterflies and NCGA Biotech Working Group Chairman and Plain City, Ohio, corn grower Fred Yoder said he is glad to see the EPA agrees.

"It's definitely a positive," he said. "With this report, we can put this issue behind us and move on. Growers need continued access to the technology, and this is a big step towards that."

EPA's conclusion that the corn is relatively harmless to monarch populations is based in part on field studies conducted last summer by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Maryland, Iowa and Minnesota. Data from those studies have not been published, but have been turned over to EPA for review.

The agency has declined to release the data because of confidentiality claims by biotech companies involved in the research. Agency officials said they hoped to release the data before the Sept. 30 deadline for renewing Bt corn licenses.

EPA is currently engaged in a comprehensive reassessment of the time- limited registrations for all existing Bt corn and cotton and has extended its comment period. The EPA announced it is allowing until Monday, Sept. 10, to comment on the implications of Bt re-registration.

Growers can quickly submit their comments on Bt re-registration by clicking on the Action Alert on the NCGA home page: www.ncga.com . 

The National Corn Growers Association mission is to create and increase opportunities for corn growers in a changing world and to enhance corn's profitability and usage. NCGA represents more than 32,000 members, 25 affiliated state corn grower organizations and the interests of hundreds of thousands of growers who contribute to state checkoff programs.

National Corn Growers Association news release
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