April 1, 2003

A Pew Initiative for Food and Biotechnology news summary

Europe's opposition to biotech food isn't stopping U.S. farmers from planting more genetically engineered crops, reports the Associated Press.

This spring, they're devoting fewer acres to growing corn and soybeans but intend to plant more biotech crops than ever - part of a growing trend, the Agriculture Department said Monday.

"This is only the fourth year that we've been tracking it, but from that, it is the highest it's been," said Darin Jantzi, a department statistician. 

While U.S. consumers generally accept biotech foods, Europeans doubt their safety. That concern prompted the European Union to put a moratorium on U.S. biotech imports. It's been in place for four
years, costing the United States $300 million annually in corn exports.

However, an Agriculture Department survey says 38 percent of the 79 million acres of corn planted this year probably will be genetically engineered. That's up four percentage points from last year and 13
percentage points over the 2000 crop, writes AP.

Total corn acreage is projected to be almost the same as last year's 79.05 million acres - just 32,000 acres less.

U.S. farmers like biotech crops because they require fewer chemicals for killing insects and weeds. They have been planting two main varieties, one of which is known as Bt, or bacillus thuringiensis. It is
genetically engineered to fend off insects.

The other variety, Roundup Ready, allows farmers to spray and kill weeds with Monsanto Co.'s Roundup herbicide without killing the corn plant.

Growers likely will plant more biotech soybeans, too. The department predicts 80 percent of this year's 73.2 million acres of soybeans will be a biotech variety engineered to tolerate Roundup. That's up five
percentage points from last year's biotech soybean crop and 16 percentage points over the 2000 crop, reports AP.

The department predicts the soybean crop will be the smallest since 1998, down 1 percent from the 73.8 million acres grown last year. Many growers are switching back to corn because wet weather last
year prevented them from planting it, forcing them to raise soybeans instead.

The survey is based on interviews with 75,000 growers in 48 corn states and 31 soybean states.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen, a biotechnology expert at Cornell University, said the government's projection for biotech planting is higher than he expected.

"I would have thought that it would have been roughly constant compared to last year, partly because of the market problems," he said, referring to the United States' trade troubles with European Union.

Congressional lawmakers are pressing the White House to seek an end to the dispute by complaining to the World Trade Organization.

They are especially nervous that Europe's anti-biotech sentiment is spreading to developing countries since some African countries rejected U.S. biotech food aid a few months ago, according to AP.

However, U.S. farmers and exporters remain confident that other trading partners will continue buying biotech food. That's why growers are planting more biotech crops, said Hayden Milberg, lobbyist for the National Corn Growers Association.

He said he believes farmers may double their biotech acreage in the future, especially since the government recently approved Monsanto's new rootworm-fighting corn for the market.

The new corn is engineered to contain its own pesticide, derived from Bt, a natural soil bacterium. It protects the plant against rootworm, a common pest whose larvae nibble at the plant's roots.