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Blow'n
In The Wind Susan and Mark Fitzgerald have farmed for 17 years on the black soil of the Minnesota prairie, a place ''where the wind likes to blow.'' They took all of the precautions they thought necessary to make sure their 100 acres of corn was organic, a tag that can double the earnings on their yield. The husband-and-wife team set up barriers of bushes, shrubs, and trees, planted the right crops in the right places, and bought corn seed guaranteed to be free of genetic engineering. No matter. The Fitzgeralds found themselves victims of ''genetic drift,'' a relatively new and disturbing phenomenon. When the harvest came, they tested their corn. To their surprise and dismay, genetically engineered kernels showed up in the hopper: a pesticide-producing seed known as Bt whose pollen apparently made its way from a neighbor's field, swept by wind or carried by birds or insects. They had to pull 800 bushels from the organic market, a loss they put at nearly $2,000. ''Everyone's wondering what you do,'' Susan Fitzgerald said. ''One can't speak alone; you're barking in the wind. It's you against Goliath.'' The Fitzgeralds' story highlights a problem most recently brought to light by the lingering trouble caused by contamination from StarLink corn. Across the nation, the planting of genetically engineered seeds has surged since their introduction in 1996, and now accounts for as much as a quarter of all corn grown in the United States, including Massachusetts. One effect - whose scope was unanticipated by regulators, companies, or farmers as recently as just a few years ago - is that insects, birds, and the wind are spreading biotech pollen to fields planted with conventional or organic crops miles away. As losses mount, the question is being asked: Who pays? Some farmers say it's the problem of their neighbors, while others accuse the seed companies. The seed companies look for help from the government in setting more flexible standards. And the government points back at the farmers as well as state courts hearing a growing number of lawsuits. ''We never really thought all this through,'' said Charles Hurburgh, director of the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative and an Iowa State University professor. ''Who would have known 10 years ago that this would have been an issue? There was no reason for this to be on the radar screen at the time.'' The most common recourse for such losses - insurance - is one that's not yet available to the nation's nearly 2 million farms. Insurance companies say their policies won't cover genetic drift, the term used to describe cross-pollination between biotech and nonbiotech fields. That reflects not only the novelty of the problem but also a sense that studies are still lacking on the scope of drift - how far pollen can travel, for instance, and how big farmers' losses might be. On another level, questions remain over the biological implications of genetic drift for agriculture. Organic farmers fear that, given the unpredictability of pollination, they can never guarantee a biotech-free crop. Already, experts say virtually all commercial seeds in America have at least trace levels of genetically modified proteins, just five years after the introduction of the crops. Federal regulations require buffer zones around genetically modified crops - usually 660 feet - but that has already proved too limited. Some contend pollen can drift miles before settling on another crop. Plus, there's the possibility that seed gets mixed in storage bins and even combines. ''How do you trace where it came from? How do you determine the liability? All of this is brand new and people don't know how to deal with it yet,'' said Joe Harrington, spokesman for the American Association of Insurance Services in Wheaton, Ill. ''It's a brand new world.'' Different nations have set different standards for how much genetically engineered material they will permit without requiring a label on food. The European Union put the limit last year at 1 percent, one of the world's strictest. Japan, whose labeling requirement takes effect next month, decreed a 5 percent tolerance for products such as soybean tofu and corn flour. No tolerance is set for organic food in the United States, although levels like those found in the Fitzgeralds' corn have led to rejection by organic food processors worried what consumers might think. (Keith Jones, a USDA organic official, said the amount of biotech material allowed in organic food from genetic drift is on ''completely a case-by-case basis.'') Even with some tolerance, farmers and others insist the problem will only mount in coming years with the growing use of biotech crops, whose planting is expected to jump 10 percent this spring. Still undecided is how much is too much and where consumers will draw the line. Organic farmers, whose numbers have more than doubled since 1996, are particularly vulnerable. Aware of the threat or not, consumers buy their products with the understanding that they are free of biotech foods. Conventional farmers face similar problems: For export markets, they must worry about exceeding tolerances, like those in Europe and Japan. ''Once you introduce these seeds, they're hard to keep in one place,'' said Brian Leahy, executive director of California Certified Organic Farmers. ''This technology does not respect property rights.'' Biotech crops raise ''interesting questions.'' There might be a scenario in which genetic drift is treated like pesticide drift, a longstanding problem in agriculture and one in which courts have ruled against the farmer or company spraying the pesticides. Monsanto and Aventis, among the biggest players in agricultural biotechnology, refused to comment on liability issues. Loren Wassell, a Monsanto spokesman, would only say: ''We try to act responsibly and we encourage growers to be responsible and to communicate with their neighbors.'' But some farmers and activists say acting responsibly is not enough, and they expect a US court decision soon to back up their contention. ''What we have struck out as a position is: You patent it, you license it, you're liable for any contamination you deliver from it,'' said Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. A court case might look at issues of trespass, nuisance, or negligence, all of which have applied in similar cases. For Susan Fitzgerald, the Minnesota farmer, that may not be enough. Next year, she and her husband are planting organic soybeans, which don't cross-pollinate. They're talking to neighbors, too, about a lawsuit. Still, they worry there's only so much they can do to guard against drift. It seems modern farmers are treating agri-business corporates like they do the weather.
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