This was sent on to me by the IFU. It appeared as a Letter in Iowa Farmer Today.


To the editor:

Iowa agriculture secretary candidate Bill Northey this summer told an
audience new farm technologies, such as the potential to produce
industrial chemicals in corn, “are coming faster than most of us even
realize.”

He offered this example to illustrate new opportunities for Iowa’s
farmers, many of whom are desperate for new approaches to make a
comfortable living in agriculture.

Northey is not the first Iowa leader to embrace crops that have been
genetically engineered to produce industrial chemicals and
pharmaceuticals. Gov. Tom Vilsack once called this technology “the
future of our state.”

But, the part of Northey’s message that should give us pause was
contained in that throw-away line: “faster than most of us even
realize.” Faster than we realize it, we are being asked to put great
faith in this new agricultural biotechnology. Faster than we know it,
new generations of biotech crops are already being tested in fields
around the country, including Iowa, without a sober assessment by
government leaders of their relative benefits and risks.

The biggest risk corn, soybeans and other crops genetically engineered
to produce drugs or chemicals could contaminate our food or feed supply
has not been adequately addressed by government regulations or
voluntary industry practices. Consumers don’t want drugs accidentally
winding up in their corn flakes. And, farmers, food processors,
retailers, exporters and others in the food supply chain don’t want to
face potentially enormous financial losses if such a contamination
event is discovered. Pharmaceutical and industrial crops are
indistinguishable to the naked eye from conventional crops. The very
real potential for contamination of the food supply through
cross-pollination of crops or seed mix-ups necessitates air-tight
containment systems more rigorous than those already in place.
    
Analysis by an Iowa State University economist last year found the
projected financial benefits of these crops to consumers and farmers
remain “highly tentative” and should factor in the potentially large
costs of adequate containment systems. This report also questioned the
practice by many government leaders of luring pharmaceutical and
industrial-crop companies to locate in their states by offering
financial incentives. It notes the “intense competition” among states
to attract these companies “has the potential to result in overlapping
incentives and unnecessary duplication of investment.”

All of this comes along with recent evidence the government agency with
oversight of pharmaceutical and industrial crops, the USDA, is not
equipped to handle the job of keeping unwanted drugs and chemicals out
of our food. Last year, the agency’s internal auditor publicly
criticized the USDA’s oversight of these and other genetically
engineered crops, finding the USDA “lacks basic information about the
field test sites it approves and is responsible for monitoring,
including where and how the crops are being grown, and what becomes of
them at the end of the field test.”

Until and unless all risks to farmers, consumers, the food supply and
the environment have been adequately studied and addressed, the Iowa
Farmers Union is calling on Iowa to enact a moratorium on cultivation
of pharmaceutical and industrial crops in the state. Such a move is
necessary to counter the hype surrounding this technology, which seems
to be coming at us faster than the ability of government leaders to
weigh the facts and address the potential risks.

Chris Petersen