Genetic Engineers Blast Regulation Researcher Says New Rule To Boost Costs Of New Crops

For several years, scientists have praised biotechnology as a genetic genie in a bottle. Once harnessed, they say, it will lead to a new generation of crops that fight their own diseases, foods that hold their flavor longer and animals that grow larger at less expense.

But Jim Cook, a researcher based at Washington State University, worries pending federal regulations will keep the genie away from scientists who want to use genetic engineering to fight pests plaguing crops through much of the Palouse and Columbia Basin.

If scientists take a gene from one plant and place it in another to produce, say, a toxin that will kill certain insects, the Environmental Protection Agency is considering calling the new plant a plant-pesticide. It would then have to be tested and approved like any other pesticide.

By adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of a research project, the regulation could stymie the use of biotechnology on specific wheat varieties or low-volume, “minor crops” that support much of Washington’s $5 billion agriculture industry, Cook said.

“It’s a regulatory cost that must be borne by the research programs and will ultimately be borne by the taxpayer and by the consumer,” he said.

The EPA’s proposed regulation has become a new focal point in the national debate over biotechnology, a debate that has pitted many of the nation’s best agricultural researchers against environmentalists and ecologists.

Scientists like Cook - a USDA plant pathologist who has helped develop international safety guidelines for plant biotechnology - argue the new science is a promising tool whose hazards are as easy to control as those posed by traditionally bred plant varieties. As with traditional plant varieties, he argues, we need to regulate the plants for what they can do to the environment - not for the the new genetic technology that produced them.

Biotechnology detractors, who include the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council, worry that genetically engineered species can cross with other plants to become potent pests themselves, or “superweeds.”

Jane Rissler, a plant pathologist and senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, acknowledged that many of America’s top scientists back the new technology. But like the technology of pesticides and commercial fertilizers, she said, biotechnology could bring as-yet undiscovered problems in the name of increased productivity.

“We’re turning to genetic engineering as the next magic bullet-solution to agriculture,” she said from her Washington, D.C., office. “To my way of thinking and to a lot of people’s way of thinking, this is not the way to go.”

“There is a concern that, because it is a new technology, it needs to be approached carefully,” said Karl Arne, a pesticide specialist for the EPA’s Region 10 office in Seattle.

“Just because we’re going to regulate it doesn’t mean we’re going to regulate it terribly seriously down the road. It’s just right now it needs to be looked at.”

In traditional plant breeding, researchers cross different plants with each other to produce varieties that can produce more grain or fight diseases or pests. With extensive testing in the lab and field, work on a new plant can take a decade or more.

By using advances in research on a plant’s DNA its genetic fingerprint - scientists can isolate genes responsible for certain traits and insert them directly into a plant with the help of a virus or even a high-tech gun. They can go as far as using a non-plant, like the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), to help a plant produce toxins to fight specific insects, reducing the need for conventional pesticides.

The Monsanto Co. is planning to do that by inserting Bt into Russet Burbank potatoes, which will in turn produce toxins against the Colorado potato beetle.

The company estimates an experimental planting will produce about 5,000 grams of the toxin - 11 pounds - spread over 8,180 acres in 12 states.

By way of showing the futility of the EPA’s regulations, Cook noted this one test will first require a daylong hearing next month. After the planting, the entire crop will have to be destroyed, he said.

“Do you realize the cost of that? And for what?” he said. “Bt is already a proven, safe biopesticide.”

The cost of such an effort may be worth it for a large company like Monsanto, Cook said. But publicly funded researchers will have a hard time coming up with the $200,000 or so needed each time they have to test the plant-pesticide in less profitable crops to be planted over smaller areas, he said.