ABCNEWS.com : The Debate Over Creating Sterile Seeds

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BOARDS: Genetically Altered Plants WNT LIVE

Seeds of Controversy
	Some Worry Sterile Seeds May Mean Disaster for Farmers Some farmers are worried that genetic engineering may be turning their land from fields of plenty into fields of peril. (Photo Disc)

By Erin Hayes
ABCNEWS.com
R E E D, Ky., Aug. 2 — This is how it has worked for centuries: farmers harvest a crop and hold back some of the seeds to plant next year’s crop.
     In nature’s cycle, one harvest creates the next. But science has come up with a method to stop that cycle and to make crops sterile. It is the result of genetic engineering. Researchers have found a way to implant a kind of genetic switch in crops that can terminate their ability to reproduce. Its critics have dubbed it “terminator technology” and they are appalled by it. Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists calls it, “a technology that doesn’t improve yields, doesn’t increase the nutritional value of food, but does only one thing. And that is it sterilizes the plants. It produces dead seed.”
     But big agribusiness companies are very interested in it. “We believe this technology has the potential for agricultural biotechnology in terms of gene control devices in plants,” says Jack Watson of Monsanto.
     Companies such as Monsanto want that control. They argue they spend millions on research, creating genetically altered crops and that their profits come from selling farmers the seed. To protect those profits, Monsanto now patents much of that seed, actually making it illegal for farmers to save and reuse it. When farmer David Chaney did just that, Monsanto sent a private detective to his farm. Monsanto sued him and dozens of other farmers. They also bought radio time to warn others that offenders stand to lose hundreds of dollars per acre.

Banned by World Bank
But if the seed-sterilizing technology gets approved, Monsanto would not need to investigate or sue. It would have a genetic lock, guaranteeing farmers would have to buy its seed every season. That has many alarmed. The World Bank’s agricultural network has banned the technology fearing that sterile seeds could spell disaster for millions of farmers and creating the possibility of a localized famine.
     “The small farmers in the developing world who still rely extensively on their ability to hold back their seeds … who can get wiped out by one bad season, would suddenly find themselves with no seeds for the next year and no money to buy new seeds,” says Ismael Serageldin of World Bank.
     Another concern: the potential for the sterilized crops to sterilize normal crops. “If cross-pollination occurred and my neighbor was to go using genetically engineered crops with the Terminator genes, they could destroy my crops,” says one farmer. Another says, “I don’t think it’s in the best interests of mankind.”
     But what has farmers really upset is that the United States Department of Agriculture actually helped invent the genetically altered seed.

The Agencies

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for determining whether genetically altered food or food additives are safe for people or animals to eat.

The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for determining whether changing a crop so that it produces its own pesticide is safe for the surrounding environment and for human consumption.

The Department of Agriculture is the agency assigned to ensure that the plant grows in the field the way the manufacture promises it will.

Government Gets Cut of Royalties
It’s not a subject they like to discuss, but when pressed, Eileen Kennedy of the USDA admitted “We were part of the research group developing that. Absolutely.”
     The primary reason: to help companies protect their bottom line. “Recoup a part of their investment that private sector R&D [research and development] money is going into the development of that seed,” says Kennedy.
     Monsanto has promised to call for public debate on the merits of the technology. “And until that takes place in the public realm and until we have an opportunity to analyze those impacts, we will not commercialize the technology,” says Watson.
     What will the federal government stand to gain? Well, consider: By contract, if the genetically altered seed goes commercial, agriculture officials could make a lot of money. “Twenty-five percent of those royalties would go to the individual investigators,” says Kennedy. “To USDA scientists.”
     To some, the promise of opportunity. To others, a threat that could, at the very least, irrevocably alter life on the farm.

S U M M A R Y

For some, the creation of sterile seeds offers the promise of opportunity. To others, it is a threat to livelihood.

In This Series
Europe and the U.S. Battle over Engineered Food