Farmers demand feds probe Monsanto and Dow over crops and chemicals

Pub­lished April 18 on rt.com –

Over 2,000 farm­ers and oth­ers within the food indus­try are threat­en­ing to take the US gov­ern­ment to court to make sure that feds act quickly in inves­ti­gat­ing the poten­tial out­come of a new genet­i­cally mod­i­fied crop.

A coali­tion of con­cerned mem­bers of America’s agri­cul­ture com­mu­nity said on Wednes­day that they will take legal action to ensure that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment inves­ti­gates what will hap­pen if biotech com­pa­nies are allowed to pro­ceed with a space-age, man-made vari­ant of corn.

As RT reported last week, Dow Chem­i­cal is await­ing the government’s go-ahead to start using a mutated corn crop that is resis­tant to a pow­er­ful pes­ti­cide pro­duced with 2,4-D, the same com­pound cru­cial to the make-up of the noto­ri­ous Viet­nam War-era killer Agent Orange. Once approved, the new corn will be able to thrive as farm­ers douse their fields in the pes­ti­cide, erad­i­cat­ing unwanted weeds in the process. Oppo­nents are con­cerned that the after­math of a surge in the chemical’s use could be cat­a­strophic for peo­ple, plants and the agri­cul­ture indus­try as a whole, though.

“These are the most dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals out there,” attor­ney John Bode tells Reuters. Bode is fight­ing on behalf of the Save Our Crops Coali­tion to have Wash­ing­ton inter­vene and is no stranger to how the gov­ern­ment goes about these mat­ters — he served as assis­tant sec­re­tary of agri­cul­ture in the Rea­gan administration.

While The Nat­ural Resources Defense Coun­cil has tied 2,4-D to cases of can­cer, genetic muta­tions and neu­ro­tox­i­c­ity, it’s not even just humans that are expected to be affected by the pes­ti­cide. “These her­bi­cides have been known to drift and volatilize to cause dam­age to plants over 10 miles away from the point of appli­ca­tion,” the Save Our Crops Coali­tion pleads.

Last week the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency threw out a peti­tion that asked them to ban the sale of the pes­ti­cide. Despite pleas from oppo­nents at the National Resource Defense Coun­cil and the Cen­ter for Food Safety, the EPA said they would con­tinue to allow the pes­ti­cide in ques­tion to be sold. While 2,4-D is cur­rently a reg­u­larly used chem­i­cal in crop fields, the expected intro­duc­tion of a corn vari­ant immune to it is expected to cause a spike in sales — and, in turn, disease.

“There’s no rea­son to con­tinue allow­ing a toxic Agent Orange-ingredient in the places our chil­dren play, our fam­i­lies live and our farm­ers work. EPA must step up and finally put a stop to it,” Dr. Gina Solomon, of the UCSF OEM Res­i­dency and Fel­low­ship Pro­gram wrote.

In addi­tion to Dow’s plan to use 2,4-D on crops immune to its effects, the Mon­santo cor­po­ra­tion is also plan­ning a new crop that will be resis­tant to a sim­i­lar her­bi­cide made with the her­bi­cide dicamba.

“The dan­ger that 2,4-D and dicamba pose is a real threat to crops…nearly every food crop,” Steve Smith, direc­tor of agri­cul­ture at Red Gold, tells Reuters. Red Cold, the world’s largest canned tomato proces­sor, is joined in the oppo­si­tion by com­pa­nies that grow crops for brands includ­ing Del Monte and Seneca. Mem­bers of the Save Our Crops Coali­tion also include the Indi­ana Veg­etable Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion and the Ohio Pro­duce Grow­ers and Mar­keters Association.

Although the EPA has decided to con­tinue the sale of 2,4-D, the Save Our Crops Coali­tion is ask­ing the agency to con­duct a Sci­en­tific Advi­sory Panel meet­ing and draft advi­sors to over­see a panel that would address the issue of her­bi­cide spray drift. They are also demand­ing through their lawyers that the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture (USDA) inves­ti­gate what impact could occur if the new crop is approved and pes­ti­cide sales go up. The US fed­eral reg­u­la­tory process requires both the EPA and USDA to respond to the coalition’s legal peti­tion. After which, they can file a fed­eral law­suit to demand answers.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Apr 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.