Super foods flex their clout

In Vermont, where nearly one-quarter of the vegetables are grown by organic farmers, the state legislature is considering a bill that would make seed companies, not farmers, liable if GM crops contaminate a nearby organic or conventional field. The state Senate has already passed the bill, and a House committee may vote this week.

"Consumers drive everything, and if consumers learn that an organic producer has [genetic engineering] in their product, demand will drop, and therefore the price will drop," says state Rep. David Zuckerman, chairman of Vermont's House Agricultural Committee and a proponent of the measure. Opponents of the bill argue that if it passes, seed companies worried about liability may refuse to sell their products in the state, hurting farmers. But Mr. Zuckerman, who is an organic farmer himself, finds that reasoning labored. The companies argue that their product is safe and "substantially equivalent" to non-GM crops, he says, thus causing no damage if spread into conventional or organic crops. Yet they also patent their GM seeds as "unique."

By law, the industry counters, growers who follow all the steps of organic certification can't lose their certification because GM strains are found in their crops. If a grower enters into an agreement with a buyer calling for no GM content, that's not a health and safety issue, but a marketing decision that growers make at their own risk, says Lisa Dry of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). "They're entering into an agreement they may not be able to meet."

Furthermore, state or local regulation of biotech crops is "unnecessary and redundant," she says. "There are federal agencies that already provide that oversight," including the US Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, she says. "They have scrutinized these plants for two decades," and determined that they are safe and should be available in the marketplace.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are starting to test the growing conditions in states. In Missouri, an attempt by Ventria Bioscience to grow GM rice for use in making pharmaceuticals has been delayed by opposition from conventional rice farmers and a threat by St. Louis-based brewing giant Anheuser-Busch not to buy rice grown in the state. Ventria now plans to shift its biotech rice crop to North Carolina, which has no commercial rice production, says Scott Deeter, the firm's chief executive officer. But there's "no question" that his company will grow biotech rice in Missouri in the future, he adds.

Producing pharmaceuticals from field crops "is growing but just getting started," says Bob Ehart, a spokesman for the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, who watches GM crop trends. "I think you'll see some more things in that direction." One frequently mentioned possibility involves altering tobacco to produce pharmaceuticals, keeping a market for a crop that farmers otherwise might be encouraged to abandon.

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