Maine farmers scored a huge victory on July 27 when the Maine Board of Pesticides Control voted to register seven varieties of biotech-enhanced, insect-resistant field corn. Nine years earlier, the BPC turned thumbs down on similar applications claiming there was no need for the products in Maine. This time the farmers were prepared. A study showing that the bugs the corn resists are active in Maine was presented to the BPC. At the hearings, farmers came out in numbers to testify that the corn was in fact needed and without it Maine farmers would lose access to better yielding varieties of field corn. The BPC listened and voted unanimously (with one abstention) to register the products.
Now, the BPC seems poised to take all that away. Draft rules for the regulation of insect-resistant corn are so burdensome that manufacturers of the products are likely to withdraw their registrations and write off the Maine market. If this happens Maine’s dairy farmers, who need the corn to feed their cows, will be the losers. Their competitors in every other state in the nation can plant the higher-yielding varieties, and thus will have an economic advantage.
What’s going on? The health and environmental safety issues have long been resolved in favor of insect-resistant corn. Even the BPC itself found nine years ago that the products posed no dangers to health and safety in Maine.
What’s happening is that a well organized lobby of organic farmers and backyard gardeners are trying to gain through rulemaking what they could not achieve in the approval process. A letter from Russ Libby, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, to the BPC contains a blueprint for the rules. The draft rules published after Libby’s letter was received follow his recommendations, almost to the letter: required pesticide licenses for farmers who plant the corn, mandatory buffers between insect-resistant corn and other corn and pesticide licenses for seed dealers who sell the corn seed.
The requirement that seed dealers who sell and farmers who plant the insect-resistant corn obtain a pesticide license is regulatory overkill. The 191 page manual, on which the licensing exam is based, contains not a single piece of information relevant to the planting of the corn. The mandated 660 ft. buffer between insect-resistant corn and other varieties ignores the findings of the BPC’s own technical committee and the research of one of its members who found that beyond 100 ft., cross-pollination by corn was minimal.
But all of this misses the point. The Board of Pesticides Control is charged by Maine law with “assuring to the public the benefits to be derived from the safe, scientific and proper use of chemical pesticides while safeguarding the public health, safety and welfare, and for the further purpose of protecting natural resources of the State.” The BPC has already determined there are no public or environmental health or safety issues with insect-resistant corn. The pursuit of a burdensome rulemaking effort at the urging of activists who failed to make a scientific case sufficient to block registration should stop. Otherwise, the BPC will fail in its responsibility to provide to the public the benefits to be derived from the safe, scientific and proper use of the seven, insect-resistant strains of corn it already has approved.
(Originally published on October 11, 2007)
Now, the BPC seems poised to take all that away. Draft rules for the regulation of insect-resistant corn are so burdensome that manufacturers of the products are likely to withdraw their registrations and write off the Maine market. If this happens Maine’s dairy farmers, who need the corn to feed their cows, will be the losers. Their competitors in every other state in the nation can plant the higher-yielding varieties, and thus will have an economic advantage.
What’s going on? The health and environmental safety issues have long been resolved in favor of insect-resistant corn. Even the BPC itself found nine years ago that the products posed no dangers to health and safety in Maine.
What’s happening is that a well organized lobby of organic farmers and backyard gardeners are trying to gain through rulemaking what they could not achieve in the approval process. A letter from Russ Libby, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, to the BPC contains a blueprint for the rules. The draft rules published after Libby’s letter was received follow his recommendations, almost to the letter: required pesticide licenses for farmers who plant the corn, mandatory buffers between insect-resistant corn and other corn and pesticide licenses for seed dealers who sell the corn seed.
The requirement that seed dealers who sell and farmers who plant the insect-resistant corn obtain a pesticide license is regulatory overkill. The 191 page manual, on which the licensing exam is based, contains not a single piece of information relevant to the planting of the corn. The mandated 660 ft. buffer between insect-resistant corn and other varieties ignores the findings of the BPC’s own technical committee and the research of one of its members who found that beyond 100 ft., cross-pollination by corn was minimal.
But all of this misses the point. The Board of Pesticides Control is charged by Maine law with “assuring to the public the benefits to be derived from the safe, scientific and proper use of chemical pesticides while safeguarding the public health, safety and welfare, and for the further purpose of protecting natural resources of the State.” The BPC has already determined there are no public or environmental health or safety issues with insect-resistant corn. The pursuit of a burdensome rulemaking effort at the urging of activists who failed to make a scientific case sufficient to block registration should stop. Otherwise, the BPC will fail in its responsibility to provide to the public the benefits to be derived from the safe, scientific and proper use of the seven, insect-resistant strains of corn it already has approved.
(Originally published on October 11, 2007)
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