For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.
This week, a group of scientists sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urging farmers to stop planting genetically engineered corn with a certain gene because it will no longer protect them from the corn rootworm. If the recommendations are put into practice, it could cause major changes in the way that seed companies like Monsanto do business.

For America’s agricultural biotech companies, the corn rootworm is threatening to turn into their worst nightmare.

Last year, we reported that a major insect pest, the corn rootworm, had “found a chink in the armor” of genetically engineered crops. In several different places across the corn belt, the insects have developed resistance to an inserted gene that is supposed to kill them.

Now, in a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released this week, 22 of the nation’s top experts on corn pests lay out some of the implications of this discovery, and they are potentially profound.

In order to slow down or prevent the spread of resistance, the scientists are calling for big changes in the way that biotech companies, seed dealers and farmers fight this insect. The scientists urge the agency to act “with a sense of some urgency.”