Monsanto's Frankengrass Sows Controversy

From; The Oregonian
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A growing controversy

An effort to genetically create a Roundup-tolerant grass seed stalls
because of market, scientific and regulatory dilemmas

Sunday, September 12, 2004
ALEX PULASKI

Five years ago, Madras farmer Ron Olson searched for a name for his new
grass-seed company.

Borrowing from a nearby one-room schoolhouse founded 100 years earlier,
Olson settled on New Era Seed. The name captured a fresh century's promise,
Olson thought -- fitting for a venture to cultivate genetically modified
grass seed on a commercial scale for the first time.

Seed giants Monsanto and Scotts had contracted with Olson and other
growers, who foresaw picture-perfect golf course tee and greens, and sunny
profits from grass designed to be immune to Roundup, Monsanto's leading
herbicide.

Instead, their dreams are on hold. They have foundered on two fronts: fears
in the divided grass-seed industry that genetically altered seed could
contaminate a signature Oregon crop and dry up exports, and
environmentalists' objections that the new product could morph into an
unconquerable weed.

A year ago, New Era's seven growers brought in their first harvest. Now
they await an uncertain federal approval process that could stretch another
year or more. The delay, and resulting corporate orders, has left bare dirt
where most of their promising grass acreage once grew.

The inability of Monsanto, Scotts and the Madras growers to get their new
product off the ground highlights the complex scientific, regulatory and
market hurdles agricultural producers face in developing new, genetically
modified, or GM, crops even in a country that grows more bioengineered
corn, soybean and cotton than anyplace else in the world.

To the naked eye, the Madras fields planted two years ago appeared just
like any other in Oregon, the country's top grass-seed producer for
decades. With $300 million in annual sales, Oregon's grass-seed industry
ranks only behind nurseries and livestock in agricultural production.

But the Madras acreage was unique among the half-million acres of grass
seed grown in this state. The creeping bentgrass plants were modified to
resist Roundup. The world's most widely used herbicide, Roundup kills most
weeds and grasses, including annual bluegrass -- a common weed on courses.

Scotts, the lawn and garden care company with annual revenues of $2
billion, and Monsanto, the agricultural chemical and seed corporation with
annual revenues of $4.9 billion, are betting that their Roundup Ready
bentgrass seed will first take root in the lucrative golf-course market.

Commercial success there could one day revolutionize the $40 billion home
lawn and garden industry with next-generation genetically modified grasses
requiring less watering and mowing.

At 66, Olson is old enough to have sprayed DDT and toxaphene -- and to
remember how the chemical industry assured users and consumers of the
safety of those insecticides. Both were later banned because of their
long-lasting toxic effects on wildlife.

Environmentalists contend that the next generation will discover the folly
in re-engineering the genetic makeup of plants.

"I know there are people who are concerned that we are creating some kind
of monster plant," countered Olson. "I think there's going to be a point in
time where that could be an important issue. But the horror-story scenario
. . . that's pretty far-fetched.

"We're dealing in areas in which we don't have that much experience. We
have the same concerns ourselves."

For all Olson's hope, many of the state's grass-seed growers remain
convinced that the Scotts-Monsanto experiment will backfire. European
nations -- fueled by organized consumer resistance -- have refused to allow
imports of genetically modified crops from the United States, clouding
trade relations.

If buyers in Asia and Europe stop purchasing conventional Oregon grass seed
because they fear that altered seed has crept in, the state's exports -- 15
percent of sales -- could disappear.

"Farmers will lose export markets and the gene will soon contaminate the
Willamette Valley, making my work and livelihood very difficult and
unprofitable," Hubbard grass farmer Frank Bronec wrote to federal officials
last year.

Federal land managers, too, have made clear their opposition. A Forest
Service official wrote federal rule-makers this year to say the new seed
could damage all 175 national forests and grasslands. Similarly, the Bureau
of Land Management, which oversees 260 million acres, said it lacks the
money to dislodge the new, genetically modified bentgrass if it becomes
established on public lands.

Hurdle had to be cleared

To begin planting and harvesting on a commercial scale, Monsanto, Scotts
and the Madras farmers first had to overcome opposition from other Oregon
grass-seed growers.

In spring 2001, Scotts approached the Oregon Department of Agriculture with
an unusual request. The company wanted to establish an 11,000-acre
quarantine area near Madras; no conventional bentgrass could be cultivated
in the area to prevent cross-breeding from Roundup Ready test plots it
wanted to establish.

Bill Rose, a farmer and seed-company owner in Hubbard, took the forefront
in fighting the quarantine area.

He and other Willamette Valley growers, and the university researchers
allied with them, argued that the state's grass-seed industry was being
placed in peril.

"I don't think enough safeguards can be enforced to keep the Roundup Ready
bentgrass from eventually entering the Willamette Valley," Sublimity grower
Kent Doerfler wrote the state. "If GMO (genetically modified) bent is found
in any of our grass seeds, we will not be able to export."

Most Madras-area farmers lined up in favor of the quarantine area. They
were joined by golf course superintendents and the U.S. Golf Association,
which for decades has sought an effective means of ridding its bentgrass
fairways of invasive annual bluegrass. Roundup would kill the bluegrass,
while the new bentgrass strain would survive. Golf course superintendents
say the new seed would allow them to use fewer chemicals to control weeds.

In the end, a state hearings officer concluded that the risks to Oregon
agriculture were greater than the potential benefit to Scotts and Jefferson
County farmers such as Olson.

Scotts weighed taking its plans to Idaho. But Kevin Turner, director of
grass seed procurement and sales for Scotts in Oregon, said the company
asked Phil Ward, then-director of the state Department of Agriculture, to
reconsider. In turn, Scotts agreed to beef up protections against
cross-contamination, such as including wider buffer areas around fields.

A new hearings officer recommended approving the quarantine area in July
2002, and the Madras farmers started planting a month later.

Opposition continues

Opposition from environmentalists and many Oregon growers of conventional
seed has continued -- led by Rose.

Rose said he isn't afraid of genetically modified crops. His experience
with them dwarfs that of practically every other Oregon grower. His
company's test farm near Hubbard bears the scars.

In June 2000, eco-saboteurs calling themselves the Anarchist Golfing
Association broke into Pure Seed Testing's greenhouses, scattered and
destroyed test plants and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in
damage. They left behind golf balls, figurines and spray paint.

It was here, in the late 1990s, that Pure Seed researchers conducted the
first tests of how far pollen from genetically modified grasses would
travel -- 1,000 feet and more, posing fertilization risks with conventional
plants.

At about the same time, Rose founded HybriGene, a research firm attempting
to create grass strains resistant to weedkillers such as glufosinate, sold
under the Liberty and other brand names. HybriGene was also experimenting
with male-sterile technology, so that the GM plants could not
cross-pollinate.

In 1999, Scotts representatives and Rose discussed developing a Roundup
Ready grass strain.

"I told them it was suicide," Rose recalls.

Suicide, because the GM strains would soon intermix with conventional
bentgrass on golf courses and lawns. Over time, the Roundup Ready strain
would overtake everything else, Rose told them. So Scotts started looking
elsewhere for Oregon growers willing to experiment with Roundup Ready
bentgrass.

Rose, whose roots in the industry stretch back to the first pound of Merion
Bluegrass seed he bought in 1951, is also a fractional owner of Tee-2-Green.

Tee-2-Green markets about 65 percent of the bentgrass used on golf courses
worldwide. All of that conventional bentgrass seed is grown in the
Willamette Valley.

After Rose's test plots and greenhouses were vandalized, the Scotts sign
came down at the company's Gervais research facility. A sign simply
proclaims "Office." Now, Turner, of Scotts, characterizes opposition by
Rose and other Willamette Valley farmers as profit-driven.

"He sees that this technology is going to eat his lunch and it's not,"
Turner said. "But it is going to take a bite out of his sandwich."

Biotech plantings grow

During the 1990s, Monsanto spent billions of dollars acquiring suppliers of
seed for corn, soy, cotton and other crops. The company says plantings of
its biotech seed grew from 3 million acres in 1996 to 172 million acres
this year.

Consumer opposition, though not as high in this country as in Europe and
Asia, remains a hurdle.

Monsanto was forced to drop development of its NewLeaf potato after an
incident in which a competitor's genetically modified StarLink tainted
millions of bushels of conventional corn. Some reached consumers in such
products as tortilla shells. The strain was suspected of producing allergic
reactions.

Growers in Oregon, Idaho and Washington had been prepared to introduce
large-scale production of the virus- and insect-resistant NewLeaf potatoes
in 2000. Then McDonald's, the world's largest potato-buyer, said it would
take no genetically altered potatoes. Overnight, the NewLeaf potato was
dead.

A significant issue in the Scotts-Monsanto bentgrass experiment is how to
prevent cross-pollination with wild plants. The Sierra Club, Center for
Food Safety and others have written the federal government in opposition,
saying the companies are creating a widespread and hardy weed.

The answer, according to Scotts, is that golf course managers keep their
fairways trimmed shorter than a carpet. Grass will not grow tall enough to
release pollen, the company argues.

But could a robin swoop down on a newly planted fairway, skim a beakful of
genetically altered seed and drop it in tall grasses nearby?

"That is a possibility," said Bob Harriman, Scotts' vice president for
biotechnology.

There is evidence that genetically modified plants can propagate in the
wild.

In March 2001, a federal court in Saskatchewan ruled that a Canadian farmer
owed Monsanto thousands of dollars because the company's genetically
engineered canola plants were found growing in his field.

The plants had apparently germinated after pollen from the altered plants
had blown onto Percy Schmeiser's property from nearby farms.

Although Canada's Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Schmeiser did
not have to pay Monsanto for his 1998 crop, it did conclude that the
company had an enforceable patent. Thus Monsanto can continue to charge
farmers licensing fees, sell them new seed every year and inspect fields
looking for cheaters.

After 50 years of growing canola and a six-year legal battle that Schmeiser
figures cost more than $400,000, the 73-year-old farmer has planted his
acreage in oats and peas.

"I can't grow canola any more because if I go to a seed house it's all
contaminated by Monsanto's (genetically modified) seed," Schmeiser said.

"The same will happen with grass seed. You'll have grass cross-pollinating
into wheat. Any farmer with experience will tell you: There's absolutely no
way to keep this from spreading."

Deregulation sought

To begin selling the new grass seed, Scotts in May 2002 petitioned the
federal government to deregulate Roundup Ready bentgrass.

By that September, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued
Scotts a letter of deficiency on the application. The inspection service,
citing rules protecting proprietary information, would not say what the
application lacked.

Scotts resubmitted its application last year. It could take a year before a
deregulation decision is reached, opening the door to sales.

Neil Hoffman, who oversees the agency's biotechnology deregulation process,
says the bentgrass application presents complex issues that the agency has
never faced before.

"This particular plant has a tendency to pollinate other plants," he said.
"It can spread very easily."

As the regulatory process has drawn on, Scotts and Monsanto reached a
decision that Olson and the other Madras farmers found hard to swallow: All
but a few acres of their Roundup Ready bentgrass fields would be taken out
of production.

This June, before the plants pollinated, they were sprayed with a herbicide
other than Roundup. They were later burned and the acreage tilled.

Jim King, a Scotts spokesman, said the company remains optimistic that its
new grass will be deregulated. But with last year's seed crop sitting in a
warehouse, he said, it didn't make sense to add to it.

Olson says the new era he envisioned in 1999 might one day be realized.

But for now, he is unsure what will be planted on the bare land. Maybe
alfalfa. Or carrots for seed.

"We are trying to keep this program alive," he said. "It has been a blow to
the farmers that were involved."

Oregonian researcher Kathleen Blythe contributed to this report. Alex
Pulaski: 503-221-8516; alexpulaski@news.oregonian.com

Copyright 2004 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.

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