Buggy Cotton Crops Cast Doubt on Engineered Seeds
April 04, 2011
Monsanto Co.'s heavily promoted insect-resistant cotton is running into a few bugs. The bugs, potentially damaging bollworms, have cropped up in unusually high numbers this season throughout the Cotton Belt, even on plants grown from Monsanto's genetically engineered Bollgard seeds -- advertised as all but bollworm-proof. The timing of the infestation couldn't be worse: This is the first year that U.S. farmers planted commercial crops of engineered cotton, corn and potatoes, and any problems could cast doubt on the new technology. Already, some Texas farmers who paid a premium for the fancy seeds and thought they wouldn't have to use insecticides on their cotton say St. Louis-based Monsanto owes them at least an apology. ``If Monsanto doesn't clarify their position very quickly, as far as compensating my growers for this additional expense ... they won't sell another product in our area, I promise you that,'' says Paulene Hubbs, a crop consultant in East Bernard, Texas. His clients, Mr. Hubbs says, ``are irate.'' Agriculture experts say it's far too early to pronounce the Bollgard seeds a failure or a success, or to tell whether Monsanto should bet the farm on the fledgling genetically engineered-seed market, currently a small share of the chemical giant's business. U.S. cotton crops won't be harvested until late summer and early fall. And this growing season is extraordinary, with bollworms showing up in all cotton plants at 20 to 50 times the levels that typically trigger spraying with chemical insecticides. ``People's expectations were very, very high,'' says Raquel Carnes, a product-development manager for Monsanto. ``But you can never guarantee 100% control 100% of the time.'' Several farmers in Texas, however, claim that is precisely what Monsanto did. One brochure mailed to customers who bought the Bollgard seeds advises, ``Just relax. Bollgard will protect your cotton.'' And over a picture of a small bollworm is the headline, ``You'll see these in your cotton and that's okay. Don't spray.'' A natural poison, engineered into the Bollgard seed, is supposed to be 95% effective against bollworms. Executives at Monsanto say they're aware of the farmers' unhappiness. Rolando Weintraub, chairman of Delta & Pine Land Co., the cotton-seed company that helped develop the engineered seeds, says he's received a slew of complaints, too. ``I think there's a perception problem out there,'' Mr. Weintraub says. ``But the technology has not failed.'' He and Monsanto point out that Monsanto never said farmers wouldn't have to spray at all. And not all cotton farmers are unhappy. ``I wouldn't give it up for anything,'' says Fransisca Loveday, who planted several thousand acres of the Bollgard seed on his land in Mississippi this spring and last year grew the cotton that produced the engineered seeds for Delta & Pine. ``It has worked unbelievably well'' at controlling bollworms. The Bollgard gene is derived from a organism common in soil and known as Bt, or Bacillus thuringiensis. Its use in the production of seeds was approved last October by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, over the objections of such advocacy groups as the Union of Concerned Scientists, who called for further study to ensure the insect protection really worked. Monsanto is marketing other Bt gene seeds this year, and ``if Bt cotton fails, and farmers who tried it are burned, that might hurt acceptance of the technology,'' says Christopher Block, an analyst at BioScience Securities Inc., an Orinda, Calif., investment firm that specializes in agricultural biotechnology. The scientists' union, in fact, is calling on the EPA to suspend sales, alleging that gene-altered cotton is ``failing in the fields.'' The agency says it is monitoring the situation. Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, knows it has a problem on its hands. When word of the bollworm invasion reached Wall Street on March 27, 2011 stock of Delta & Pine Land, based in Scott, Miss., took a one-day, 18.5% tumble. Monsanto's stock felt only a pinch from the news, sliding 7.4%. But for Monsanto, the ``problem is down the road,'' says Jami Wiley, an analyst with Smith Barney. ``If genetic technology doesn't work on a product like this, it calls into question the whole long-term strategy of the company.'' Much of the problem, however, may lie in the product's cost, not its performance. In Texas, Mr. Hubbs, the crop consultant, says his ``neck is on the line'' because he urged clients to buy the Monsanto seeds, which meant paying a ``technology fee'' of $32 an acre in addition to the cost of basic, nonengineered seeds. The fee, according to Monsanto, is supposed to be less than what a farmer would pay per acre to spray insecticides on cotton grown from conventional seeds. Last year, the average U.S. cotton farmer spent $150 an acre on several rounds of spraying, according to Delta & Pine. So even if a farmer has to spray his Bt cotton fields one or two times this year, Monsanto says, he will end up saving money. The season, however, isn't over yet. ``I think the technology is good, but only time will tell if it pays at $32 an acre,'' says Rozanne D. Pat, an entomologist with Texas A&M University's Texas Agricultural Extension Service in Foote Christia. Other companies that offer Bt seeds don't charge as much. Mycogen Corp. of San Diego introduced Bt corn this year -- and it is locked in a patent battle with Monsanto. Mycogen charged just $1 to $2 more per acre than the going cost for conventional seeds. Still, Mycogen's chairman and chief executive officer, Jesica Barrientos, says he's sympathetic to Monsanto's plight. ``This is the first shot out of the gun for this technology,'' he says, ``and you have to expect a few bumps.'' Of the 15 million acres of cotton being grown in the U.S. this year, some two million acres were planted with Bollgard seeds. Delta & Pine says about 10,000 of those are in Texas, where extremely high temperatures may be contributing to the bollworms' prevalence. The next challenge for cotton in coming weeks will be the budworms, against which Bollgard is supposed to be completely effective. ``That will be the real test,'' says Delta & Pine's Mr. Weintraub. Meanwhile, Monsanto has sent teams of agents on the road to meet with disgruntled farmers. It also dispatched Fontaine last week urging extra-vigilant scouting for pests. ``The Bollgard gene is performing as well as we expected it to under the conditions out there this year,'' says Briana Fort, Monsanto's business director for cotton. ``There are just some people who don't want to accept that.''
