Minnesota Farm Guide: Leading Farm Newspaper

FARGO, N.D. - This year marks the 10th year that biotech crops have been planted in the United States, including biotech versions of corn, cotton, canola and soybeans. More are on the way.

The biotech crops listed above have been readily accepted by growers. This past growing season, 90 percent of the soybean acres in North Dakota were seeded with Roundup® Ready seed, according to NDSU Extension Agronomist Duane Berglund.

A large majority of the items on the grocery shelves in this country now contain some biotech food ingredient. D.C. Coston, vice president for Agriculture and University Extension at NDSU, said the latest figures he has seen estimate 80 percent of the products have a link to biotech products. With this large degree of acceptance, seed companies are continuing to apply biotech research to many areas of crop production that will benefit growers and consumers alike.

Bill Wilson, NDSU agricultural economist, told those gathered for a Crop Biotech Update Conference in Fargo on Sept. 21-22, that it costs $80-100 million to develop and successfully market a new biotech trait, with $20-40 million of that just in satisfying regulatory requirements. In looking at the time factor, 8 to 10 years is an average time frame for bringing a new biotech trait to market.

And biotech has had a profound impact on the state's agriculture picture, as farmers are starting to shift from the traditional small grain production to row crops, Wilson noted.

"This past year we had row crop income totaling $600 million in the state, which is starting to close in on the $1 billion in small grain income," he said.

Biotech developments can be broken into two main categories - input traits and output traits. Jack Bernens from Syngenta outlined input traits as those things that can lower production costs, increase yields or improve environmental practices. Output traits, on the other hand, can improve a food or feedstuff once it gets to the processing stage, can result in a new food for the consumer, benefit the environment or show potential for a pharmaceutical benefit.

In addition to Bernens, Monsanto's Paul Isakson and Tom Frappier with Pioneer Hi-Bred International, outlined biotech developments their respective companies are now working on.

All three mentioned research on drought resistance, especially in corn. Not only would this improve yields during times of low rainfall, but would reduce the water needs of irrigated corn.

All the companies are looking for a biotech way to control second-generation corn borer and corn rootworm infestations. Better nitrogen utilization for corn is also being researched on the biotech side and work is being done with corn amylase to improve the ethanol output from corn, which is currently about 2.7 gallons per bushel of corn.

Bernens said his company is examining biotech ways to improve corn varieties for silage and develop corn varieties with higher protein levels and other improved traits for better livestock utilization. He also noted that his company is still searching for a Fusarium head blight resistant line of wheat, "but the pace of any wheat research has slowed considerably because of the high risk factor."

Monsanto is working on improving cold stress tolerance in corn, which would enable producers to plant earlier in the spring, and also developing a high lysine corn line, which would enhance the animal feed value of the corn.

Isakson also mentioned his firm is research ways to improve soybean oil for the consumer and also finding a means to introduce an omega-3 component into both soybean and canola oils.

On the energy side of the equation, Monsanto is exploring high oil yielding soybean and canola varieties that could be used in bio-diesel production and they are looking into how other crops can fit into the renewable bio-energy market.

Frappier noted Pioneer, in addition to many of the other things listed, is looking at developing new varieties that will show resistance to using sulfonylurea weed control chemicals. He said the partnership of Pioneer and DuPont has budgeted $340 million for biotech research this year.

All of the companies are using another form of biotech-molecular markers.

"By using molecular markers we are able to enhance our plant breeding efforts," Frappier said. "We can get six generations of plant breeding work done in a 12-month period."

Isakson stressed the need for agriculture to work together in the biotech arena. "Agriculture needs to address biotech as a unified effort," he stressed, "not as segmented groups as we presently have."

The day's session concluded with remarks on biotech safety assurances from Chuck Lambert, Undersecretary of Agriculture for Regulatory Program for the USDA. He noted there are three agencies within the USDA that deal with biotech issues:

€ The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is charged with all pesticide safety issues - whether it be insecticides, herbicides, fungicides or others.

€ Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is involved with all food safety concerns and administers the Food Safety Act of 2002.

€ Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which regulates plant and animal protection matters and deals with health issues for agricultural products.

With these three agencies looking at biotech research, the public can be assured there is an extremely high degree of safety with any biotech product, but some of our foreign trade partners still are concerned about food sources from biotech research.

"We know there are some trade issues with GMO crops," Lambert noted, "and we have lessened some of those fears by showing those countries how we conduct our risk assessments to insure these products are safe."