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Last week the Biotech industry shivered at the discovery that 500 bushels of soybeans containing residue from genetically altered "pharmaceutical" corn was mixed with food grade soybeans when delivered to an Aurora, Nebraska elevator. Apparently, the genetically altered material, not approved for human consumption, naturally "drifted" from a nearby test plot, then "volunteered" in a field of soybeans where it was harvested and transported unknowingly to the grain elevator. The contaminated material was mixed with 500,000 bushels of untainted soybeans which has been quarantined and could be destroyed at a cost of $2.7 million.

The "BioPharm" crop that drifted was an experimental type testing the utility of growing insulin for diabetes in corn. It was developed by a privately owned company called ProdiGene, Inc. They are among a growing number of firms using crops to produce pharmaceuticals and were cited for a similar infraction in Iowa earlier this fall. While biotech proponents championed the event as proof that biotech dangers can be quickly contained, opponents were quick to remind consumers that pharmacuetical biotech represents a Pandora's box our culture is not mature enough to open. "...someone is going to get prescription drugs or industrial chemicals in their corn flakes", said Larry Bohlen of the Friends of the Earth. See at: www.foe.org/.

According to DENlines (Nov. 14) the environment is a big loser in last week's elections as changes in the Senate will thrust anti-environmental senators into important committee chairmanships. They include Oklahoma's James Inhofe, who scored zero with the League of Conservation Voters for his votes in the last session of Congress, and Alaska's Ted Stevens, champion of such environmentally destructive ideas as logging in the pristine Tongass National Forest. The election took away at least three Senate votes for protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Trent Lott, the soon-to-be Senate majority leader, is already promising an aggressive push for new energy legislation that would include drilling in America's greatest wildlife preserve. Meanwhile, there is little discussion of alternative or biomass fuels. To read an election analysis from Robert Dewey, Defenders of Wildlife's vice president for government relations, click here http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/election02.html

3. CARGILL TO REPRESENT FARMERS IN WORLD TRADE?

In the continuing changes following the recent elections, the Agribusiness Examiner is reporting that President Bush has formally nominated Daniel Pearson, a long-time Cargill employee, to fill an empty seat at the International Trade Commission (ITC). Even though Cargill is a huge multi-national company that buys from, and sells to, the farm "sector," Pearson's nomination is being touted as solving the lack of "farm sector" representation on the ITC. According to the AgBiz Examiner, "At Cargill, he (Pearson) has most recently served as assistant vice president for public affairs and has been a policy analyst in the public affairs department since 1987, focusing primarily on trade policy issues." If his nomination passes, Pearson would serve a nine-year term expiring June 16, 2011. In related news, Cargill once again led Forbes Magazine's list of the top U.S. private corporations. At $50 billion-plus in annual sales, Cargill is twice the size of its closest rival, Archer Daniels Midland, and bigger than Procter & Gamble, AOL Time Warner or Merrill Lynch. See the AgBiz Examiner at: www.ea1.com/CARP/.

4. CONSERVATION SECURITY PROGRAM PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

When it comes to helping farmers nurture the health of the land and biodiversity, the newly enacted Conservation Security Program (CSP) is an important new resource. Legislated as part of the last farm bill, the CSP will function to improve conservation on "working lands" through a tiered system that incrementally rewards farmers for better conservation practices. Next year, farmers and members of the general public can potentially help shape CSP, said Daryn McBeth, government relations consultant for The Minnesota Project. "Bureaucrats are scheduled to finish drawing the proposed rules in March 2003 when the program will undergo 60 days to 90 days of public comment before being implemented. The public comment period could also determine who administers the program," McBeth said. As currently planned the state Natural Resource Conservation Service will probably administer the program, though decisions will have to be made on what resources to protect, payments levels, bonuses, and whether the program should be administered on a state-wide basis, or by counties or watersheds district. For more information about the CSP see The Minnesota Project's website at: www.mnproject.org.