Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
with the National Environmental Policy Act's command for environmen-
tal review before it permitted Monsanto and other companies to plant
GM corn and sugarcane that had been modified to produce pharmaceu-
tical products, and that it also failed to address implications for endan-
gered species as required by the Endangered Species Act.
10
In December 2005, by which time APHIS had approved more than
10,600 applications for some 50,000 field tests, the Department of Agri-
culture's Inspector General released an audit critical of APHIS oversight
of field testing activities at a sample of 91 test sites in 22 states. Many
deficiencies were found. According to the audit, APHIS was not aware
of the precise locations of many test sites, and did not review company
protocols for containing test crops and preventing their persistence and
escape into the environment after completion of field tests. Of particu-
lar concern, it had not required planters of drug-producing GM plants
to report and verify appropriate disposition of their harvests, did not
prevent passersby from taking the experimental GM plants for possi-
ble consumption, and did not require that the companies involved prove
their financial ability to do site cleanup and proper disposition of their
products.
11
These findings of deficiencies in APHIS safety management of exper-
imental field testing and its apparent disregard for the special risks posed
by drug-producing GM crops led the Inspector General to make twenty-
eight recommendations, some of which the agency quickly rejected on
dubious grounds. For example, in rejecting the recommendation that it
require companies to report on the actual disposition of pharmaceutical
plants after harvest to ensure they would not be mixed with or otherwise
contaminate conventional food crops, the agency said that such reports
10
See
Center for Food Safety v. Johanns, 451 F.Supp.2d 1165 (D. Hawaii 2006).
See also
Geertson Seed Farms v. Johanns, 2007 WL 518624 (N.D. Cal. 2007) and International
Center for Technology Assessment v. Johanns, 473 F.Supp.2d 9 (D.C. 2007).
11
Office of Inspector General, S.W. Division, U.S. Dep't of Agriculture, Audit Report
50601-8-Te, APHIS Controls Over Issuance of Genetically Engineered Organism
Release Permits (2005).
See also USDA Finds Deficiencies in Regulation of Field Tests
,
25 (2) Biotechnology L. Rep. 148 (2006).
