T here has been plenty of hand-wringing following the flap over StarLink Bt corn. No one in agriculture has been spared from its long shadow. The biotech industry is under attack. Our trading partners look beyond U.S. borders for corn to fill their ships. Grain buyers reject corn contaminated with the Cry9C protein, leaving growers to wonder if they will be paid for their harvest.
Consumers become more receptive to critics' claims that transgenic foods are unsafe.
Yet something good usually arises out of adversity, and the StarLink controversy is no exception. No longer could they guarantee that unapproved crops would not find their way into grain channels. A proper response took on new urgency to prevent biotech opponents from further capitalizing on the StarLink mess. Yet proponents of the science had to avoid actions that could inhibit the development and approval of the technology. Events that have unfolded since StarLink first became headline news provide a clue to the course agriculture is taking to ensure mistakes aren't repeated.