They took all of the precautions they thought necessary to make sure their 100 acres of corn was organic, a tag that can double the earnings on their yield. The Fitzgeralds found themselves victims of ''genetic drift,'' a relatively new and disturbing phenomenon. When the harvest came, they tested their corn. The Fitzgeralds' story highlights a problem most recently brought to light by the lingering trouble caused by contamination from StarLink corn. Across the nation, the planting of genetically engineered seeds has surged since their introduction in 1996, and now accounts for as much as a quarter of all corn grown in the United States, including Massachusetts.
Some farmers say it's the problem of their neighbors, while others accuse the seed companies.
The seed companies look for help from the government in setting more flexible standards. Insurance companies say their policies won't cover genetic drift, the term used to describe cross-pollination between biotech and nonbiotech fields. That reflects not only the novelty of the problem but also a sense that studies are still lacking on the scope of drift - how far pollen can travel, for instance, and how big farmers' losses might be. On one level, those losses are already substantial. Since 1997, the European Union has effectively barred US corn imports over the possibility that genetically engineered varieties unapproved in the EU have mixed with sanctioned crops.