Monsanto causes concern

Organic farmer Colleen McDaniel is concerned that agriculture giant Monsanto Co. has joined the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis. Photo by Emily Ford

Dr. Susan MacIsaac directs Monsanto's efforts at the N.C. Research Campus. Photo by Emily Ford

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — Most people have never heard of Monsanto.

But the company's arrival at the N.C. Research Campus has alarmed some environmentalists and organic food proponents.

The highest-profile tenant at the biotechnology complex in Kannapolis, Monsanto will build a 9,000-square-foot laboratory this summer in the Core Lab Building, the five-story campus centerpiece. Dole Food Co. chairman David Murdock owns the Research Campus, which includes branches of eight universities and more than a dozen private partners.

One of the most controversial companies in the United States, St. Louis-based Monsanto is the world's leading producer of genetically modified, or GM, seed and the herbicide Roundup.

Monsanto has laboratories around the globe. In Kannapolis, the company will try to boost the nutritional content and taste of vegetables.

Documentary films accuse Monsanto of abuses ranging from forcing small farmers out of business to poisoning the environment.

"I have concerns about Monsanto in general and the fact that they are coming to Kannapolis," said organic farmer Colleen McDaniel, who leases a half-acre at the Cabarrus County incubator farm and serves as co-chair of the Kannapolis Environmental Stewardship Commission.

"Their GM products are a risk to ancient seed stock that we've been using for hundreds and thousands of year," she said.

If the company grows genetically modified crops in Cabarrus County, local farmers would have a difficult time earning organic certification for the same crops due to cross-pollination, McDaniel said.

"It would be next to impossible for me to grow organic corn and soybeans," she said.

But Monsanto has no plans for growing fields in Cabarrus County and will not modify plant DNA at the Research Campus, said Dr. Susan MacIsaac, who will direct Monsanto's work in Kannapolis.

Instead, the company will use conventional plant breeding techniques to create better-tasting vegetables that pack a bigger nutritional punch.

"There will be no biotech involved in the work that we're doing at Kannapolis," MacIsaac said. "We think that biotech has an important role, but we will not be doing that here."

Monsanto wants to improve the flavor of vegetables so people will eat more of them and receive health benefits, she said.

Using state-of-the-art analytical tools at the Research Campus, the company can identify components of vegetables that contribute to flavor and then breed for those traits, she said.

Until now, scientists have been limited in their ability to detect and measure these components, she said.

"The tools have not been adequate," she said. "That's the benefit of being here on the campus."

Scientists have access to equipment they need to understand flavor and nutrition at the molecular level, she said.

Monsanto uses biotechnology to give a plant a new trait, such as herbicide tolerance, said Riddhi Trivedi-St. Clair, public affairs manager.

"We use biotechnology to confer a quality that a plant didn't have," she said.

But work done at the Research Campus will focus on enhancing taste and nutrition, qualities already present in vegetables, Trivedi-St. Clair said. Monsanto can do that using traditional breeding methods, she said.

Scientists will identify markers in plant DNA that are associated with traits of interest, MacIsaac said. They will use the markers to make selections during the breeding process.

The company's vegetable division in California will send plants to Kannapolis. While scientists at the Research Campus will do experiments and analysis, breeding and field testing will occur in California, MacIsaac said.

The company could have an unlikely ally in Cabarrus County Manager John Day, an advocate for organic and locally-grown food.

For decades, the food industry has bred crops for traits such as long shelf life and ease of mechanical harvesting, said Day, who serves on the N.C. Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council.

"But as a result of that process, taste and nutritional value diminished," he said.

Developing better-tasting, healthier vegetables "can have a huge, positive economic impact" in Cabarrus County and North Carolina, he said.

While Day acknowledged that he still has "deep concerns" about Monsanto's genetically modified seeds and Roundup Ready crops, which are genetically engineered to tolerate weed-killing chemicals, he said he wants to collaborate with the company in Kannapolis.

"If we can help them to produce a better, more nutritious crop that respects the environment, then I'm happy to help," he said.

Others, however, are not convinced.

The company's announcement that it will not alter plant DNA in Kannapolis hasn't swayed Bill Georgiou or Brad Hinckley.

"This doesn't justify the harm that they've done to this world," said Georgiou, a local political activist. "This doesn't change the fact that they created Agent Orange."

Murdock founded the Research Campus to help find a cure for cancer. Now the campus has welcomed a company that uses cancer-causing chemicals, Georgiou said.

"Where is the moral compass?" he said.

Monsanto has a monopoly on seed and some crops, said Hinckley, an organic farmer.

He was forced to use Roundup Ready corn when he raised cattle and hogs in Boone because there were no other varieties available, he said. Hinckley criticized the company's liberal use of chemicals.

"We don't know what all these chemicals are doing to our children," he said.

Monsanto is not aware of opposition to the lab in Kannapolis, Trivedi-St. Clair said.

"I'm not sure that we even have a good sense of that," she said.

No one from Kannapolis has complained to the company about Monsanto joining the Research Campus, she said. "If there is any opposition, it hasn't come to us directly."

How to respond to public opposition would be a decision made at the corporate level, Trivedi-St. Clair said. But in general, Monsanto welcomes conversations with local people interested in agriculture, she said.

"Monsanto is more than happy to engage with farmers every chance we get," she said.

When Monsanto joined the Research Campus last year, Dr. Steven Leath said he heard a few complaints.

"A small but vocal part of the population is concerned about biotech enterprises," said Leath, vice president for research for the UNC System. "But by and large, people are excited."

Leath worked with Monsanto at N.C. State University and helped recruit the company to Kannapolis. Monsanto has been "as good a corporate partner to the university as we could ask for," he said.

The company could collaborate with N.C. State in Kannapolis to develop super broccoli. Dr. Allan Brown's team has produced a line of broccoli with higher levels of anti-carcinogen compounds.

And he's ready to compare notes with Monsanto.

"We're excited to have them on board and are looking forward to their expertise," said Brown, whose office is next door to MacIsaac's.

Monsanto also has a five-year agreement with Dole, which will open a lab at the Research Campus, to investigate lettuce, broccoli, spinach and cauliflower.

"It's possible that within two to three years, you could see some of these products in the market," MacIsaac said.