Tsk. Tsk. As if genetetically-engineered crops weren’t scary enough, a recent study revealed that as many as 37% of farmers planting genetically-modified BT corn crops aren’t complying with federal rules designed to maintain the crop’s resistance to damage from insects.
BT corn, you’ll remember, is genetically modified to be insecticidal. In other words, certain insects eating BT corn in fields should die. In order to help ensure that insects don’t grow resistant to the toxins in the plant, federal regulations written by the EPA require farmers to plant 20% of the fields with non-BT corn in order to serve as a refuge for insects. The hope is that if an insect becomes immune to the BT toxin, it will mate with a non-resistant insect from a nearby field, and their offspring will not be resistant to the toxin. As of 2008, 57% of the corn grown in the U.S. is BT corn.