Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: MON quiz

…growers from the Southern US cotton belt are being asked what is the most important improvement they want to see in the VT Triple Pro [corn]. If the majority do not vote for reduced refuge, they are cheating.

You’re getting very warm insofar as you’ve zeroed in on corn growers in the Southern US cotton belt (nice job!), but you haven’t yet connected all the dots.

In the Southern US cotton belt, the refuge requirement for is 50% for VT Triple Pro corn and 20% for SmartStax corn.* There was no survey I know of in which growers voted about product preferences, but growers in this region effectively “vote” by deciding whether to buy VT Triple pro or SmartStax.

The question remains: How do we infer that refuge cheating by these Southern growers is widespread? Hint: The answer lies not in what the growers are doing, but rather in what MON is doing.

*SmartStax allows a smaller refuge than VT Triple Pro because it has two MoA’s against the corn rootworm, which makes it much less likely for resistant rootworms to develop (just as a cocktail of two antiviral drugs has a much higher barrier to resistance than monotherapy).