Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Here’s the answer to the MON quiz on insect-refuge cheating. First, some background info: Pending regulatory approval, MON will offer corn growers a 95/5 “Refuge in a Bag” version of SmartStax and an 80/20 ‘Refuge in a Bag’ version of VT Double Pro. (The latter product is intended for growers in the Western US, where the corn rootworm is not a major pest and can be controlled with crop rotation.)

In the Southern US cotton belt, MON sells a cheaper alternative to SmartStax corn called VT Triple Pro, which requires a 50% insect refuge to protect the cotton crop. The clue that corn growers in the cotton belt are cheating on the insect-refuge requirement is that MON does not plan to offer a 50/50 ‘Refuge in a Bag’ version of VT Triple Pro.

MON has a quasi-official reason for not offering VT Triple Pro in a Bag, but the reason is essentially doubletalk. I contend that the real reason MON is not offering VT Triple Pro in a Bag is that such a product would implicitly force Southern US corn growers who are illicitly using a <50% refuge to increase the refuge to 50%, thereby reducing the growers’ overall yield.

As I said in the original post in this thread, this was a hard quiz :- )