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Rootworm may alter feed economics in EU
(Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002 -- CropChoice news) --
Michael J Strauss,
Dow Jones, 09/10/2002, via AgNet:
Rootworm, the billion-dollar-a-year
scourge of U.S. and Canadian corn crops, has
appeared for the first time in Europe's main corn producer, France, and its
potential to spread quickly has set off a scramble to avert a broader
problem that could change the delicate economics of making animal feed
throughout Europe.
France produces 16 million metric tons a year of
corn, and the European feed industry is heavily reliant on it. About half of
the French corn is used by domestic feed mills and the rest is sold to mills
elsewhere in the European Union.
If the rootworm infestations that appeared in late August can't be stopped
from spreading, three things are bound to happen: First,
French corn yields would drop so output would diminish. Second, farmers
would start using pesticides that target rootworm. And third, they would
rotate their crops away from corn the following year, since that's a known
way of driving out the insect pest.
But Europe's opposition to genetically modified crops would cloud the
picture somewhat for imports, since much of the corn grown by the most
obvious potential sources - the U.S., Canada and Argentina - is genetically
modified.
A genetically modified version of corn has been
developed to fend off rootworm, but it's not yet ready for sale in North
America and it can't be sold in the E.U. as long as its member countries
maintain a moratorium on approving new GMOs. | |
