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By Claire Robinson
In a classic example of how shamelessly Big Agribiz pivots its marketing, the current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was part of the legal team that scored the first major court victory against Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller, is being used as an unwitting front man for “biologicals.”
These are substances derived from living organisms that agribusiness companies are increasingly promoting to farmers with claims of improving soil or crop health or controlling pests and diseases — all supposedly with the added benefit of reducing the use of chemical pesticides that still provide the largest chunk of the companies’ profits.
“Biologicals” can be genuinely natural. For example, the biocontrols used in organic farming include ladybirds employed to combat aphids and nematodes used against slugs and snails.
But they can also be genetically engineered organisms or GMOs, such as GM microbes, which can pose serious risks to human and animal health and the environment.
The motivation for Big Agribiz to market GMO “biologicals” is strong, given the ease with which GM products can be patented and a receptive market of farmers weary of chemical dependency and the consequent depleted soils.
We know that RFK Jr. aims to reduce toxic exposures that could contribute to ill health and favours organic farming. Evidently, in the eyes of Big Agribiz, that makes him ripe for exploitation as a walking, talking ad man for the new “biologicals.”
That’s clear from an article in the farming press promoting these products and citing representatives of the GMO agribusiness companies that develop them.
The article starts by featuring an organic farmer who says he doesn’t use chemical inputs. The farmer says more producers will follow suit, thanks to RFK Jr., who “has long advocated for American growers to curb their reliance on certain chemicals to grow and protect crops, claiming they can be toxic.”
The article then immediately moves to “biologicals” produced by Big Ag companies, as if it’s just a continuation of the more natural, less toxic approach to farming favored by RFK Jr:
“A lot of money is being invested into biological technologies … Heavyweight agriculture companies including Bayer Ag, Syngenta AG and Mosaic Co. are making moves in the market.
“Biologicals now stand at about $15 billion in global revenue a year. That’s on track to reach $25 billion by 2030, according to Mark Trimmer, founder partner and president of research firm DunhamTrimmer.
“Meanwhile, the roughly $70 billion market for conventional agriculture chemicals, where Bayer and the rest have their roots, has seen growth of around 3% annually for more than a decade and that figure is likely to stay steady.”
The article goes on to quote Jonty Brown, global head of seed care and biologicals at Syngenta, which is “expanding in the sector,” as saying, “Farmers, no matter where you go in the world, say they want to use biologicals.”
Existing GM ‘biologicals’ unimpressive
Some “biologicals,” including GM microorganisms made with new genetic engineering techniques such as gene editing, are already out there in the marketplace or in the pre-commercialisation phase.
Are these GMO products going to save farming from chemical dependency? It seems unlikely, judging by one example that’s already marketed in the U.S. Pivot Bio’s GM gene-edited nitrogen-fixing products aim to reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use while maintaining or boosting yield.
However, a 2023 analysis of 26 university-based corn trials of Pivot Bio’s products, tested alongside other non-GM microbial products, found that 25 showed no significant yield increase over the non-GM microbial products.
More importantly, neither the GM nor the non-GM products reliably increased yield over and above the effect of the applied synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
The authors wrote, “In total, over all products, there were 53 corn experiments on biological N[itrogen]-fixer products, with 51 experiments finding no benefit to their use,” with just two experiments finding a yield benefit over nitrogen treatment alone.
The authors concluded, “Given the low rate of positive benefits to the use of these products, growers should be skeptical of products that claim to provide … N-fixation for the purpose of allowing a farmer to decrease fertilizer N rate.”
The safety question
Are Pivot Bio’s products safe? The New York Times reporter Eric Lipton wrote, “After aggressive lobbying in Washington, Pivot successfully has argued along with other industry players that its products do not require a safety review by American regulators,” linking to the relevant letter written in 2022 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) by Pivot, Bayer, Corteva and other interested companies.
Responding to Lipton’s article, Pivot responded that its “products are absolutely regulated … We believe regulation is important and have never, nor would, ask to avoid regulation. Pivot’s products have been reviewed by the USDA, FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration, EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] and regulators in all the states in which they are sold.”
If that sounds like a reassuringly stringent process, the companies’ letter to the USDA tells a different story. The companies are seeking clarity over how the USDA will regulate GM microorganisms for agricultural use, as the path wasn’t yet established.
They argue that if a microbial product isn’t expected to pose a plant pest or disease risk (the USDA’s narrow remit when it comes to “regulating” GMOs), and if it’s gene-edited or cisgenic (the latter involving insertion of genes from the same species), it should be exempted from regulatory review.
Sadly, the USDA, in its 2024 guidance for applications to release GM microbes, restricted itself to assessing whether GM microbes pose a plant pest or disease risk. The good news is that the USDA didn’t exempt gene-edited microbes from regulatory review.
But the other bad news is that while the USDA, according to Pivot, did review the company’s nitrogen-fixing bacteria through its “Am I Regulated?” process, it decided that they were not regulated.
Pivot Bio says this “precedent-setting determination” should serve as “an example of the types of exemptions to be included in the development of new pathways to commercialisation for modified microbes.”
We don’t know exactly what RFK Jr. would make of these machinations or the particular products in question. But it is clear that GMO “biologicals” are far from the organic and less-toxic type of farming that he — and many ordinary people — want to see thriving.
In fact, they seem like exactly the kind of farming approach that RFK Jr., the most prominent supporter of organic farming in any recent administration, opposes.
That will, of course, be no obstacle to the shameless marketeers of Big Agribiz, who have already set about hijacking “regenerative agriculture” with the aim of massively expanding their markets and profits.
Originally published by GMWatch.
Claire Robinson is editor at GMWatch.
