Posted on: Saturday, October 18, 2003

Seed firm cleared of Kaua'i violations

By Emily Gersema
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The largest seed company in the nation has been cleared of violations in a Hawai'i incident in which corn, genetically designed to resist a pest, got mixed up with neighboring crops, the Agriculture Department said yesterday.

Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. in West Des Moines, Iowa, will not face any more fines for the mix-up last year at its test site, said Cindy Smith, deputy administrator of biotech regulation for the department.

Pioneer conducted its experiments at its Waimea Research Station on Kaua'i.

The seed company paid $72,000 to the Environmental Protection Agency in April for failing to promptly tell government officials that the rootworm-resistant corn had strayed into a nearby field. At the time, the Agriculture Department also investigated because it also enforces regulations.

Courtney Chabot Dreyer, a spokeswoman for Pioneer, said the company was pleased that it will not face a fine.

Pioneer also paid a $9,900 fine to EPA in 2002 for breaking environmental rules in planting experimental corn. The company did not admit fault in the case, but officials said they would deal more carefully with the EPA when seeking permits for genetic research.

Also, the Web site for the Agriculture Department for the first time released a tally of violations of major biotech laws since 1990.

"It's not that we have recently uncovered new violations," Smith said. "What we've done is we've looked at all of the information that we've already had and done an analysis of all the reports."

The Agriculture Department found 115 violations out of the 7,402 field tests conducted from 1990 to 2001.

In eight cases, universities, growers and biotech companies had to pay civil penalties ranging from $200 to $250,000.

Of those, ProdiGene Inc. of College Station, Texas, got the biggest fine: $250,000. It was cited last year for failing to completely remove corn — designed to produce a pig vaccine — before growing soybeans. The company also had to pay $2.7 million to reimburse the government for burning the soybeans.

None of those "has resulted in contamination of the food or feed supply," Smith said.

Advertiser staff contributed some of the information on Hawai'i in this report.