Bugs 1, corn 0

When Monsanto rolled out the Bt modified corn in 2003, they said it would be an answer to a farmer's dreams, impervious to western corn rootworms. Why the corn manufactured its own insecticide. Now over 65% of the country's corn production is in the genetically modified corn. Monsanto Co. created the Bt strain by splicing a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis into the plant organism.

And guess what, the rootworms have now managed to work out a resistance and now the rootworms are munching on the stuff like crazy. First noticed at Iowa State.

Scientists point to several things in regards to the reason for the problem. They say that they always knew that some resistance would be developed. But farmers needed to practice crop rotation and also plant a non Bt corn/traditional zone in their field to give the rootworms something to eat.

"But growers often go for expediency over long-term investments in multi-pronged and labor intensive crop protection."Janet Raloff

Experts pointed out to the record price of corn as a reason that the farmers failed to rotate.

"If rootworms do become resistant to Bt corn, it "could become the most economically damaging example of insect resistance to a genetically modified crop in the U.S.," said Bruce Tabashnik, an entomologist at the University of Arizona. "It's a pest of great economic significance — a billion-dollar pest."

We are not smart enough to play around with this stuff and properly assess the potential harm GMO foods will wreak on a fragile ecosystem. Farmer isn't going to always do the right thing if there is money on the line.