Monsanto announced yesterday that it will restrict sales next year of one variety of genetically modified corn and delay until 2002 the introduction of another in order to avoid disrupting U.S. grain exports. American corns sales to Japan and other countries have fallen markedly this fall after the StarLink biotech corn variety, which was not approved for human consumption, was found to have made its way into the food stream. Monsanto also pledged yesterday to be more open about its biotechnology endeavors and to engage in dialogue with its critics. "We missed the fact that this technology raises major issues for people — issues of ethics, of choice, of trust, even of democracy and globalization," said Monsanto President Hendrik Verfaillie. But biotech critic Jeremy Rifkin said the company was still missing the point. "They’ve got it all wrong if they think the issue was arrogance or transparency," Rifkin said. "Genetic engineering creates some serious potential environmental and health problems."
