Listen to this week’s radio segment here or read the transcript below. This week’s segment discusses rootworms’ resistance to insecticide.

The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that rootworms have developed a resistance to Monsanto seed corn in Iowa.

This is the Iowa Environmental Focus.

Iowa State University released a study back in 2011 indicating that rootworms in some states have developed a resistance to Monsanto’s genetically modified corn.

Now, for the first time, the EPA is verifying these findings. The EPA says that rootworms in Illinois and Iowa have become resistant to the insecticide built into the Monsanto seed corn, and it’s probable that rootworms have also become resistant in South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska. 

Before seeds with built-in insecticide were developed, rootworms accounted for about $1billion a year in crop damage and pesticide costs.

For more information on this issue, visit IowaEnvironmentalFocus.org.

From the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, I’m Jerry Schnoor.