Stowaway U.S. Corn Rootworm Eats Its Way Across Europe
|September 24, 2001| As far as farmers in Yugoslavia are
concerned, a tiny beetle known as the western corn rootworm is
an unholy force of nature more devastating than a drought and
fiendishly smarter than all of the smart bombs unleashed by NATO
during the 1999 Kosovo war. Fifteen years ago, one of these
beetles found her way onto a plane, perhaps at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport. Somehow sheand the results bear out that
is was definitely a sheended up in Belgrade. Arriving at the
airport in the Yugoslav capital, she liked what she saw: soil
and climate almost identical to her native Illinois, miles and
miles of gently rolling cornfields. She settled in for a feast.
With its prodigious appetite and prolific capacity for
reproduction, the western corn rootworm has been the bane of
Midwestern farmers since the 1950s. The yearly cost, measured in
crop losses and pesticide expenses, is estimated at U.S. $1
billion. Now this American pest is eating i