Responsibility for MSU Arson
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), which has claimed several arson-related fires in past years, faxed claims of responsibility to several media outlets three weeks after the fire. It caused more than $400,000 in damages to Agriculture Hall.
Agriculture Hall, built in 1909, is one of the oldest buildings on campus. The hall, considered a university landmark, completed a two-year, $8-million renovation last year. Faculty member offices have moved temporarily to Olds Hall and Wills House. Clean-up has begun on the building’s northeast corner, where several floors sustained charred walls and water damage.
The fax said the group set fire to the office of Catherine Ives, an associate professor who is heading MSU’s Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project. The program has been at MSU since 1991.
ELF claimed Ives was conducting research on the genetic engineering of crops. It targeted her office because her research is being paid for by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. and the U.S. Agency for International Development, organizations that pay for genetic engineering research, ELF spokesman Craig Rosebraugh said.
“There is a growing movement against (biotechnology),” he said. “People are very concerned about playing with the genes of a different species. We have no idea what the outcome will be.”
All genetic engineering products are tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency before going to the public.
Monsanto recently paid for five students to attend a conference in Africa, said MSU spokesman Terry Denbow. Monsanto’s contribution to Ives’ program was “limited to less than 1% of the project’s operation,” he said.
“Monsanto is a collaborator,” Ives said. “They certainly don’t set our agenda - but they openly support our work.”
Ives said she will continue to do business as usual.
“Our goal is to help developing countries improve agriculture production so that we will be able to provide food for the additional two billion people that will be on this planet in 25 years,” Ives said. “I can’t imagine that any environmental group would be able to justify destroying a program whose goal is to help people around the world feed themselves.”
ELF last struck in Michigan in 1998 when the organization released 5,000 mink from a mink farm in the Upper Peninsula.
The last on-campus arson was in 1992 when animal rights activists torched Anthony Hall and set laboratory animals free. The Animal Liberation Front, which is not affiliated with the ELF, claimed responsibility for that fire, which also destroyed years of research. Although the groups are separate they sometimes collaborate on arsons.
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