NYTimes.com Article: Gene-Altered Corn Changes Dynamics of Grain Industry

[Guest guest]

This article from NYTimes.com

has been sent to you by angelprincessjo.

 

 

 

Gene-Altered Corn Changes Dynamics of Grain Industry

 

December 11, 2000

By DAVID BARBOZA

 

 

 

 

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - At the Archer Daniels Midland

Company's plant these days, the arriving truckloads of No.

2 yellow corn all need to pass the same test: they are

checked for odor, damage, moisture, and something called

Cry9C.

 

A seven-member crew divides, sifts, weighs, grinds and even

sniffs the corn samples - a practice that grew more

complicated a few weeks ago, after Kraft Foods recalled

millions of taco shells possibly containing StarLink, a

genetically engineered variety of corn that produces the

Cry9C protein. The corn is not supposed to be in the human

food supply because of concerns it might trigger allergic

reactions.

 

Now, after a series of recalls, nearly every major food and

agriculture company is frantically testing for Cry9C. The

result has been a costly disruption to the nation's

grain-handling system. Scores of trucks, rail cars and

river barges are being turned away daily by inspectors who

say that a splotch of red dye has turned up on what looks

like a home pregnancy test, meaning their corn is not fit

for food.

 

" It's a logistical nightmare, " said Steven Phillips, the

grain merchandiser at East Central Iowa Co-op in Hudson, a

supplier to the plant here. " We had 15 truckloads of corn

rejected last week. "

 

The costs for the corn's developer, Aventis CropScience,

are huge. It has promised to find markets for this year's

StarLink crop and to compensate farmers, elevator operators

like Mr. Phillips and processors for some of their

expenses. Aventis received less than a million dollars in

licensing fees over the last three years on StarLink, but

the controversy could cost the company several hundred

million dollars to resolve.

 

The StarLink episode has also raised the decibel level in

an already high-pitched debate over the agricultural use of

biotechnology. Though most farmers seem to favor biotech

crops, saying they deliver higher yields or cut down on

chemical spraying, many here in Iowa say they are growing

wary.

 

Grain processors are warning farmers about next year's

harvest, with Archer Daniels running radio commercials

emphasizing that its plants will not accept genetically

altered crops that do not have worldwide approval. And some

farmers are questioning whether to plant even varieties

that have been approved for human consumption

 

" I don't know what I'm going to do, " said Chris Huegerich,

a farmer in Breda, Iowa, who grows Roundup Ready soybeans,

a bioengineered variety that can be exported worldwide. " I

want to do Roundup Ready beans but I'm worried something

might happen. You just don't know. "

 

Planting of StarLink, in any case, is moot; Aventis has

already withdrawn its license for further sale. And no

actual health hazards have been established from StarLink

or any other bioengineered crops on the market. But some

agricultural experts say they are worried that the StarLink

case is simply a harbinger of more troubles to come.

 

Among other things, they say, the Cry9C mess shows how

complicated the logistics of biotechnology can be for a

grain-handling system that typically ships undifferentiated

crops in bulk.

 

" We're not cut out to segregate, " says Gary Alberts, a

spokesman for the Iowa Institute of Cooperatives, a trade

association for elevators. " We handle a lot of grain in a

hurry. We're built to load a rail car in a day. "

 

Yet now that farmers can choose between traditional and

biotech seeds, new sorting, segregating and distribution

needs are arising that may radically alter the dynamics of

a grain-handling system built on economies of scale.

 

In the United States, a few big food makers have said they

will seek conventional crops because of consumer concerns,

but for the most part they have contracted directly with

farmers to grow, say, nonbiotech corn for Frito-Lay chips.

So there has been relatively little need for testing or

segregation in the general grain supply.

 

But with increasing skepticism among consumers in Europe

and Japan about bioengineered food, and in some cases new

requirements for labeling, the need to separate

bioengineered and conventional crops has grown. And so

there may be more scenes like the roadblocks set up to stop

any StarLink corn from getting into processing plants.

 

On a chilly morning in Cedar Rapids, a steady stream of

semis was pulling up under a canopy at the inspection site

to have their loads tested before entering the Archer

Daniels corn processing plant, where raw corn is turned

into high-fructose corn syrup, corn starch and other

products.

 

Inspections have always taken place at processing plants,

to check the quality, moisture and weight of crops, but

these days two additional men are sitting by a coffee

grinder, grounding up corn samples, shaking them up in

water, dipping tiny strips into the solution and then

waiting 10 minutes for the results.

 

By 9:45 a.m., the inspectors had rejected 9 trucks out of

213, each filled with about 950 bushels of corn. The number

of trucks turned away is striking, since less than 0.5

percent of this year's corn acreage nationwide was planted

with StarLink seed. The elevators that shipped the corn are

then stuck with it until they can find an alternative buyer

for another use.

 

The inspections have clearly slowed the process of shipping

corn to market, and some farmers and truckers complain that

the tests being used, intended to detect Cry9C in one

kernel of corn out of 400, are flawed.

 

" It's all in the probing, " said one trucker, who asked not

to be identified. " You have 10 samples that test positive

and then one that doesn't. It's all the luck of the

samples. "

 

Farmers and truckers say their loads could be rejected over

the presence of just one StarLink kernel in a batch of

grain sampled from the 950 bushels. And while the truckers,

and farmers, have been promised compensation, they say the

difficulty of finding new buyers, and possibly losing out

in some markets, has been troubling.

 

To ease the situation, Aventis has asked the Environmental

Protection Agency to approve StarLink for human consumption

for four years, to allow the StarLink corn already

harvested to work its way through the food chain. In the

meantime, several processors are asking the E.P.A. and food

companies to make a tiny percentage of Cry9C acceptable in

food, as they do with many other impurities.

 

" When the handler makes the decision, they have to have

realistic expectations, " said an Agriculture Department

official. " When they have zero tolerance, it's

impractical. "

 

Farmers may be the hardest hit by all the testing. Even

some who knew nothing about StarLink say it has turned up

in their harvest.

 

" I didn't grow any StarLink corn, but I got contaminated by

a neighbor, " said Keith Weller, 50, who farms near

Westside, Iowa. " This issue of contamination is a real

problem. "

 

Some farmers who planted StarLink say they were not told

about 660-foot buffer zones mandated by the E.P.A. between

StarLink corn and corn grown for food, and they say pollen

may have drifted even longer distances, leading to cross-

pollination with a neighbor's crop.

 

Randy Kohorst, a 43-year-old corn and soybean farmer in

Arcadia, Iowa, says he planted 200 acres of StarLink. But

he says he was told nothing by the Garst Seed Company of

Slater, Iowa, which sold him the seed, about buffer zones

or marketing restrictions.

 

" We had it harvested before we heard it was a problem, " he

said. " And it was commingled, so now all my production is

contaminated. "

 

Now he is stuck with a StarLink crop and complaining about

lost marketing opportunities.

 

A spokesman at Garst said that the company was informing

farmers about the requirements placed on use of StarLink

corn. " It's unfortunate some customers say they weren't

informed about the program, " said Jeff Lacina, the

spokesman. " But we worked hard to get that message out. "

 

And corn prices - already in a slump - may decline further

this year because exports to Japan, the largest purchaser

of American corn, are down because of concerns about

StarLink, which has also been found in food there.

 

Mr. Kohorst and other farmers say the problem may be

costing them more than the 25-cent premium Aventis is

offering for the StarLink crop.

 

Elevator operators, who buy crops from farmers and then

ship them to giant processors or feed lots, are also facing

inconvenience, despite receiving extra transportation

expenses from Aventis.

 

For Aventis, containing the spread of StarLink is not easy.

The company says it has accounted for 90 percent of the

350,000 acres planted in 2000, but it admits that the 1998

and 1999 harvests are either buried on farms and elevators

(in an undocumented fashion) or have already reached the

market and entered the food stream.

 

To help deal with the problem, the company has supplied

Cry9C test kits to grain elevators and processors around

the country. It also says it will help farmers who did not

plant StarLink but whose crops were contaminated by

cross-pollination to find a market for their corn, and will

consider additional compensation in some cases.

 

The bigger cost, though, could be borne by the biotech

industry, which has spent billions of dollars over the last

decade to develop genetically altered crops that mean

higher yields for farmers and may some day deliver

medicines and vaccines as well.

 

That effort, of course, could be upset if farmers decide

not to plant biotech crops like Roundup Ready soybeans and

corn, which are bioengineered to resist a common Monsanto

herbicide called Roundup. Though the soybeans can be sold

everywhere, the corn is unapproved in Europe.

 

" StarLink has definitely set back the biotech industry,

maybe five years, " said Lewis W. Batchelder, a senior vice

president at Archer Daniels, which is based in Decatur,

Ill.

 

Regardless of what farmers decide to plant, Jim Magnuson,

general manager at the Sully Cooperative Exchange, an

elevator in Sully, Iowa, says farmers need to pay more

attention next year.

 

" For a producer, the lesson is to know exactly what you're

planting, " he said. " We as an industry have operated on the

handshake. But what we know now is that in a big, bad

world, those assurances no longer apply. "

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/business/11FARM.html?ex=1028552789 & ei=1 & en=675\

4db171f200aea

 

 

 

HOW TO ADVERTISE

 

For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters

or other creative advertising opportunities with The

New York Times on the Web, please contact

onlinesales or visit our online media

kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

 

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to

help.

 

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company