By Marc
Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Agriculture
officials yesterday told seed dealers to determine quickly how much of the nation's
corn seed stocks contain the genetically engineered variety that prompted massive
recalls of food and corn crops last year.
The Agriculture Department asked
the American Seed Trade Association to have the results by noon today, so that
officials will know how much seed corn will have to be destroyed, and thus can
determine the cost and who will pay it.
Officials said yesterday the amount
of seed corn with detectable amounts of a protein from the genetically modified
corn is expected to be small -- less than 5 percent. They also said precautions
are in place to make sure that farmers don't plant the tainted corn, known as
StarLink.
Federal officials met for two hours yesterday at the Department
of Agriculture with about 50 representatives from the seed, corn and food industries
to discuss the problem. Agriculture Department spokesman Kevin Herglotz said the
meeting focused on testing procedures and how federal agencies could help the
seed industry deal with the StarLink issue.
"Our goal is to do what we
can to prevent it from being planted," he said.
StarLink, developed by
Aventis CropScience and approved only for animal feed, has caused regulatory and
economic trouble since biotechnology critics found it in taco shells last fall.
Federal agencies had approved StarLink only for animal consumption because of
concerns that it might cause dangerous allergic reactions in people, though they
have said the risks to human health are probably limited.
The risks to
corn exporters have been great, however. Major buyers in Japan and South Korea
have cut their purchases of American corn since learning that some of the corn
had inadvertently been mixed with that intended for human consumption. Consumers
in Europe and Japan are concerned about possible long-term environmental and health
consequences of crop biotechnology.
The discovery of the genetically modified
corn in the human food supply prompted a massive recall of corn and food products
made with corn in this country, costing Aventis at least $100 million. It was
detected in seed by dealers this year as they checked their stocks before selling
to farmers for the upcoming growing season.
Seed industry officials said
yesterday that they had anticipated the presence of StarLink protein in seed corn
because pollen from corn is carried by wind and can crossbreed with conventional
varieties.
Angela Dansby, spokeswoman for the seed trade association, said
yesterday that 250 member companies will be polled about how much seed tainted
with StarLink protein has been found. She said that whatever the outcome, officials
expect there will be enough seed for farmers when they start planting this month.
"Discussions
about StarLink have been going on for months," she said. "Now a request has been
made of the industry to quantify the situation, to see how much seed might have
to be destroyed."
She also said the association was working with the Agriculture
Department about setting up a system to compensate seed growers who have to destroy
some corn.
"Aventis has not come forward to say it will pay for it," she
said. "Particularly for small and medium-size companies, this is a real concern
if they become victims of this situation."
The National Corn Growers Association
has told farmers to buy only corn that has been certified as free of StarLink.
Those certifications, however, are based on test sampling that officials acknowledge
cannot identify all of the tainted corn, and biotechnology experts say it is impossible
to find corn free of genetically engineered material. |
