Author: Anthony Shadid
Publication: Boston Globe
Date: Thursday, March 22, 2001

Labeling requirements in Europe and Japan and growing consumer demand for food that is not genetically engineered could require a sweeping overhaul of agricultural sales and marketing in the United States, a new report by the US Department of Agriculture says.


Farm specialists and some environmental advocates worry that, while such an overhaul might be required - the contamination of corn last year by the unapproved StarLink variety being the latest example - the measures to segregate crops could cost billions of dollars and take years to implement.


Even then, they say, their success might be in doubt.


``Contamination can occur at any point in the process, from when the seed goes into the ground to when it`s safely in a product some place,`` said Neil Harl, an economics professor and farm expert at Iowa State University. ``It poses a very large problem with substantial economic costs.``


Genetically engineered crops - mainly corn, cotton, and soybeans - entered the market five years ago, promising a revolution in what we grow and how we grow it. The appeal of plants that can tolerate herbicides or produce their own insecticides led to their rapid adoption. About 40 percent of corn grown in the United States is now genetically engineered.


On the horizon is a potpourri of engineered traits - insect-resistant eggplant, tomatoes with anticancer agents, rice high in iron, naturally decaffeinated coffee, and corn that can grow a rabies vaccine.


More and more, the question has become how to segregate those crops from their conventional counterparts - a demand being made by trading partners, some of whom now require labeling. While less wary than Europeans, American consumers, too, have expressed a degree of skepticism over biotech foods. The US organic market, for example, has surged in recent years.


That anxiety was driven home by the scare over StarLink corn, whose presence prompted a costly nationwide recall last year of corn chips, taco shells, and other food products. StarLink, which is engineered to produce a protein toxic to insect larvae, was approved only for use as animal feed out of concern that it might cause allergic reactions in humans.


To forestall a similar episode or to meet organic or export requirements could require the costly and time-consuming segregation of biotech crops from nonbiotech crops, said the report, which was released this week. That would force testing at every step in the process and, in all likelihood, construction and renovation of grain facilities across the country.


``With these real bulk commodities, which are indistinguishable from each other, it does make it more challenging,`` said Robbin Shoemaker, the report`s editor and an official in the USDA`s Economic Research Service.


There are already signals that such segregation is needed.


Europe has effectively barred US corn imports over the use of genetically engineered seeds - costing American farmers a $200 million a year market because they are unable and unprepared to segregate different varieties.


Last year, the European Union also began requiring strict labeling for foods whose ingredients exceed a 1 percent limit on genetically engineered content - one of the world`s toughest standards. Japan has set the level at 5 percent. No specific tolerance is set for organic foods in the United States.


``At this point, it`s going to be very difficult to keep these crops segregated and it`s going to be a major challenge to do so,`` said Matt Rand, campaign manager for biotech at the National Environmental Trust.


The government report stopped short of putting a price tag on the overhaul, but Harl estimated it could run into the billions of dollars and require three to five years to put into place. While possible, Harl said the likelihood of success for a segregated market is ``low.``


Even with segregated facilities, up to a bushel of corn can remain in a combine, seed stays in a planter box and elevators mix up crops, he said.


Contamination, either through crops mixing or biotech varieties cross-pollinating with nonbiotech varieties miles away, is the main reason StarLink remains a headache for consumers, farmers, food companies, and the companies responsible for the seed, Aventis CropScience.


John Wichtrich, the company`s general manager, said Aventis has contained 99 percent of the StarLink corn grown in 2000, requiring 1.7 million tests and forcing the rerouting of more than 8,000 trucks, 15,000 rail cars, and 285 barges. He admitted, though, that the company will never be able to completely remove the variety from the country`s corn supply.


``It`s a far bigger deal than most people thought,`` Harl said.


Tests, meanwhile, remain too slow and too costly.


Under the current system, routine tests of crops take less than two minutes. To determine biotech content would require new tests at every stage that can take several hours to a few days and cost hundreds of dollars. (One test costs up to $450 for each application.)


``The efficiency of the US grain marketing system could be compromised unless more rapid, accurate, and economical biotech testing methods are developed,`` the report warned. It added that such testing was essential.


Shoemaker called the obstacles ``temporary barriers.``


Some critics, though, questioned whether the genetically engineered crops should have been adopted without taking into account the demands it would place on the country`s industrial-scale marketing system.


``The technology has jumped in front of the regulations,`` said Rand of the National Environmental Trust. ``Now we`re faced with coming up with the regulations after the technology has already been introduced.``