| The Big Ag radio show, AgriTalk, has a recent show on the new GE corn Enogen, with side by side interviews of Syngenta's PR guy and a representative of the North American Millers' Association. Enogen, which was deregulated by the USDA today, is a genetically engineered variety of corn with an extra enzyme in it that makes it easier to turn into ethanol. And, while great for the ethanol industry, the new corn could be disastrous to food companies and grain millers if it finds its way into the food chain.
This show provides some new information that I had not heard before. First of all, Enogen has been approved for both the animal and human food supplies even though it is not intended for either. Therefore, if it is detected in say, taco shells, the taco shells won't have to be recalled. However, the North American Millers' Association is complaining that Syngenta never allowed them to get the necessary proof that Enogen would not be harmful to food production. Rumor has it that as little as one corn kernel in 10,000 will ruin a batch of whatever food producers are making. That's because the extra enzyme, Amylase, breaks down corn starch. Imagine baking something that calls for corn starch and accidentally having that corn starch completely break down... obviously that would impact, if not ruin, whatever you were baking. That's the gripe of the millers about this new GE corn.
If the words of Syngenta's PR guy are correct, if corn growers will get an extra $.40/bushel by growing this corn and selling it to ethanol producers, then a corn grower would have to be quite stupid to grow Enogen and then sell it into the human food supply. That said, stupidity happens. Just ask the Iowa farmer who grew non-Roundup Ready corn and, when it was about knee-high, sprayed the entire field with Roundup and killed the whole crop. That's not a made-up example. I saw the resulting field of dead corn with my own eyes.
The representative from the millers association gave an even more likely scenario, of some Enogen corn kernels remaining in a truck which is then loaded with regular non-Enogen corn, or something like that. If it happened, that would mean a very small amount of contamination, but if it only takes a small amount of contamination to make a real mess of things, you can see why they are concerned.
The reason why we are seeing so many GE crop deregulations now is because the USDA is working to finish everything before farmers buy this year's seeds. They want to allow the new biotech varieties into this crop year. Let's hope this was the last one for this year. |
