Over the objections of some scientists, food millers and food processors, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will deregulate the first genetically engineered industrial corn crop, commonly called ethanol corn.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), allowing farmers to plant engineered ethanol corn will contaminate corn intended for food, which could have serious consequences for the U.S. food industry.
Approximately a third of all corn grown across the country is currently used for ethanol production. If the ethanol corn variety were widely adopted for industrial purposes, farmers could plant ethanol corn on tens of millions of acres, making contamination a virtual certainty.
“The USDA’s decision defies common sense,” said Margaret Mellon, director of UCS’s Food and Environment Program. “There is no way to protect food corn crops from contamination by ethanol corn. Even with the most stringent precautions, the wind will blow and standards will slip. In this case, there are no required precautions.”
The corn in question, Syngenta Seeds Corn Variety 3272, is genetically engineered to produce a synthetic enzyme called alpha-amylase that breaks down starch into sugar, which is necessary for ethanol production. Ethanol corn is an industrial product solely intended to cut the cost of ethanol production.
The alpha-amylase enzyme is designed to break down starch under numerous conditions, including high temperatures, and that can cause major problems–including shelf-life and quality–for a wide variety of corn-based foods. Industry data show that only one ethanol corn kernel in 10,000 is enough to affect viscosity in standard food processes. Contamination could cause corn snack food to be too fluffy to fit in a standard bag, corn batter to be too thin to coat corn dogs, and corn bread to be too soggy in the middle, UCS said.
Food processors are also concerned about the cost of monitoring their corn supplies for contamination. Syngenta acknowledges that processors will have to test food supply corn, forcing millers to cover this additional expenditure.
“The USDA has placed the interests of the biotechnology industry over the interests of food processors and the general public,” said Mellon, a molecular biologist. “The agency’s priorities are upside down. Food is far more important than ethanol. USDA needs to stop throwing the food industry under the biotechnology bus.”
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OMG….what am I going to do? My corn dog is falling apart!!!!—-corn cannot “contaminate” other corn,…cross-pollinate, yes, but not contaminate. This is the reason we use hybrids instead of breeding our own.
Genetically modified crops such as corn have been proven to drift to other crops. This relatively new science allows DNA (genetic material) from one species to be transferred into another species, creating transgenic organisms with combinations of genes from plants, animals, bacteria, and even viral gene pools.
The mixing of genes from different species that have never shared genes in the past is what makes GMOs unique. It is impossible to create such transgenic organisms through traditional crossbreeding methods.