StarLink stigma begins to fade for US corn
Date: 03-May-02
Country: USA
Author: K.T. Arasu
The discovery of StarLink corn in taco shells sparked a nationwide food recall, hampered exports to Japan and South Korea and spawned class-action lawsuits from farmers as corn prices fell.
In the United States, StarLink was approved for animal feed but not for human consumption because of concerns over possible allergic reaction.
On Tuesday, however, the Korea Corn Processing Industry Association bought corn supplies from the United States for human consumption for the first time since the StarLink issue arose in September 2000.
The condition was that the cargo of non-genetically modified corn should be accompanied by documents showing it had been tested for StarLink corn, which was spliced with a gene to make it deadly to insect pests that cost millions of dollars in crop damage each year in the United States.
"This sale does have some bells and whistles attached, as far as it's non-GMO and the testing requirements in the contract, but it does show there is an easing of the concerns," analyst Shawn McCambridge of Prudential Securities said.
He also said the StarLink scare had led to policy changes, with the U.S. government saying it would no longer approve crops for only food or feed use, as it did with StarLink.
"It's a learning process when you come out with a new item like this (StarLink). I don't foresee any genetically modified grain coming out on the world market or in the U.S. market that is not approved for both food and feed use," he added.
Larry Cunningham, spokesman for Archer Daniels Midland Co. , said the agribusiness giant was continuing to test grains flowing through its facilities for StarLink.
"We will continue (to test) for a while until we are 100 percent sure there's no evidence of it," he told Reuters, adding that ADM had no firm date to end testing.
Cunningham said it had been a "long period of time" since the company's testing had shown up traces of StarLink.
"There were some well-crafted plans on how to contain it, and for the farmers to channel it," he added.
David Feider, a spokesman for Cargill Inc., the top grain exporter in the United States, said the company was also continuing to test its grain supplies for StarLink.
Latest data from the U.S. Agriculture Department showed that corn purchases by South Korea so far in the 2001/02 season, which ends Aug. 31, were only 45 percent of last year's pace.
South Korea bought a total of 1.1 million tonnes in the week ended April 18, compared with 2.1 million in the same year-ago period, USDA's Thursday weekly export sales report showed.
The Asian country had turned to Argentina and China as substitute sources of corn for human consumption, U.S. exporters said.
Export sales to Japan totaled 11.3 million tonnes in the week of April 18, up from 11.2 million in the year-ago period. Japan is forecast by the USDA to import 15.3 million tonnes in the 2001/02 season, down from 16.3 million in 2000/2001.
Exporters pegged the expected fall in Japan's corn imports to an outbreak of mad cow disease in the country, detected in September last year, which has hit meat consumption there.
