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US farmers growing GM white maize
Posted: Tuesday, December 2, 2008 4:34 pm
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Millers, food companies and export markets have changed their minds, according to Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Regiser.

White maize, the variety that's milled into chips, taco shells and tortillas, has for years been free of genetic engineering. Millers and companies such as snack-food giant Frito-Lay bought only conventional, biotech-free varieties of the specialty maize from farmers.

But that's changing. Farmers in Iowa, Nebraska and other states started growing a small amount of genetically modified white corn this year after word came down from processors they would start accepting it.

Morry Bryant, Pioneer's key account manager for corn processing, said millers have changed their minds about biotech corn in part because of concerns about grain quality. Maize that has insect damage is susceptible to diseases that can make the grain toxic.

"When you have a healthier plant you typically have better grain quality," Bryant said. "They also like it because their growers like it."

Foreign corn buyers also are playing a role in the acceptance of biotech corn, Gerdes said. They already pay farmers a premium for white maize and feared that would go up unless they allowed farmers to grow genetically engineered versions, he said.

Darrel McAlexander, who farms near Sidney, Ia., and sells white corn to the Grupo Minsa mill in Red Oak, grew 50 acres of the biotech version this year. It turned in a sizable increase in yield of about 25 bushels per acre over the production he got on the other 1,400 acres of conventional white corn, he said.

"Now that Frito-Lay has approved it and some of the other food processors, I think we're going to see more" biotech white corn, said McAlexander, who is chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board.
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GMO (noun) 1. An acronym for the term, 'Genetically Modified Organism'. 2. A plant, animal or microbe with a genetic code which has been intentionally altered, such as through forced evolution (see selective breeding); through random mutations induced with radiation or chemicals (see mutagenesis); or through the selective transfer, promoting or silencing of specific genes (see genetic engineering). 3. Most generally, any descendant of a primordial urbiote. (See evolution.)

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