Segregating Grain in a Post StarLink World

By Tracy Sayler

Transforming the high-speed, volume-based U.S. grain sector into a system that can efficiently segregate genetically-engineered grain from non-GMO grain can be accomplished, although it will take time and economic incentive.

Zero tolerance, however, is virtually impossible to achieve. No segregation system can obtain zero tolerance when measured at the DNA level, says Phil Kenkel, University of Tennessee ag economist.

Last November, Kenkel served on the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisory panel for the StarLink corn incident, discussing segregation and blending in the grain handling system.   His expertise in grain segregation came from a five-year research project on wheat quality and segregation strategies at Oklahoma State University. In the study, which involved about 1,000 trucks of wheat per year from 1995-1999, Federal Grain Inspection Service and elevator grades were obtained and segregation, blending, and cleaning strategies were analyzed.  In 1998-99, the analysis was expanded to include variety and kernel size uniformity. Conclusions from the study:

•  The value of test weight segregation is worth around five cents per bushel, and dockage segregation is worth at least one cent per bushel. “We found value to be gained by keeping high dockage wheat separate. It is more efficient to clean a smaller amount of high dockage wheat, rather than if it’s co-mingled,” says Kenkel.

•  Year-to-year variation in protein levels and premiums makes it difficult to identify optimal strategies in segregating high protein wheat.

•  Variety segregation would be difficult to achieve for many country elevators, and might only moderately improve kernel uniformity, since production conditions can vary with every field and every farm, even if the same variety is produced.

•  There was little benefit from segregating grain by regions of the state.  “Putting all the wheat grown in one part of the state together didn’t mill significantly better than if it had been kept separate,” says Kenkel.

•  High moisture loads of grain could be a problem in a segregated system. Since high moisture grain is prone to spoilage, it would need to be segregated for immediate sale, or storage in high air-flow bins.

Kenkel says that while there are instances where it is beneficial to segregate grain, there are also benefits to blending.  “Say you had a GMO variety of wheat, for instance, that you needed to keep separate. Then if you had to have a GMO wheat high dockage bin, and a GMO wheat high moisture bin, and so on.  So there are some benefits of blending,” he says.

Biotech Raises Grain Handling Questions
After serving on the EPA’s advisory panel, Kenkel says he realized that the StarLink incident raises new issues in the costs and returns of segregation. For example, it demonstrates the difficulty of complete identity preservation within our existing grain handling system.

One of the key problems in the StarLink issue was that there was no food tolerance for the specific Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt protein gene (Cry9C) approved for direct human consumption. The absence of any allowable amount, along with extremely sensitive detection technology that can measure down to the parts-per-billion level was, in retrospect, a recipe for disaster. 

“We all learned that the U.S. grain handling system is an efficient blending system.  Once a few loads of StarLink corn became mixed into the system, the amount of corn with trace but detectable amounts of the protein escalated rapidly,” says Kenkel.

Hindsight indicates that releasing a variety for feed use only was a mistake, he says, and the StarLink incident also made it clear that sampling and testing procedures should be in place prior to the release of any GMO variety which is intended to be segregated.  StarLink also demonstrated that a co-mingling incident is not the time to be debating sampling protocol, he adds.

More research is needed to translate specific tolerances into protocols for cleaning seeders, combines and handling equipment, he says.  The StarLink incident has also raised new liability issues, Kenkel points out.  For example, are farmers liable if they deliver GMO crops without informing the grain handler? Is a producer liable for inadvertently cross-pollinating part of his neighbors field?

“The U.S. grain handling system can evolve to provide identity preservation if it is economically justified, but the StarLink incident has opened eyes to the true complexity of it,” says Kenkel.

GMO: At What Tolerance?
Traditionally, grain segregation has focused on observable or easily measured quality attributes, says Kenkel.  Examples include class (hard wheat versus soft wheat), moisture, test weight, cleanliness or protein. In most cases, segregation strategies also involve blending.  For example, high protein grain may be segregated so that it can be used to “blend-up” another lot of grain to a particular contract specification.

In other cases, the grain system specifically discourages blending.  For example, there are standards to keep corn out of soybeans and to prevent hard white wheat from being mixed with hard red wheat. U.S. grain standards do allow trace amounts of co-mingling, however, in the magnitude of 1 to 3%.  “We can do that and lower, but not parts per million or parts per billion,” says Kenkel.

That’s why leaders of the grain industry advocate tolerance levels for GMO grain in non-GMO grain.  Gary Martin, who heads the North American Export Grain Association, says that segregation by definition is not commercially possible. “Segregation by definition implies meeting zero tolerance standards. It is not commercially possible,” he said, in an address to leaders of U.S. Wheat Associates  (USW) earlier this year. 

John Oades, director of USW’s Portland office, agrees. “When you are looking at 100% segregation, it does not, will not, cannot happen,” he says. “You can measure very small occurrences of virtually anything today.”

U.S. Wheat Associates, funded in part by the Minnesota wheat checkoff, is an export trade organization that works in over 100 countries around the world to promote the use of American-grown wheat.  In March, 2001, the organization added language to its biotechnology position that “we support the establishment of a reasonable threshold level for adventitious or accidental inclusion of biotechnolog-ically-derived traits in bulk wheat or wheat food products in both U.S. and international markets.” The position was developed jointly along with the National Association of Wheat Growers, and the Wheat Export Trade Education Committee.

Currently, tolerance levels for GMO grain vary by country and region. For example, the European Union last year began requiring labeling for foods with ingredients that exceed a 1% limit on genetically-engineered content. The threshold is 5% in Japan, and there is no specific tolerance yet in the United States.

Darrell Hanavan, executive director of the Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee and chair of the USW/NAWG/WETEC Biotechnology Committee, says uniform standards for GMO tolerances need to be established either within the framework of the World Trade Organization, or Codex (Codex Alimentarius. The U.S. Codex office on the web: www.fsis. usda.gov/OA/codex/) Codex is a multi-national body that sets food standards, and helps develop recommendations relating to compliance with those standards.

Oades points out that standardized, government-established tolerances may
not resolve consumer acceptance of biotech foods, however.

For example, some might presume that when the 5% biotech content tolerance (a food label requirement) goes into effect in Japan, the concern about losing market share in Japan should dissipate. “However, there remains the significant possibility that Japanese consumers will not buy wheat foods carrying a biotech label, not to mention the ‘limbo’ between 0% and 5% that will be addressed by ‘GMO free/zero GMO’ providers. Thus, there could be a huge disconnect between government tolerances versus willingness of the consumer to buy wheat foods with biotech content,” says Oades. It could be a particular problem for wheat, he adds, since wheat is viewed as a basic or primary food source while in many cultures corn and soybeans are not.

Although GMO wheat is being tested in research plot trials, no GMO wheat is yet available commercially in the U.S. marketplace. The earliest that GMO wheat would be commercially released in the U.S. (Roundup Ready wheat being developed by Monsanto) would be sometime between 2003 and 2005, and even then, consumer and customer demand will play a key role in any GM wheat release.

USW, NAWG, and WETEC have adopted a biotechnology position statement which in part says while biotechnological research holds great promise for the future, that the U.S. wheat industry “commits itself absolutely to the principle that our customers’ needs and preferences are the most important consideration, and that we support the ability of our wheat customers to make purchases on the basis of specific traits.”

The wheat industry’s biotechnology committee has formed an advisory committee to work with Monsanto’s development of a closed-loop system to prevent co-mingling of genetically modified wheat with conventional wheat. The advisory committee involves other sectors of the wheat industry, including farmers, grain handlers, millers, bakers, and exporters.

The NAEGA’s Martin says now is the time for wheat industry dialogue on handling biotech wheat—before it is commercially developed and reaches the marketplace—as American markets are at stake. 

Already, the U.S. has lost about $4 billion in grain business, with some overseas corn and soybean buyers turning to other nonbiotech grain suppliers, says Martin.  Some overseas food corn buyers are looking at signing long term agreements with South American suppliers, because they do not want biotech corn from the U.S., he adds. And earlier this year, a vessel of wheat was rejected at a British port, because Roundup Ready soybeans were detected during a biological assay of the cargo. The wheat was from Canada, where wheat marketed under the Canadian Wheat Board is more tightly handled than in the U.S. The rejected Canadian ship of wheat, however, indicates that when it comes to complete biotech segregation, “not even Canada can do what they say and think that they can do,” says Martin.