While American consumers ponder the merits of genetically modified foods, a small but growing number of farmers are establishing systems to keep such foodstuffs from showing up on kitchen tables.

Those farmers are commanding higher prices for going through the rigors of raising "identity preserved" crops and cattle - farm products whose chain of custody can be documented from beginning to end.

Months before StarLink corn was found in taco shells, Kansas farmer Ken McCauley worried that the genetically enhanced corn could damage the U.S. crop more than the pests it was modified to combat.

McCauley belongs to AgraMarke Inc., a 500-member cooperative based in northeast Kansas that is on the cutting edge of growing identity-preserved crops.

StarLink was the first corn approved only as an animal feed, pending findings that its genetic tinkering would not cause allergic reactions in people. Common sense told McCauley it was going to be tricky to keep StarLink from getting into groceries. The U.S. grain system largely provides humans with the same corn fed to pigs and cattle.

"A lot of guys (who) planted (StarLink) just didn't understand it needed to be kept separated," McCauley said. "So it got mixed in the field and then mixed again in the bin and again in the elevators, and it just magnified."

When an environmental watchdog group announced in September that traces of StarLink had been found in taco shells, potentially putting consumers at risk, it sent shudders through the food chain.

Food companies pulled products from grocery shelves. Grain elevators and mills were closed for cleaning. International sales tanked, and already dismal commodity prices took another hit.

Aventis CropScience, creator of StarLink, pulled the seed corn off the market and is reimbursing some of these expenses at a cost estimated at more than $1 billion.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that their tests showed the protein implanted in StarLink does not cause allergic reactions. Even so, McCauley thinks the market for identity-preserved products will blossom.

Only 4 years old, AgraMarke this month bought a cereal mill that Quaker Oats was closing in St. Joseph. To AgraMarke growers, having StarLink near their specialized corn is anathema.

"In 1999, StarLink was around, but nobody was paying a nickel's worth of attention," said McCauley at the mill, which sprawls over 36 acres in south St. Joseph.

"It was a bold step to tell farmers they couldn't grow StarLink if they wanted to join our group," said McCauley, who was on the biotechnology advisory counsel for AgraMarke.

U.S. agriculture has the capacity to grow, collect and move billions of bushels of grain around the world. But it is a system that pays farmers rock-bottom prices and blends their crops into an average mix. The industry stumbles when it tries to separate different types of the same grain.

If any good comes from the StarLink episode, it will be from emphasizing the need to move farmers and millers toward an identity-preserved system, said Fred Stemme, spokesman for the Missouri Corn Growers Association.

"The challenges with StarLink may be helping," Stemme said.

AgraMarke is not alone in this arena. National Starch, which has a plant in Kansas City, has contracted with farmers for 35 years to grow identity-preserved corn that meets certain specifications for their adhesives. Some beef producers, such as U.S. Premium Beef and the American Hereford Association, both in Kansas City, have identity-preserved programs that allow them to get higher prices for some of their beef by certifying they meet specific standards.

But it is still a fledgling movement. Only an estimated 4 percent of the 76 million to 80 million acres of corn grown each year are identity preserved.

AgraMarke actually grew out of an effort about four years ago to buy and preserve a grain elevator in Everest, Kan., that served farmers in northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri. As they worked on that deal, many of the farmers began talking about how they might prosper growing corn and soybeans when historically low prices for those commodities wouldn't pay farmers' fuel and fertilizer bills.

"A lot of it was inspired by $1.70 corn," said McCauley, who raises corn and soybeans on about 3,500 acres in Kansas. "We had to do something."

For decades, the percentage of the food dollar earned by farmers has decreased while the food processors - the companies turning poultry into chicken tenders and corn into nacho chips - have seen their share increase. In hopes of getting more profit from their crops, new farm cooperatives have popped up to build ethanol plants, buy taco making facilities or invest in meat processing plants.

AgraMarke members expect to earn about 10 percent more by growing crops that meet certain characteristics. AgraMarke segregated 5.5 million bushels of crops last year, mostly corn. They expect to segregate 7.5 million bushels of corn, wheat and soybeans this year.

Currently, most of AgraMarke's customers want corn that has not been genetically modified. But the cooperative is not opposed to genetically modified crops. In fact, AgraMarke expects its future to be pinned to new crops that have been genetically modified to provide nutritional or health benefits for humans or livestock. AgraMarke members think their system will keep them free of the kind of problems that StarLink caused.

"Our focus is on the consumer. What they want, we will grow," said Bill Becker, director of marketing for AgraMarke. "Over the past 50 years, we have been eating the same corn that our livestock eats. We need to make sure there are better varieties for humans, enhanced varieties for livestock. We may as well segregate them for the use they are intended for."

The cooperative evolved further when it recently began selling as much as $6 million in shares to acquire the plant in St. Joseph. The mill will allow AgraMarke to make specialty flours and eventually other processed foods.

AgraMarke members must agree to strict planting, harvesting and storage guidelines to guarantee that their crops meet customer specifications and are neither tainted by pollen drifting from other fields nor mixed with unapproved varieties. Some members only grow identity-preserved varieties to streamline the process and protect against problems. Planting must be planned a year in advance to make sure fields are protected.

AgraMarke members also must submit to inspections of their fields and equipment by independent evaluators.

Farmers planting StarLink, in contrast, signed agreements to meet planting and storage procedures that many in the industry think they didn't understand, forgot or chose not to follow. There wasn't a verification process to make sure they did.

"We don't just sign a contract and say, 'I will be a good old boy and follow the contract,' " Becker said. "We have a strict, third-party verification process."

AgraMarke pays the Kansas Crop Improvement Association to conduct inspections on the cooperative's grains. Daryl Strouts, executive director of the association, thinks AgraMarke is on the leading edge with its identity preservation program, because it has pulled together into one system all of the key elements.

"It is like a chain of custody," Strouts said. "At any point in the process, you can determine who is responsible and did what they were supposed to do."

The crop association verifies that AgraMarke members plant the right seeds, that fields won't be contaminated by the previous year's crop and that fields have buffers to prevent crops from being affected by neighboring fields. The association even checks the cleanliness of trucks and farm equipment to make sure the agreed-upon crop isn't spoiled by the remnants of another harvest - one of the ways StarLink could have contaminated corn stocks.

In a low-price commodity system, Strouts said, farmers and grain buyers meet minimum standards. AgraMarke grows for a specific customer, finding out what the customer wants and then going back through the system to make sure its growers provide it.

"AgraMarke is way out front, because they do some things that are fairly unique," Strouts said.

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