The grain growing and handling system in the United States is not sufficiently developed to keep genetically modified and conventional crops separate, meaning that consumers will have to live with at least a low level of genetically modified ingredients in their food, an industry consultant said May 23. Nevertheless, food companies that want to avoid labeling their products as containing genetically modified ingredients in countries that require such labels will have to implement an expensive and imperfect segregation and identity preservation to keep the two types of crops apart, according to Susan Harlander, president of New Brighton, Minn.-based BIOrational Consultants Inc. "Unless we want to grow all of our food in a greenhouse, we're going to have to live with a certain low level of contamination from genetically modified crops," Harlander said at a Washington, D.C., meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists. Because cross-pollination among conventional and biotech crops is inevitable, "zero is not achievable" in terms of keeping all foods completely free of ingredients that contain at least some bioengineered traits, she added. But food companies that want to sell their products in countries that require foods containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled will still have to follow a number of procedures to ensure that their products fall below the labeling threshold. The European Union, for example, requires that any food containing more than 1 percent of a genetically modified ingredient must be labeled. Because European consumers have exhibited a strong distrust of bioengineered foods, food companies are eager to avoid the labeling requirement. Segregation Difficult These companies will have to ensure that the conventional grains that they purchase are strictly segregated from their bioengineered counterparts, Harlander said. "If you want to avoid genetically modified labeling in the EU or in any other country, [it] requires a very robust monitoring system," she said. "It means you have to identity preserve, or segregate, genetically modified crops from non-genetically modified crops all the way from what you plant in the ground throughout the entire food processing chain." This is an expensive and problematic system that is ultimately prone to failure, especially so because the American bulk grain handling system was not designed to keep crops separated, she said. This was demonstrated by the recent StarLink problem, in which the bioengineered StarLink corn variety, which was approved for animals but not for human consumption, became extensively commingled with conventional corn. "It surely demonstrated to us that identity preservation systems are not in place today," Harlander said. "Our agricultural system is not developed to the point where we can keep these things separate." Food companies will also need reliable tests to ensure that they can identify whether their foods contain genetically modified ingredients, she said. A significant problem is that the existing tests are unreliable and often yield false results. But another subtle consideration exists for food processors that want to avoid bioengineered ingredients--the composition of secondary ingredients that they may put into their foods from other vendors. For example, a company that fortifies its products with vitamins may be aware of the vitamin ingredients that it purchases from a supplier but may be unaware that supplier uses corn starch as a base and that the corn starch could have been derived from genetically modified corn. "There could be some hidden secondary ingredients in your products, and you really have to understand what all of your ingredients are," she said. Finally, companies will need to modify their specifications systems and institute an audit program to ensure that the crops and ingredients they use are what they purport to be.

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