The Associated Press. October 19, 2000, Thursday, BC cycle SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 686 words HEADLINE: Farmers, grain merchants worry about biotech corn's spread BYLINE: By JAY HUGHES, Associated Press Writer DATELINE: PEORIA, Ill. BODY: Illinois farmers and grain merchants were scratching their heads and nervously eyeing their profit margins Thursday as agriculture experts tried to figure out how - and how much - genetically engineered corn approved only for animal use found its way into the human food supply. "This is new territory," said Mark Lambert, a spokesman for the Illinois Corn Growers Association, which is fielding calls from farmers worried that they may suffer from the growing controversy even though they didn't take the risk of planting the biotech product known as StarLink corn. The discovery of StarLink grain in some taco shells has prompted a nationwide recall for brands that may have been contaminated and raised questions about how much of the restricted crop may have mixed with corn intended for human consumption. Aventis CropScience, the grain's developer, said Thursday that it was uncertain of ever retrieving the entire crop. Major grain handlers such as Decatur-based Archer Daniels Midland Co. have responded by testing incoming shipments and rejecting any that test positive for StarLink, which contains a bacterium gene that makes it toxic to an insect pest. Scientists have been unsure about the corn's potential to cause allergic reactions in humans, but federal officials say the health risk is remote. "This is a variety of corn that is not approved for human consumption and we feel obligated to screen to make sure none of it gets in our system," said ADM spokesman Larry Cunningham. "A lot of the elevator facilities and so forth are shared facilities, and you don't want to find yourself in the situation of contaminating a million and a half bushels with 300 bushels of StarLink." Cunningham said ADM began testing deliveries at its elevators a week ago and so far "a handful of trucks out of hundreds" have been turned away. A spokeswoman for Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc. said that shipper also is testing loads, but she was not aware of any that turned up positive. Lambert played down concerns of widespread contamination, noting that if all the StarLink sold in Illinois was planted, it would have produced about 2.6 million bushels - a fraction of the total 1.7 billion bushels produced in the state this year. But some farmers and grain elevator operators fear contamination by StarLink corn may be more widespread than anyone has yet discovered. Doug Durdan, operator of the Durdan Grain elevator near Leonore in central Illinois, has had one truckload of grain turned down by ADM. That load came from a 1.7-million bushel storage facility, Durdan said, and he has no way of knowing how much more - if any - is also contaminated. "If it's all contaminated, I don't think I can get much for it," Durdan said. StarLink was intended to be segregated from corn that could be used for human consumption, and there are a number of theories on what may have happened. Lambert said some farmers may have harvested StarLink, then gone on to other fields without cleaning their combines, which would mix some prohibited corn with other varieties headed for elevators. Others fear that StarLink corn cross-pollinated nearby fields of non-modified corn. Farmers were warned to plant it with a buffer to prevent such problems, but that didn't always happen. Wenona farmer Steve McClure is worried his non-modified corn, which he hoped to sell for a premium, may be contaminated by a neighbor's plot of StarLink. "I don't know if I've got cross-contamination until I try to deliver this ... and they sample the load," he said. Tom Jennings, a manager in the state Department of Agriculture's Industry Regulation division, said farmers who planted StarLink can use it as feed on their farm and get a 25-cent premium from Aventis. He said they also can sell it to the USDA's Commodity Credit Corp. for the Oct. 2 price plus the premium and storage costs, and the CCC will pass it along to Aventis. "You have a lot of guys who are so mad they don't want to deal with USDA or Aventis, and they don't know what they're going to do about those farmers," said Jennings.