New York Times | December 4, 1999
WASHINGTON - Two months ago, Minnesota farmer Mark Ufer was, according to this story, ready to swear off genetically engineered crops, figuring that the growing controversy over biotech food would make it easier to sell conventional corn and soybeans next year.
Now that it is time to order next year's seed, he has changed his mind. Ufer was quoted as saying, "The genetically enhanced movement is so widespread that I don't think a person can realistically not be a part of it."
The story says that there is growing evidence that farmers plan to stick with the crops next year despite backlashes against biotechnology in Europe and Japan and producers' lingering worries about the industry's future.
The story notes that two-thirds of the corn seed and three-quarters of the soybean seed that farmers have ordered from Novartis Seeds Inc. for next year are genetically engineered, a slight increase over this time a year ago, and that about 70 percent of the corn seed and half the soybean seed that Novartis expects to sell for the 2000 crop had been ordered as of Dec. 1.
Jack Bernens, the company's vice president of marketing was quoted as saying the demand for biotech seed "is as strong as it's been at any time since we introduced it."
The story says that in a Nov. 22 letter to investment analysts, Monsanto Co. acknowledged that there was more indecision than usual among farmers as to their planting intentions for next year, but Monsanto's market research indicates the demand for biotech seed will be "on par with the 1999 season."
The American Soybean Association, which is holding a series of seminars in the Midwest to sound out farmers and address their misgivings about biotechnology, was cited as saying it is also not expecting any wholesale shift to conventional varieties.
Spokesman Bob Callanan was quoted as saying, "We have no reason to believe that the adoption of the technology will not continue. We still think there's strong interest from the growers. ... The growers like and have embraced the technology."
The story goes on to say that contrary to earlier predictions, relatively few grain elevators have been requiring farmers to separate their crops, surveys have found, and that the feared price cuts for biotech grain have not materialized, either.
Callanan was further cited as saying that one major grain buyer, Cargill Inc., is even paying an extra 5 cents a bushel for soybeans that contain low amounts of dust and other foreign matter, which typically means the biotech variety.
The story says that Ufer, who farms near Truman, Minn., sells much of his corn to an ethanol cooperative, whose board voted not to accept genetically modified crops as of next year. The problem for the cooperative is that it sells a byproduct, distillers' grain, for export as livestock feed.
The cooperative since has reversed its decision.
Ross Korves, an economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, was quoted as saying producers face "real tough management calls that are going to be made on a farm-to-farm basis and in some cases on a field-by-field basis."
