Biotech Corn Maker Expands Deal

Wednesday July 25 5:10 PM ET

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (AP) - The creator of a genetically modified corn that mistakenly ended up in the food supply will expand its agreement to compensate farmers.

Growers who found their crop contaminated with the biotech product by cross-pollenation now are included in the agreement.

Aventis CropScience reached a supplemental agreement with 17 state attorneys general acting on behalf of growers who may suffer losses due to infiltration of StarLink biotech corn into their crop, a company spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday. The attorneys general announced the deal Tuesday.

The corn was approved for industrial use and as animal feed but never licensed for human consumption because of questions about whether it can cause allergic reactions. Some of it was mixed with other varieties of corn in 1999 and again last year. Many farmers and grain elevators have been unable to sell their corn because of fears it may contain StarLink.

Taco shells were recalled nationwide and the Aventis product was withdrawn from the market last fall.

The four-year agreement announced in January between Aventis and the states, mainly in the Midwest, called for the company to pay farmers up to 25 cents per bushel for tainted corn and reimburse them for other losses.

The new agreement expands the offer to virtually all growers who can prove they were inadvertently supplied StarLink corn seed or that their corn was contaminated after being pollinated by StarLink corn.

``I think Aventis is working hard to correct the situation and make it right for farmers and elevators. They have mobilized to get the corn out of the grain chain and set up procedures and terms to pay producers and elevators whose grain may have lost value because of StarLink corn,'' Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran said.

The states involved with both agreements are: Iowa, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The states represent more than 90 percent of the acreage planted with StarLink corn last year.

A National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) panel held hearings earlier this month to determine whether StarLink should be allowed into the food supply. Aventis is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) to allow a minimal amount in the food supply to avoid further recalls.

French pharmaceutical firm Aventis and Schering AG (NYSE:SHR - news) of Germany are in talks to sell their Aventis CropScience agrochemicals business to Germany's Bayer AG.