How American Food Companies Go GMO-Free in a GMO World - NPR Morning Edition

This is the transcript from a radio interview on NPR's Morning Edition where host Steve Inskeep and Dan Charles discuss the steps farmers need to take to produce GMO-free corn and soybeans despite 90% of corn and soybeans produced in the U.S. are genetically modified. The grain has to be tested for protiens that are by-products of genetic engineering. The fields need to be hundreds of feet away from fields of genetically modified grains to prevent cross-polination. Companies that buy GMO-free grain to produce food for consumers such as the mentioned Clarkson Grain test a sample of the grain, and if the test returns positive for GMOs, the truck will leave empty. Bigger food processing firms will tend to buy genetically modified grain because there "is too much variation" in natural grain. However, Clarkson Grain managed to make deals with local farmers to plant specific strains of non-genetically enginered grain to minimize natural variation to make the grain easier to work with. This supply chain they established before GMOs gained popularity prepared Clarkson Grain to sell to Japan, where consumers were more skeptical of GMOs.

This article will be helpful to my paper on GMOs by proving that non-GMO grain is economically viable by giving a case study of a company whose business is built around non-GMO grain.

Link: https://sks.sirs.com/webapp/article?artno=0000359737&type=ART