GMO Traceability–Making it Work

Reporting

While all these steps are critical to a successful traceability program, the real power of TRUETRACE lies in an innovative information technology system devised by National Starch. Twice a year, once after planting and again after harvesting, farmers input information about seed quality, cleaning of equipment, training of third parties, field maps, what’s planted around their fields, how many border rows were planted and then excluded from harvesting, along with a range of other information into a user-friendly interface on the National Starch extranet.

National Starch uses the Web site to communicate on issues relating to crop conditions, delivery scheduling and pricing. The site also offers useful information on weather and agronomy, along with links to companies that sell seeds and agricultural chemicals. While the website is designed to be a destination for the farmers participating in the TRUETRACE program, the value to National Starch lies in the ability to track its corn on both aggregate and farmer-specific levels.

“The Web site really allows us a detailed level of control over our supply chain that is absent in the rest of the industry,” says Joe Emling, manager of grain quality and traceability at National Starch Food Innovation. “We can very quickly track any events that might compromise our corn and implement the steps needed to rapidly contain a situation. For example, if we learned after planting that a particular seed lot had inadvertent GM contamination; we could quickly track it in the field. With our system, we know very specifically where our crops are planted, and we know what variety and seed lot is planted in what field. We could quickly respond to the incident, alert the growers affected and take whatever steps were necessary to safeguard the integrity of our corn.”

Testing and Manufacturing

Once the crop arrives at National’s facilities, it enters a new stream of testing and segregation to further ensure quality and purity. All deliveries are scheduled and are identified with a unique tag number that is traceable back to the farmer. Before accepting a grain shipment, National tests every truckload and refuses shipments that do not meet its standards.

Shipments undergo routine industry tests for quality factors. Beyond that, National tests for variety purity, using waxy purity tests for waxy corn, amylase purity tests for amylase corn. The company also tests non-GM regular corn to make sure that it is not contaminated with waxy or amylase corn.

Finally, every truckload is tested for contamination with GM materials. They use an ELISA-based strip test and covers all GM events that are commercialized in the U.S.

Once the shipment is accepted, it’s unloaded and conveyed to storage bins. National’s internal plant procedures maintain traceability and segregation of corn types through the unloading process, into the bins and then into the steep tanks as they begin the manufacturing process.

In addition, National regularly collects composite grain samples that are sent out for PCR testing as an internal process check. “The strip test (ELISA) is like a gatekeeper, it allows us to accept or reject a shipment as it is delivered to our facilities,” says Emling. “The composite PCR testing is used internally as a check on our systems. It’s to make sure that all of the traceability and documentation requirements, all of the care, management and handling of the crop that we require of our contract growers, along with the strip test, are working as we intend them to work. It acts as a sentinel – if we see a problem, it alerts us that some component is off and we can trace it down and address any potential for contamination along the supply chain.”