The controversy surrounding StarLink corn continues today, even though the last contaminated food products were found in September.

Rhonda Barnat, spokesperson for Aventis CropScience, the maker of StarLink, said Aventis has voluntarily canceled its registration and there will be no 2001 StarLink corn.

This corn was developed to be resistant to the European Corn Borer and to be used as animal feed, Barnat said.

Because of StarLink and other various factors, Iowa’s agricultural economy has seen a drop in corn exports due to the recall of products contaminated with StarLink corn, said Roger Ginder, professor of agricultural economics.

Charles Hurburgh, professor of agricultural engineering, said StarLink has had obvious negative effects on the ag economy. He said that before the problems it created, the USDA expected a rise of almost 20 percent in exports to Asia.

“Exports are down 17 to 18 percent,” Hurburgh said. “But it is still difficult to establish that StarLink is a major factor.”

Due to the recalling of corn-based products that held small amounts of StarLink corn, Japan and other southeast Asian companies have been redirecting the grain elsewhere, Ginder said.

“Corn that had been mixed with StarLink corn, which was not approved for human food uses, created some problems with processors that produced sweeteners and corn products,” Ginder said. “They reject the loads that contain measurable amounts of StarLink.”

He said that whenever this happens the grain has to be transported to a place where it can be used for livestock, which in turn affects transportation costs.

Processing plants and elevators have been doing tests on grain that comes through to detect any traces of StarLink corn, he said.

“There are two types of tests,” Ginder said. “One is the strip or Elisa test where you take a whole grain and break it up, then you put a solution in it and read it off of a test strip. This can be done at elevators and processing plants. It’s pretty cheap and only costs about six to 10 dollars a test, but it’s not as precise.”

The other test is a PCI test that has to be done under controlled conditions in a lab and looks at the genetic material itself, he said.

“It’s around $400 a test, but it can pick up minute quantities of StarLink,” he said.

Aventis has paid for most of the costs for processing StarLink and making sure it does not go out on the market in human food products, Ginder said.

“The elevators and processors put in claims to Aventis,” he said. “Aventis then pays the costs.”

With StarLink corn off the market, it is still showing up in elevators and processing plants around the nation.

It could take almost three to four years to make sure all StarLink corn is out of the marketing system, said Dave Miller, director of commodities for the Iowa Farm Bureau.

Even though StarLink corn will not be planted for the next crop season and is not being grown this season, storage elevators still contain some of it, Miller said.

“All of the evidence shows that there was no substantiation of health affects and consumers do not need to be concerned,” he said.

The Center for Disease and Control has done extensive testing to show that there are no concerns with StarLink, he said.

Hurburgh, who is also on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisor Panel, said the tests for StarLink corn show a tolerance of zero percent, meaning that if even one kernel of StarLink corn showed up in a railroad-sized car, it would still not be approved for human consumption.

“The contaminated corn then gets shipped to places for animal feed or the making of ethanol,” he said.

The panel will meet in late July to discuss tolerance levels of StarLink, Hurburgh said.

“Aventis is trying to increase the tolerance to levels that are greater than zero,” he said. “Scientifically there are no problems with the tolerance on StarLink corn because of the CDC tests.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to evaluate all of the data and allow a tolerance greater than zero, Hurburgh said.

Miller said Iowa’s ag economy will eventually improve and that there are factors other than StarLink affecting it.

“StarLink is a small part but is not insignificant,” he said.