www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Ethanol industry leaders say a new biotech product that helps corn fight off
pests could end up in exported animal feed and risk the industry's
relationship with foreign markets by Amy Lorentzen .
At issue is the Agrisure RW corn rootworm trait developed by Syngenta Seeds
Inc. The Renewable Fuels Association, a leading industry group, expressed
its concerns over the product in a letter sent to Syngenta's seed executives
that was obtained by The Associated Press.

The letter said the trait has not been approved for export markets but is
being sold to growers in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin. The
association said the trait could end up in exported distillers grains, a
byproduct of ethanol production that is fed to livestock.

"There is a risk that the shipment would be rejected by the importing
customer - permanently damaging the U.S. ethanol industry's relationships
with these important markets," association President and CEO Bob Dinneen
said in the letter sent Friday.

He asked Syngenta executives to "ensure this product stays out of unapproved
market channels" by educating customers of marketing issues and removing dry
mill ethanol facilities - where distillers grains are produced - from its
lists of points of sale for grain containing the trait.

Jeff Gox, Syngenta's global head of corn and soybeans, said without products
like Agrisure RW, farmers won't be able to keep up with the ethanol
industry's demand.

"New technologies that improve crop yield and quality will be the critical
enablers in growers' efforts to meet the escalating demand brought on by the
skyrocketing ethanol industry and still meet the needs of the livestock and
export industry. ..." Cox said in a response letter sent Tuesday.

Syngenta spokeswoman Anne Burt said the Golden Valley, Minn.-based company
is stringently monitoring Agrisure RW, by tracking its sales and making sure
growers only deliver the byproduct to domestic users, among other
precautions.

Last year, 12 million metric tons of distillers grains were produced in the
United States, with exports making up more than 10 percent of sales. Most of
the product originated in Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa, the nation's top
ethanol producers.

Last month, the Iowa Corn Growers Association noted that Agrisure RW lacks
approval in major export markets including Japan and Mexico.

"We owe it to our growers to provide information when this could limit their
ability to market their corn after harvest this fall," Bob Bowman, a corn
grower from DeWitt and member of the National Corn Growers trade policy
working group, said in a news release.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Wheat industry experts on a winter wheat tour hope an
abundant harvest in western Kansas may offset production losses in regions
where crops were hurt by a late spring freeze.

The annual wheat tour is scheduled to end Thursday, followed by the release
of the first comprehensive industry estimate of the size of this year's
Kansas wheat crop.

"In the central part of the state there is a lot of freeze damage and a lot
of problems, but as you go west it is good-looking wheat - probably the best
western Kansas has seen in a number of years," said Dean Stoskopf, a
Hoisington grower and Kansas Wheat commissioner on the tour.

The tour began Tuesday with about 65 industry experts traveling across the
state assessing crop conditions. It draws farmers, grain marketers, bakers,
millers and other industry experts.

Before the Easter weekend freeze, Kansas had prospects for a winter wheat
crop that could reach 500 million bushels, Stoskopf said. The freeze that
hit central Kansas especially hard dashed those hopes.

But the wheat in the western part of the state is doing so well that the
state may still harvest an average winter wheat crop.

"It is too early to say that - but it is possible," Stoskopf said. "The last
five years we have averaged 350 million bushels. It is conceivable that we
could have that kind of yield, or better, with the conditions we have out
there."

With ideal growing conditions and strong crop prices, farmers had hoped for
a bountiful harvest this year to make up for back-to-back years of drought.

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