Railroad Companies to Refuse New-Tech Corn
Three rail lines have announced they will not transport Agrisure RW 'until further notice.'
Willie Vogt 
Published: May 3, 2007
In a kind of industry piling on effect, more groups have come out with cautionary statements regarding Agrisure RW corn, the new-trait product being offered by Syngenta Seeds brands Garst, NK and Golden Harvest.
Earlier this week the railroad company BNSF announced that starting Tuesday it would not accept for transportation any carloads of corn or corn products containing the MIR 604 trait from Syngenta. In the BNSF announcement the company cautioned that anyone shipping such corn "shall be responsible for any damages to BNSF resulting from the shipment of the carload containing the product."
Two other rail lines instituted similar "until further notice" bans on the product including the DM&E and Canadian Pacific Railway.
Syngenta Seeds, which was caught off guard by the announcement issued this statement from Jack Bernens, who heads up marketing for Agrisure traits: " We believe that providing the U.S. corn grower a choice is very important. The corn grower deserves the opportunity to plant the very latest choices in technology to increase yields and meet the escalating demand for corn. Agrisure RW is one of those new choices, one of many new technology choices that will become available to farmers over the next few years. Not everyone in the industry shares our opinion, and we respect their right to take that position. However, it is unfortunate that decisions are being made that could further limit the growers ability to do the right thing by directing grain from Agrisure RW to significant domestic use locations, such as beef feedlots, large integrated dairy, pork and poultry production systems that are reliant on corn and corn products via rail transport."
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Tagged: Syngenta, corn grower, Harvest
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