Producers voice displeasure on social media
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
Cargill announced an identity preservation process designed to allow food and beverage manufacturers to source necessary ingredients for non-GMO products.
The identity preservation process, called KnownOrigins, features different testing, approval and evaluation methods which allow food manufacturers who make non-GMO claims to receive the proper ingredients.
“Cargill’s combination of the industry’s broadest portfolio of non-GMO ingredients, well-established crop sourcing programs and our KnownOrigins identity preservation process enables our customers to scale production with confidence and get to market quickly with new non-GMO products,” Lea Buerman, Cargill food safety, quality and regulatory manager, said in a release.
Specifics of the process include:
- Farmers in Cargill’s non-GMO producer program are identifiable, so non-GMO corn, soybeans and high oleic canola can be traced back to the farms,
- Testing performed on harvest bin composites, truck deliveries or the finished ingredients to ensure the ingredients comply with agreed upon standards, and
- Specific segregation that protects against cross-contact with GMOs.
Upon hearing of Cargill’s intentions, producers took to Twitter to voice their displeasure with the decision.
“Just a reason for me to market my grain to a local cooperative. For my entire farming career,” Tyler Young, an Illinois corn and soybean farmer, said on Twitter.
“It’s very frustrating. You have attached the name Cargill to a group who actively spreads (fearmongering) and mistruths,” Nate Chittenden, a dairy farmer from New York, said on Twitter.
Julie Kelly, a reporter with National Review, The Hill and The Federalist, said on Twitter that Cargill’s decision “insults farmers” and “misleads consumers.”
Meg Brown, a hog and beef producer from California, said her job just got harder.
In a series of tweets, Cargill said the decision was made “in response to our customers’ needs to fill a specific need in their supply chains…but please don’t take this as a change in our continued support for GMOs.”