Very little of the corn in the Cornbelt has begun the pollination process, but when it does, we’ll be reminded how far and wide corn pollen can travel. One of your neighbor’s tassels will pollinate your corn, whether you want it to or not; and as higher value crops are produced, you won’t want his pollen anywhere near your silks. You insured your yield this year and your Bt performance, but how about insuring against genetic contamination from one field to another?

Corn is one of those crops that can carry the genetics of a new pharmaceutical, and high yielding corn can produce an antibody, enzyme, or vaccine in both quantity and quality, and it is conveniently stored in the corn kernel. Pharmaceutical maize (corn) is being tested in hundreds of plots, some in non-descript locations around the Cornbelt, says a collection of economists and agronomists from Iowa State University and North Dakota State, who analyzed the potential for insuring against unwanted genetic contamination. Such contamination is primarily the result of the weather, and when either severe weather strikes or when contamination tolerances are extremely low, serious losses can occur. The issue is pollen movement, and with recent interest in identity preserved crops, pollen movement has been the focus of increased study. Most of that is targeted toward normal weather, but if a tornado made a direct hit on a field of pharmaceutical maize at pollination time, what would the loss be?

The researchers say the antibodies are going to be safe if inadvertently digested, but the federal research rules that specify zero tolerance implies zero probability of cross-contamination. Economic harm would seem to come with either a weather related mixing of pollen or a co-mingling of grain during the handling and shipping phases following harvest. The researchers set out to calculate a fair value of an insurance policy that pays for the destruction of any nearby corn that might have been contaminated above a specified tolerance level. Insurance premiums would be determined and the risk can be compared against benefits.

Their analysis puts one pollen grain through a variety of tests, including wind parameters, fluid dynamics, climatology, and econometric models that can track millions of pollen grains under all possible conditions. All of that is done to determine the insurance policy premium. But another issue is who should foot the bill for the insurance, the owner of the pharmaceutical corn, or the owner of the commodity corn that became contaminated.

Many farmers know that offsetting the planting dates to offset pollination would be an option for reducing the potential for cross pollination. However, even with coordination of pollination over distances, there may still be a 1% contamination even with a 28 day delay in pollination. Within USDA requirements for contamination, the researchers calculated that a tolerance level of one in one thousand would be exceeded 24 times in ten thousand instances if a 40 acre field was one half mile downwind from the source of the contamination. At three quarters of a mile, the probability of exceeding that tolerance level was zero. But any type of a storm cloud can create havoc.

While contamination chances cannot be eliminated, the contaminated corn could be blended to reach an acceptable level of contamination, which would be less costly than destroying the crop. The researchers used the example of 150 bushel per acre corn, valued at $3 per bushel, which would mean a loss of $18,000 with destruction of a 40 acre field. If the contamination was spread over a half mile, seven fields would have to be destroyed, and nine within three-quarters of a mile. The researchers developed five scenarios, ranging from $486,000 to cover all fields contaminated within a mile of the pharmaceutical field, down to the point of no loss; and they add that legal damages are a possibility, “The recipients of unwanted pollen appear to have the right (under the law of stray animals) to collect damages associated with drift, but they have not yet pursued this right via the legal system.”

Summary:
As genetic manipulation advances in corn to the point of creating pharmaceuticals, it creates the potential of contaminating commodity corn produced in nearby fields, particularly when the weather becomes severe. It is possible to calculate the change of contamination, or at least the chance that contamination will exceed specific tolerance levels. One of the unanswered issues however, is who should pay for insurance which would either cover the liability of contamination from a pharmaceutical field, or protection of a commodity corn from being contaminated.

Who should buy the insurance policy and who is really taking the risk?