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GOT SOY? DuPont and Bunge form research, protein production pact
T SOYBEAN FEVER DuPont hopes to take advantage of the crop, which is finding its way into a wide variety of food products.
APPING INTO THE GROW-
ing demand for health foods, DuPont and White Plains, N.Y.-based agribusiness firm Bunge will form an $800 million-per-year soy protein production, biotechnology, and farmer service alliance to take a bite out of the $100 billion world protein market. In exchange for a 28% share and $280 million to be funded by debt in a joint venture called Soke, Bunge will contribute businesses in soy protein and lecithin—a food emulsifier—with sales of $300 million per year. DuPont will contribute its $500 million-per-year Protein Tech-
nologies unit—a producer of protein isolate—which it acquired in 1997fromRalstonPurinafor $1.3 billion. Unlike the Renessen joint ven-
ture that Monsanto and Cargill formed in 1998 to develop soybeans, corn, and other grains with improved qualities for animal feed, Soke will concentrate on
REGULATION
BIOTECH REVIEW HAS LOOPHOLES New report claims FDA's procedures do not ensure food crop safety
F
UN BRIEF: NO CLONES The claimfaya company, Cionaid, that two women have given birth to clones prompted Reps. David J. Weldon (R~Fla.) and Bart Stu~ pak (D-Mich.) to introduce a bill on Jan. 8S H.R. 234 that bans human cloning. The bill, which has more than 100 cosponsors, is identical to legislation approved by the House In the last session of Congress, 8
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DAS REVIEW PROCESS FOR
genetically engineered foods does not ensure they are safe, says a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington, DC-based nonprofit education and advocacy group. Although current crops "appear to be safe for consumers to eat," CSPI says, they are only a fraction of the crops that could be marketed in the future. FDAis ill-equipped to review the safety of future genetically engineered crops, which will be engineered in increasingly complex ways, the report says. Doug Gurian-Sherman, science director of CSPI's biotech2003
nology project and author of the report, conducted a detailed examination of 14 out of the 53 data summaries on biotech crops submitted to FDA. Under current rules, companies are encouraged—but not required—to submit safety testing data to FDA. Sometimes they refuse FDAs requests for additional information. In three instances cited in the report, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, and Syngenta refused to supply requested data on varieties of corn. ''Without a legally mandated approval process, FDA can only review whatever data a company lets it review," Gurian-Sherman says. Gurian-Sherman also found
producing soy protein with improved taste and texture for human consumption. DuPont's initial 72% interest could drop to 60% if Bunge exercises an option to increase its ownership. T h e partners will also use DuPont's knowledge of the soy genome to develop improved conventional and genetically modified beans. And they plan to extend apilot farmer service alliance now operating in Brazil and Argentina to supply fertilizer from Bunge and seed and crop protection chemicals from DuPont. DuPont Vice PresidentJ. Erik Fyrwald, who will be chairman of Soke, acknowledges that soy is a small part of the world protein market. Industry sources value the soy protein market at $3 billion. But the market for soy protein has been growing 10% annually—much faster than those for animal and dairy sources, Fyrwald says.-MARC REISCH
that some data summary submissions contained obvious errors that were not identified by FDA during its review. The submissions failed to evaluate some potentially harmful compounds, and the best available tests were not always used for aUergenicity testing, he writes. Also, the data summaries often lacked necessary statistical analyses. Lisa Dry spokeswoman for the Biotechnology Industiy Organization, says: "FDA has the authority to ensure that they can collect any information they deem necessary to protect the food supply They have done a rigorous job ofreviewing biotech products for safety purposes." However, like CSPI, she wants the consultative review process for biotech foods to be mandatory A spokesman for FDA says: 'Anytime we have wanted information that is essential to the safety review, we have been able to get it. We currently believe that we do have an adequate review system."-BETTE HILEMAN HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
