2001 AACC Annual Meeting Charlotte, North Carolina October 14-18, 2001 Charlotte Convention Center

The North American Millers' Association (NAMA) supports food biotechnology as a tool that can improve product quality, safety and sanitation, increase production efficiency, allow more judicious use of agricultural chemicals and help meet growing domestic and world food demand. NAMA urges government agencies to work in all forums to advance the acceptance of products developed through biotechnology. No biotech grains should be released until regulatory approval has been obtained in all major markets. For grains currently in the U.S. market without broad international approval, NAMA strongly discourages selling those seed varieties until approvals are received and/or suitable thresholds can be established. Reasonable thresholds must be adopted to allow the movement of grains with adventitious mixing. NAMA strongly supports testing, when necessary or appropriate, of the inbound grain. Once tested on receipt, the grain should be allowed to move normally through commerce. NAMA opposes testing on intermediate or finished products. NAMA has concerns with identity preservation (IP) systems that lack financial incentives as those systems inherently entail higher costs. Even with appropriate financial incentives in place, an IP system cannot operate with a zero tolerance standard. NAMA represents the wheat, corn, oat and rye milling industry. NAMA's 45 member companies operate 173 wheat, corn and oat mills in 38 states, with a combined production of more than 160 million pounds per day.