April 12, 2007

US faces biotech corn seed shortage due to ethanol production
 

With rising ethanol production driving up US corn prices to record high levels, domestic farmers are competing with one another for popular biotech corn seeds as they scramble to plant abundant amounts of the crop this spring.

In a statement last month to The Hutchinson News, Terry Vinduska, sales representative for Pioneer Hybrid International in Marion, Kansas, said much of the corn seeds available to farmers in Kansas were being used to replace cotton fields in Texas and Mississippi, adding that the shortage is a "nationwide problem".

Consequently, Vinduska expects some Kansas corn growers to fail in acquiring corn borer, rootworm or herbicides-resistant biotech hybrids this year.