North Carolina: New Promise From old Leaf

Source from:  Wilmington (NC) Star-News 12/07/2004

North Carolina is leading the way in developing ways to monitor genetically altered crops, which is encouraging both for consumer confidence and for new industries with booming possibilities. Consumers and farmers worry - rightfully - about the potential of crops intended for food being mixed unintentionally with crops that are genetically altered to create new medicines. A recent study of systems in 17 states, conducted by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, rated North Carolina's monitoring system among the best. The state Department of Agriculture worked with farmers and seed experts to create voluntary standards for growing, storing and processing genetically altered tobacco. Those rules may offer examples that can be followed for other crops. Tobacco, as it turns out, offers a potential boon for biotechnology research. So far, researchers have found that tobacco can be manipulated to produce about 4,000 different chemicals. That may lead to new ways to make products - and profits - from an old crop with a traditional market that is fading away. Enditem