I was told at a farmers market that GMO corn is now only used for animal consumption and not for human consumption. he said corn bought at supermarkets is not GMO. Is this true?

Expert response from Dirk Benson

Head of Seeds Product Selection and Development, Syngenta

Friday, 13/02/2015 16:24

There are two main types of corn grown in the United States: field corn and sweet corn. Field corn is harvested after the corn kernels are dry in the field, and is used for a variety of purposes, including livestock and animal feed. The type of corn that you purchase in the grocery store is sweet corn. Both field and sweet corn can be GM or non-GM varieties. Therefore, the corn in your local produce aisle could be GM corn.

In this article, Noah Hultgren with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association explains the difference between field and sweet corn, and explains, “When most people think of corn, it’s sweet corn that comes to mind. But the fact is, of the 97.2 million acres of corn planted in the United States last year, sweet corn made up less than 1 percent of the total crop. The rest was field corn.”