Some tortilla chips have reason to be blue.
Under the regulatory system that determines which crops qualify for inclusion in U.S. Department of Agriculture support programs, blue corn is an orphan. According to the department rule book, it isn’t even considered corn because it’s not yellow or white, the only versions of the food that are eligible for federal agricultural loans and crop payments.
So blue-corn growers are lobbying Congress as the lawmakers consider a new farm bill, to make their niche crop a part of the official programs and the government assistance that entails.
Though the industry is tiny, it sells at a premium price, about $8 a bushel, more than double the going rate for white or yellow corn. Official corn mostly goes to feed cattle, or more recently to produce ethanol, the non-petroleum vehicle fuel.
“This is one of the original corns,” Caren Wilcox, executive director of the Organic Trade Association in Greenfield, Mass., said of the blue variety. “They need to change the definition.”
Dave Shipman, deputy administrator for the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration program at USDA, said blue corn doesn’t qualify as a member of the corn family because it is a specialty product that usually doesn’t get sold in the open market and doesn’t warrant inspection standards.
The definition of corn was set in the 1916 U.S. Grain Standards Act, under which three classes are recognized: yellow, white and a mix of the two. Not a word about blue corn, even though it was grown successfully by Southwestern American Indians such as the Hopi.
Sweet corn (the corn we eat off the cob) is considered a vegetable and falls under a different regulatory regime.
This means farmers who grow blue corn, which is made into the blue-corn tortilla chips that many of us love to dip into a nice salsa, aren’t growing “real” corn, so they don’t qualify for loan or other support programs, according to the government.
“Real” corn has long been a big player whenever Congress debates a new farm bill. It is one of the most widely grown crops in the United States. Last year, 10.5 billion bushels were produced on 78 million acres. There are 300,000 farmers, dwarfing the 400 or so planting blue corn on about 20,000 acres.
That much of the blue corn crop is organic doesn’t help its regulatory standing. The National Organic Program office at USDA is tiny and focused on certification of the $14.6 billion organic market, not on corn-naming issues.
For the first time in history, however, organic farming interests lobbied on a farm bill. Industry representatives appeared April 18 before a new subcommittee created by the Democratic majority on the House Agriculture Committee, the subcommittee on horticulture and organic agriculture.
This gave the industry a big opening to explain the institutional barriers to growing niche crops that exist in the regulatory system.
Enter Lynn Clarkson, president of Clarkson Grain Co. in Cerro Gordo, Ill. Clarkson, who contracts with farmers to supply organic blue, white and yellow corn and soybeans to companies worldwide, gave the subcommittee an earful.
The name problem, he said, “disadvantages these farmers and their participation in any government program.” He said growers aren’t asking for subsidies; they want access to USDA programs that would help them manage their finances and get the best prices for their harvest. This would allow them to plant more acreage, he said.
He recounted the story of a Nebraska blue corn farmer who went to his local USDA Commodity Credit Corp. office to apply for a low-interest, nine-month loan against his harvest. Clarkson said he was told he didn’t qualify because he wasn’t growing corn.
Clarkson tried last year to correct the definitional inequity within the agency. Now, he’s trying to reach Congress through its stomach.
He asked subcommittee chairman Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat from Merced who represents an agricultural district, if he has tried blue corn chips. Then he asked him if he knew they weren’t corn.
That got some response: Cardoza said he hoped it could be addressed in the context of the 2007 farm legislation.
Blue corn growers perhaps should look to the popcorn people who overcame, the same dilemma.
In 2002, the Chicago-based Popcorn Institute, which represents 33 popcorn processors, addressed the problem by lobbying members of Congress.
“If it wasn’t corrected, we were limiting the industry’s ability to grow,” said Deirdre Flynn, executive director of the Popcorn Institute. There were 140,748 acres of popcorn planted in 2006, seven times the amount of blue corn fields.
In 2003, the fix appeared in a funding bill, conferring on domestic popcorn growers the magic moniker: Corn. Real corn.
