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Contamination in Canada sounds warning to UK
(Saturday, July 19, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Suzanne Goldenberg, the Guardian, 07/18/03: Under the vast bowl of a clear summer sky, cheery yellow splashes of
canola light up the prairies for miles. The sight of it makes Reg Stow's
heart sink. When Reg and his wife, Beverley, started farming as a young
Canadian couple in the early 1960s, canola, as the local version of
oilseed rape is known, was the crop they could count on. If the bottom
dropped out of the price on the other crops they were growing on their
2,300 acres in the fertile farmlands of Manitoba, they always knew that
canola would come through for them. No more.
The Stows resisted the introduction of genetically modified canola seven
years ago, unlike their neighbours. But it started growing in their
fields anyway, as the pollen was brought in by the wind from surrounding
farms. There is no distinguishing their fields from those of their
neighbours.
Now Canada is awaiting the second wave of biotech with Monsanto, the
creator of GM canola, working to put a GM version of wheat on the
market. The Stows see it as a disaster in the making.
"A company should not be able to come in and wreck a livelihood," said
Mr Stow. "If they do here with wheat what they've already down with
canola, then we are lost."
British farmers have been looking to Canada as the closest parallel to
UK conditions with similar crops and markets. As in Britain, GM has been
marketed as providing higher production for lower overheads but it is
clear that after seven years' experience cross-contamination with other
crops has occurred on a large scale.
In Canada, reservations about the second generation of GM have spread
like brushfire. The new strain manipulates the DNA of the most widely
grown variety of bread wheat to make it resistant to Roundup, Monsanto's
leading weedkiller, which accounts for 40% of the company's sales.
Monsanto argues that GM wheat will cut costs and increase yields by
simplifying weed control. It could enter production by 2005, pending
government approval.
But the major producer associations - the Canadian Federation of
Agriculture, the smaller, leftwing National Union of Farmers, and the
Canadian Wheat Board, which exercises a near-monopoly on sales - are
adamantly opposed to the GM wheat, branded Roundup Ready, and have
called on the government to block it.
Even farmers who are enthusiastic about biotechnology believe the new
wheat variant is a step too far. On their relatively modest holding -
800 acres in a region where the family farm can run for 10,000 acres -
Linda and Neil McNair believe GM has huge potential for agriculture -
just not Roundup Ready wheat.
"When you look at what genetic modification is, it is a speeding up of a
breeding method, and it might actually be even safer than conventional
breeding methods because it is very precise," Ms McNair said. "But you
have to separate the process from the product, and with this particular
product we see more problems than benefits."
The uproar over Roundup Ready is rare for Canada, where consumers have
unknowingly eaten food with GM ingredients for years, because there is
no labelling requirement. As much as 80% of canola grown in Canada is
genetically modified.
But far more is at stake now. Wheat is the lifeblood of western Canada,
which produces up to 25m tonnes a year - or nearly 20% of the world's
supply of bread, pasta and cake flour. The crop brings in 4bn Canadian
dollars (£1.8bn) each year, and 85% of those earnings is from exports.
If Canada embraces GM wheat, those earnings would collapse because its
customers in Europe and Asia have said they will not buy it. "About 82%
of our customers say they do not want to receive any GM wheat in our
products," said Gord Flaten, a marketing director for the Canadian Wheat
Board, which exercises al most sole control over the marketing of
Canada's wheat production. "It should not be introduced."
Concerns about GM wheat surfaced three years ago as Monsanto Canada and
public sector scientists tended the first trial crops at secret test
stations across the prairies. The doubts rose sharply this year when
Monsanto applied for Canadian government approval to launch commercial
production.
The company has promised to withhold Roundup Ready wheat until Europe
comes around to GM crops, but that has not brought much comfort.
In May, the wheat board asked Monsanto to withdraw the crop. It refused,
and the wheat board is now lobbying the Canadian government to take into
account commercial considerations - as well as the health and
environmental implications - when it makes its decision. It is also
exploring a legal challenge as a final resort, Mr Flaten said.
Ruthless
Europe's ban on GM products would force Canada to segregate conventional
wheat ruthlessly from the Roundup variety. However, many in the industry
are sceptical that Canada's aging storage and transport system can offer
such guarantees, and fear it would lose its reputation for high quality
wheat.
"You can find Roundup Ready canola almost anywhere you look," said Rene
Van Acker, a plant scientist at the University of Manitoba, and author
of a study critical of the GM wheat variety. "Nobody gives it a second
look any more." Agronomists expect a similar outcome with GM wheat.
"Over many years, we are going to end up with mechanical mixing, as well
as genetic mixing," said Jim Bole, director of the federal Cereal
Research Centre.
The introduction of GM wheat could also disrupt the entire system of
agriculture in the arid region of western Canada, where farmers limit
tilling of the soil to prevent erosion and save water.
Dr Van Acker said such techniques would be rendered ineffective if GM
wheat enters production alongside its canola equivalent, upsetting a
traditional rotation of crops, and forcing farmers to turn to different
varieties of herbicide.
"A lot of farmers don't realise the precarious position they are in," he
said. "The next time we see a severe drought in western Canada, a lot
will see the impact, and more will lose their farms."
Such dangers have yet to fully dawn on farmers, but they are clear
enough to persuade them it is not worth trying to persuade Europe to
change its mind on GM wheat.
"We spent the last seven years trying to convince consumers in Europe
that canola is safe, and we have not made much headway, so maybe we just
feel it is easier not to grow something than to convince the consumer
that it is safe," said Charles Fossay, vice-president of Keystone
Agricultural Producers, Manitoba's farmers' body. "If we saw greater
benefits, farmers might spend more time trying to convince consumers it
is safe. But we don't."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1000551,00.html
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