Are There Questions We Don't Want Answered?

Remember when Canola was western Canada’s Cinderella crop? Back in the mid 90s, canola was the crop that was bolstering farm revenues when wheat prices were low. (We didn’t know wheat prices could go lower!) Bright yellow was the colour of money. When herbicide resistant canola was introduced in 1996, farmers rushed to adopt the new technology. Western Canada’s second most widely planted and second most valuable crop was now going to show increased yield with reduced inputs. It took 3 years for 60% of the crop to be planted to genetically modified strains. According to its promoters, there was going to be all upside with no downside. Now we have to ask, who has Cinderella been sleeping with?

Genetically modified crops are controversial. Debates have raged about their health and safety. This has overshadowed the debate about the legal, social and economic impact of the new technology. The Schmeiser case is the one place where some of these concerns have been aired. Percy Schmeiser has argued that his fields have been contaminated by ‘roundup ready’ canola. Monsanto has accused him of infringing their patent by growing their seed without payment.

Now it turns out there is research to show there is widespread contamination of canola seed stocks by herbicide resistant strains. A 2002 Agriculture and Agri-food Canada study examined 70 certified canola seed lots and found 50% of them were contaminated. 25% had contamination levels exceeding the standard for certified seed. A 2003 University of Manitoba study examined 27 seed lots and found contamination in 26 of them. 14 of them (more than 50%) had contamination greater than the purity guideline for certified canola seed (0.25%). Three of them had contamination greater than 2%. The authors of the Manitoba study concluded that cross contamination in the pedigreed canola seed production systems occurs at such a high level, the use of pedigreed canola seed can no longer guarantee the absence of herbicide resistant strains. This is a problem for all canola growers. Farmers who plant a conventional canola crop purchased from a certified seed grower can now be fairly sure they will have some herbicide resistant seed. For one or two years following, they will have volunteer canola resistant to the most popular herbicides forcing a more expensive application of other chemicals and limiting the choices of crop rotation. Some of this contamination probably comes from gene movement through cross pollination and the rest probably comes from mixture in commercial seed handling and packaging. The system is simply not designed to handle tolerances this fine.

Now we have a proposal to introduce wheat genetically modified to be herbicide resistant. What obligation do we have to protect conventional wheat farmers from the collateral damage arising from GM wheat? This winter we had a dramatic lesson on how fragile is an agricultural activity highly dependent on trade. One sick cow and the whole Canadian beef industry was decimated. What would happen if we discovered that our certified wheat seed stocks were contaminated with GM wheat? What would happen to our wheat exports if we could no longer guarantee they were GM free? What would happen if one or more certified wheat growers sprayed a corner of their plots with a popular herbicide and not all the plants died? There are some questions to which we don’t want answers.

The University of Manitoba study was written by Friesen, Nelson and Van Acker and published in the American Agronomy Journal 95:1342-1347 (2003). The 2002 study was by Downie and Beckie for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Saskatoon.

First Published in March 2004