Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably formed an opinon about NDP agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko and his doomed private members’ bill on biotech crops.
The bill itself wasn’t complex. At under 100 words, it couldn’t be. But it was big, calling for “an analysis of potential harm to export markets” prior to the sale of new genetically modified seed.
Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians loved it. Biotech industry groups hated it. So did most (but not all) farmers and farm groups. In fact, the farm community as a whole spent an enormous amount of time and energy arguing against it.
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For all the words expended, there was remarkably little dialogue. Groups on both sides seemed more interested in scoring political points than in discussing an idea that’s well worth discussing — how to protect farmers when there’s a GMO market backlash.
It’s not like this is just academic. Ask any flax grower. Even the canola and corn industries have to concede that for all their economic success, markets still took a hit in the early years, especially in Europe.
So, while Bill C-474 was defeated in the House of Commons in February, the questions it raises remain.
Q&A
Country Guide: Private members’ bills are a heck of a lot of work and they tend to be topics that the people proposing the legislation feel strongly about — so why this bill and why you?
ALEX ATAMANENKO:Something needs to be done in regards to genetic modification technology and the potential negative effect any further introduction of this technology could have on farmers.
We decided to word the bill to try to get as much support as possible by looking at it strictly from the point of view of economics. In other words, if there’s no market for farmers, if they are going to lose money, why do we introduce any further GM technology?
If you look at the bill we’re not talking about science or safety or anything like that. It’s not rocket science: there’s a market or there isn’t a market. We know that, for example, the controversy is raging all over the world. The European Union, Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg have bans on growing GM corn.
The idea is that there are countries which, for one reason or another, have taken the stance that they don’t want either to import GM crops or to cultivate them. My purpose was to make sure that our farmers don’t get hammered in the process.
CG: But how can anyone predict whether there will be an economic impact?
AA:Let’s look at wheat. In a letter that I have before me, the Canadian Wheat Board says certain conditions must be met before a GM variety of wheat or barley can be released successfully. One of them is that there has to be widespread market acceptance. I quote from this letter: “This includes both what governments will approve and what customers will buy. It is important to keep in mind that these are not necessarily the same thing.”
It goes on to say that there remains strong and widespread opposition to GM wheat or barley in about half of our markets, and this includes but is not limited to the governments of and customers in the European Union, Japan, Thailand, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and a number of African nations.
As long as there are customers who do not wish to purchase GM wheat or barley, it would have to be segregated from conventional and organic product through the bulk handling and transportation systems. With zero tolerance for unapproved GM products, segregation would be impossible.
In order for any segregation system to work it must be possible very quickly, very accurately and at low cost to detect whether a GM variety is present in a truck or railcar or vessel. There is currently no such detection system available.
I guess the point is that once the seed or the crop is released, it’s almost impossible to segregate it. For example there’s StarLink corn. There is also the example in the U.S. of Liberty Link rice. The economic impact on U.S. rice farmers has been estimated to be in excess of $1 billion. They’re still fighting that out.
The main point is that it’s next to impossible to control the spread of a GM crop.
CG: So you don’t have any faith in the ability to segregate these GM crops within the supply chain?
AA:I don’t think it’s possible. We have another issue resurfacing in the Okanagan that I’d like to tell you about. A company has developed a genetically modified non-browning apple and they do it by silencing the browning enzyme. They’re submitting it to the USDA for approval and eventually it will go to CFIA in Canada for approval.
The fruit growers are saying, “wait a minute.” The idea that the GE apple can coexist with conventional and organic fruit is ludicrous. They even have a resolution of the B.C. Fruit Growers at their convention that said until such time that the Canadian government can assure us there will be no backlash and, if there is, they will indemnify us for it, this crop should not be approved.
In other words, if there’s any contamination, somebody’s got to step up to the plate and compensate the farmers who are growing apples if they’re affected economically. The fact is that you can’t grow a genetically modified apple and not have contamination through cross pollination. It will happen.
In 1996, CDC Triffid flax was granted environmental release and approval from Agriculture Canada. It was also that same year approved for animal feeds, granted variety registration making it legal to sell seed, and in 1998 it was approved for human consumption. But in 2001 it was deregistered, making it illegal to sell the seeds in Canada as a result of a protest that happened.
But what happened is that, because these seeds had initially been approved and released, we found contamination and we’ve seen that whole story in 2009 — eight years later — where Canadian flax markets were all of sudden shut down.
CG: The biotech industry doesn’t seem like your bill. Were you in any way surprised?
AA:What’s really disturbing here is that when this bill was being introduced, I had an executive of [industry group] CropLife tell me, point blank to my face, that we do not want this bill discussed in Parliament. Can you imagine that?
Here we have a chance to have this issue discussed in Parliament and industry is telling us that there’s no way that it should even be discussed because they have all the answers.
I think this is a scam. I think the whole push by industry is for control.
CG: So what about the charge you’re meddling in something you don’t understand?
AA:First of all, the bill in no way attempts to look at the science of the crops. It simply says that there needs to be an evaluation of the economic impact of introducting these seeds.
But also most of the science done in regard to this is done by the industry in Canada and government is just basically — well, it would appear there’s not a lot of independent study done on this.
We can dispute that and we can talk about it. That’s maybe be a topic for another day to look at the whole aspect of GM technology and health. What I’m saying is that there is science all over the world and there is science that’s questioning the mantra of the biotech industry.
We have to be aware that there may be economic impact on our farmers. Basically the reaction of our government is if we put enough pressure on all these countries to accept GMO crops, then everything will be fine.
CG: What constitutes market acceptance then, given that you’ll never get 100 per cent acceptance?
AA:If we look at 192 countries in the world, 167 out of 192 countries grow no GMO it all. Ninety nine point five percent of farmers around the world do not grow them. We are being told by the industry that we need all these crops to save the world, but that really isn’t true.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development — it’s kind of the big umbrella thinking group of scientist and the world — brought 400 scientists together. Their report, endorsed by 58 governments, concludes that genetically modified crops are not a solution for poverty, hunger or climate change.
This counteracts the spin that we’ve been given by the U.S. government and the biotech industry that it’s really, really important for us to do this. These crops do not increase yield.
I think that we have to give our head a shake. We have to look and see if what we’re doing is in the best interest of not only farmers but of the world population in total. In other words, there’s a lot of evidence to say that GM technology is not the best way to feed the hungry world, and it certainly isn’t the easiest way to increase yields and food available to hungry people.
CG: So your point is that we need to keep in mind how interconnected all of these decisions are?
AA:It’s an extremely complicated situation. The main point here in Canada is that, before we move into this any further, first of all we have to make sure that, if we’re doing that, that we have market acceptance for our farmers.
That’s the bottom line — that our farmers not be hurt economically because someone else wants to rush the introduction of a new GM crop.CG
