The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has no track record of rejection but it is insisting that approval of Monsanto’s genetically modified wheat is not a foregone conclusion.
“It is not a done deal,” Stephen Yarrow of CFIA’s plant biotechnology office said in a Jan. 13 interview. “We have a very thorough review process to go through.”
Former CFIA president Ron Doering made the same point in a letter to Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen last June.
“It is not a given that the application will be successful,” Doering wrote after Friesen asked that the government find a way to keep out Roundup Ready wheat until there is better market acceptance.
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“No approvals are granted until the CFIA is completely satisfied that a plant with a novel trait does not pose a significant safety risk to the environment and Canadian biodiversity and to the health of livestock animals.”
Doering said GM wheat will be subject to “extra rigorous scrutiny” because of the potential for volunteer spread and crossbreeding.
“An application involving novel herbicide-tolerant wheat will be subject to this extra scrutiny, since any potential compromise in a farmers’ ability to rotate crops and control volunteers in a sustainable manner will be seriously considered in the environmental assessment process,” Doering wrote.
The exchange of letters between Friesen and the CFIA president was obtained under Access to Information rules by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin.
In the interview, Yarrow was asked how many variety submissions CFIA has refused.
“It is a question that is always coming up and I have to be careful how I answer it because of those who have a slant that the agency just rubberstamps everything so what’s the point,” Yarrow said. “There has not been a submission that we have refused based on environmental issues.”
Monsanto also has made a submission to Health Canada for food safety tests of the proposed new variety, he said.
Critics of genetically modified foods immediately said they are not going to trust the regulators to keep GM wheat off the market.
The Council of Canadians, in co-operation with the National Farmers Union, the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate and the Alberta-based environmental research group Parkland Institute, will start a 12-city tour of the Prairies this winter to campaign against GM wheat. It starts in Winnipeg Feb. 27.
And in Toronto, Greenpeace biotechnology campaigner Holly Penfound demanded that agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief intervene to stop the process.
“This application spells danger,” she said. “Minister Vanclief must now act to protect farmers and all Canadians from the threat of GE wheat.”
The CFA, Canadian Wheat Board and other industry groups also have been pleading with the government to find some way to keep the product off the market, at least for a while.
In his letter to Doering last summer, Friesen proposed a change to Seeds Act regulations to allow a “delay in the effective date of an unconfined release” if there are fears that markets will be lost because of nervous customers.
“We believe there is a clear need to ensure that there is sufficient legal ability to deal with potential problems associated with release of transgenic wheat,” wrote Friesen.
Doering said he understood the concern but allowing market acceptance issues into a variety approval process would weaken its scientific credibility and be seen by critics as the injection of politics.
However, he said “senior level discussions” were under way within the government to see if a solution could be found.
Yarrow said these talks continue but have not yet reached a conclusion. He also said discussions with industry have been held to develop and promote ways growers can manage their farms and crop rotation to minimize risk of GM contamination.
“What can the industry do, what can the growers do, the seed suppliers do to minimize these inevitable volunteer problems? There are solutions out there but how can we do that?”
Yarrow said an industry group is working on education tools and proposals that farmers could apply on their farms.
