The recall of Quest canola is almost complete, say the two grain companies that sold the Roundup Ready seed to farmers this spring.
It has been a quick retrieval of the herbicide-tolerant variety.
“I didn’t actually know there was a recall in place and they had already come out and done it,” said Michelle Fleury, a canola grower from McKague, Sask.
By the time her brother came home with news that the Quest variety was being pulled because of a problem with an errant gene, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool workers had already been to their farm and replaced their pallet of Quest with Conquest.
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“We’ve grown Conquest before and we’re not concerned about swapping one for the other in terms of our experience with the two varieties,” said Fleury.
The Quest recall was announced on April 25 after routine testing revealed trace levels of an unwanted gene in the variety.
It is the second time the GT-200 gene has appeared in commercial varieties of herbicide-tolerant canola despite the fact the gene was never commercialized by its creator, Monsanto Canada Inc.
Company officials said the recall is being done to appease Canada’s canola customers and stressed that it is not a food safety issue.
The gene has food, feed and environmental approval in Canada, but not abroad. Monsanto will begin the process of seeking approval for GT-200 in Japan and the United States later this summer.
In the meantime, all of the seed that was doled out by Agricore has been recovered and all but “five to 10 percent” of Sask Pool’s Quest seed has been retrieved.
“We suspect that it will be cleaned up within the next day or two,” said Monte Kesslering, the pool’s seed business unit manager, in a May 7 interview.
Most farmers who had booked Quest through the two grain companies were happy to exchange it for other Roundup Ready varieties – primarily Conquest – but a few opted for a cash refund or cancelled their orders for fears of poor moisture conditions.
Agricore said 29 of its customers seeded Quest in the fall or early this spring. Some of those farmers have chosen to reseed fields with a different system of herbicide-tolerant canola. Others picked a different crop.
Sask Pool had fewer customers that planted Quest. They will be reseeding their fields with some type of crop other than canola.
The companies will cover any costs associated with killing the Quest crop and reseeding.
Canola Council of Canada president Dale Adolphe said there hasn’t been any reaction from Japan to the Quest incident.
It is Canada’s most important canola customer and a nation that is sensitive about importing genetically modified product.
“It has been remarkably quiet and I don’t know if that’s the lull before the storm or what.”
He said last week was a national holiday in Japan and that could be part of the reason it has been so quiet.
Adolphe said Monsanto and its marketing partners will be preparing a report about how the recall was handled that will be distributed to Japanese buyers.
