One of Canada’s top pulse crop breeders says he will quit his job if something isn’t done to fix regulations governing plants with novel traits.
University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre breeder Bert Vandenberg said Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations are stifling innovation in plant breeding programs, leaving him with two choices.
“I will either stop doing anything novel, or I will leave my profession because I cannot live with the idea that what I’m doing is not innovative. That’s the whole reason for doing plant breeding,” said Vandenberg.
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“I’m serious. I feel that strongly about it. I do not want to be associated with a profession that is going to be tied up with this kind of bad logic. I’ll leave it.”
Many countries have safety regulations governing biotech crops.
Canada has chosen to regulate plants with novel traits, which are any new varieties considered substantially different from plants of the same species already grown in Canada.
That broader definition includes plants derived from traditional breeding methods, which is annoying Vandenberg and some of his colleagues.
They met with CFIA officials in March to air their concerns. Vandenberg said the CFIA has its priorities wrong and that the agency should regulate plant varieties the way it is done with organics or kosher meats.
“It is the process. It is not the product that the public is worried about.”
Phil Macdonald, national manager of the CFIA’s plant biosafety office, holds the opposite view.
“What’s really the crux of the issue is what is the product? What is it? What have you got at the end?”
If Canada adopted a system that only regulated plants produced through biotechnology, it would be turning a blind eye to innovations such as herbicide-tolerant crops created through mutagenesis. There are also dangers associated with traditional plant-crossing techniques that need to be monitored.
MacDonald said it is inconsistent for Vandenberg to call for scrutiny of GM crops while adopting a “not in my back yard” stance on his own traditional breeding work.
“That works well for Bert, but from a scientific standpoint I’d have a hard time defending that.”
He said a breeder in British Columbia is trying to create a blight resistant tomato by doing forced crosses with wild tomato plants, which are highly poisonous. That kind of work needs to be monitored, he added.
“Really what counts here is what you got, not how you got it in there.”
But Vandenberg said under the current rules any innovation can be deemed a novel trait, which is “bottlenecking” legitimate new crops that pose no threat to human health or the environment.
He recently crossed a pinto bean with a Florida Mayo bean using traditional plant breeding methods, but he couldn’t register the resulting variety because it was deemed to be a novel food.
“I have no idea why they picked up on this. I just can’t figure it out. I thought I was doing Canada some good.”
The only explanation he can come up with is that the new bean was pink and white instead of pink or white and that raised a red flag.
Macdonald said the CFIA has informed Vandenberg that his Florida Mayo bean is not a plant with a novel trait, but Health Canada has determined it’s a novel food, which means it falls under a different set of rules.
He emphasized the federal government is not attempting to stifle innovation, but is endeavoring to protect the health and safety of Canadians and their environment. At the same time the CFIA is working to address the concerns raised by plant breeders.
“We’re not oblivious to this and we’re not trying to be miserable either.”
The agency will soon make recommendations on how it can improve the regulation by creating more sensible and workable guidelines for plant breeders.
It may be too little too late for Vandenberg, who is pushing for the plants with novel traits regulations to be replaced by genetically modified organism regulations.
He said plant breeding is all about innovation, but a bureaucratic nightmare has changed the essence of his occupation.
“If you’re just drawing your salary because everything is too novel to handle, what’s the point? Go drive a taxi buddy.”
