Add one more headache for farmers planning to plant canola, corn or potatoes on the Prairies this spring.
Should they seed genetically modified varieties or not?
Even if they offer better yields or lower pesticide costs,
will the market shun these products of advanced science?
It is a growing issue for farmers across Canada.
In Ontario, the resolutely pro-GM corn producers’ lobby reported in late January that despite environmentalist opposition, acreage of GM corn this year will be “at least as high as last year’s.”
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There are predictions that the same will be true for prairie canola acreage.
Yet the controversy has shaken the confidence of many
in the industry about the future role of GM varieties. Will consumers accept them?
In this special report, Brandon-based reporter Ian Bell explores the controversy over GM crops, the farmer dilemma, the consumer view and the research chill.
Alan Kennedy doesn’t grow transgenic corn on his farm. Never has. Never will.
In the debate about genetically modified organ-isms, the corn grower from Miami, Man., stands somewhere in the middle.
“It’s a wonderful technology, I don’t deny that, but we just plain don’t need it right now.”
The Prairies already produces grains in abundance, he figures. What is the point of boosting yields even more, especially if the cost to grow transgenic crops is higher than for conventional varieties?
“It might boost your yield a little bit, but we’re growing too damn much of the stuff anyway,” he said. “Given the market conditions, it just doesn’t wash. All you’re doing is increasing the risk.”
Gerald Harder, a corn grower near Carman, Man., holds a different point of view. He supports the development of herbicide-
tolerant crops that can give him better weed control on his farm.
Harder plans to grow 600 acres of corn on his farm this year. Bt corn, modified for resistance to the European corn borer, will be included in those plantings.
“With Bt corn, there are certainly yield benefits,” said Harder, president of the Manitoba Corn Growers Association.
“It’s been proven there’s at least eight or nine bushels to be had, and those are (in) years without severe corn borer outbreaks.”
It is an illustration of the divided farm view over genetically modified organisms and their place in the food chain.
An Angus Reid public opinion survey conducted in November provided a snapshot of where farmers stand in that debate.
The survey, commissioned by Monsanto, showed 75 percent of 750 Canadian farmers surveyed see biotechnology as beneficial.
The potential for better yields, better weed and insect control and higher returns were cited among the advantages.
“They definitely see the need for further investment in biotechnology in Canada,” said Gary Bennewies, executive vice-president of Angus Reid’s agri-food group in Winnipeg.
“They see biotechnology as important.”
But the survey found something else – concern among growers about market acceptance of biotech crops. That concern was mentioned by roughly a quarter of the farmers questioned.
Those numbers don’t surprise farm groups such as Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers.
Some farmers are as concerned about the GMO issue as they are about grain prices, said KAP president Don Dewar, a Dauphin, Man., farmer.
“It depends how close your back is to the wall,” Dewar said, noting that growers squeezed by low commodity prices may rate the GMO debate as a smaller concern.
In Western Canada, much of the discussion about GMOs centres on canola, a crop grown mainly for markets in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Japan and China.
Canola producers are “scared and nervous” even though they like the technology, said Ken Harms, crop inputs sales manager at the new ConAgra terminal near Nesbitt, Man. They are asking if premiums will be paid for non-transgenic canola and whether transgenic crops will be discounted at the elevator.
Ed Beare, manager of the ConAgra terminal, said another concern among farmers is where ownership of the technology lies.
He knows of some area farmers who returned to growing non-transgenic canola, partly due to market concerns and partly as a rebellion against the growing influence of large chemical/pharmaceutical companies.
Those farmers worry about one day having fewer options about what they can plant, Beare said.
Still, for all the anecdotal evidence of unease, there were no signs in January that transgenics would slide as a percentage of Western Canada’s canola crop this year. Analysts say the percentage may even rise.
“We’re not seeing any backing off,” said Bill Hunt, a senior executive with Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
“There’s no question farmers really like the technology.”
Less visible but also involved in the debate are crops such as corn and potatoes, which also add diversity to prairie farms.
Both sectors felt the effects recently of fallout from the global debate on GMOs.
Seagram, one of the world’s largest distillers, said last December it would not use genetically modified products in its spirits. Seagram buys up to two million bushels of the corn grown in Manitoba each year.
McCain Foods, a french fry giant with a processing plant in Manitoba and another under construction in Alberta, last year sent letters to its Canadian growers saying it would not accept genetically modified crops this fall.
McCain spokesperson Lucie Pelletier said the company was responding to customer demands, although she would not say which customers had shunned GM potatoes.
“Some countries have limits on the GM products they’ll accept,” she said. “It’s a very active issue in Europe.”
Garry Sloik, president of Keystone Vegetable Growers in Manitoba, was disappointed by the decision, suggesting it would be a setback to the province’s potato industry.
Genetically modified crops made up only a small part of the potato acres planted in Manitoba last year. Still, Sloik saw them as having the greatest potential for overcoming plant diseases such as late blight, best remembered for causing the Irish potato famine in the 1840s.
“I hate to think that fear mongering and perception are killing science,” said Sloik. “That appears to be what’s happening.”
Whether it is called hysteria, fear or caution, corn grower Kennedy said the attitudes of consumers cannot be ignored. Consumer skepticism has its place, he said, arguing that the issue is one that deals with the ‘spark of life’.
“This whole thing is being pushed too fast by the corporations who are developing it.”
