The upcoming 2004 annual meeting of the Prairie Registration Recommending Committee on Grains just got a little less interesting.
Monsanto Canada has decided not to ask the committee to recommend Roundup Ready wheat for registration when it meets in Saskatoon in February.
Such a request would almost certainly have produced a contentious debate about the future of the genetically modified wheat.
The company has completed three years of field testing on one Roundup Ready wheat line and is now in a position to ask the committee to recommend it to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for varietal registration.
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However, in a Dec. 8 letter to committee members, the Monsanto official in charge of the project said that since commercial introduction of RR wheat is still some time away, pending the resolution of a number of other issues, there is no point in making a request at this time.
“The introduction of RR wheat as a commercial product is not imminent,” Curtis Rempel said. “As such, the decision not to ask for variety recommendation in 2004 has no commercial impact on this project.”
Instead, the company will ask the committee to accept its 2003 test data and approve more testing in 2004.
Rempel emphasized the decision doesn’t signal a change in Monsanto’s determination to introduce RR wheat in Canada.
The PRRCG varietal registration is separate from the regulatory approval process that has been going on for the past year. The CFIA is reviewing seed safety and environmental safety, Health Canada is looking at food safety and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency is studying issues related to Roundup use.
Even if the PRRCG had approved a request from Monsanto – which was by no means guaranteed – the GM wheat couldn’t be introduced commercially until all those approvals were received.
Monsanto spokesperson Trish Jordan said the decision not to seek registration shows that the company is being “cautious and responsible.”
And on a practical level, it will allow the company to conduct another year of field trials and gather more data on the two lines being tested – BW251, which will enter its fourth year of testing in 2004 and BW252, which will go into its third year.
“That will help us as we make a determination which line to bring forward in order to meet industry standards,” Jordan said, noting both lines will be eligible next year.
She added it’s too early to say whether Monsanto will seek a recommendation for varietal registration at the PRRCG’s 2005 meeting.
An official with the Canadian Wheat Board, which opposes the introduction of RR wheat because most of its customers don’t want it, said Monsanto made the right decision.
“It’s good news and we appreciate it,” said Gord Flaten, the board’s director of market development.
He said a positive recommendation by the committee might have been misinterpreted by customers to mean Canada was about to start producing GM wheat.
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells downplayed the significance of the Monsanto decision, saying the bottom line is the company remains committed to introducing RR wheat.
He said the CFIA should reject the company’s request for regulatory approval for a number of reasons, including contamination, environmental damage and suggested links between glyphosate and fusarium.
Flaten said that just as Monsanto says it remains committed to commercializing RR wheat, so the board remains committed to fighting it. It will continue to press the federal government for a regulatory change to take into account in the approval process market impact and the costs and benefits for farmers.
Monsanto has said it will not proceed with commercialization until several “milestone” issues have been dealt with: regulatory approval in Canada, the United States, Japan and other key export markets; the development of appropriate grain handling, sampling and detection systems; agronomic stewardship and management programs; end-use quality and market acceptance.
“Clearly with this project, market acceptance is the key, along with the development of a system that will maintain choice for customers who don’t want GM varieties,” Jordan said.
Wells doesn’t take Monsanto’s commitment on those issues seriously.
“I see them as a multinational corporate enterprise that is saying whatever it has to, to keep their proposal afloat,” he said.
