Contrary to popular belief, the introduction of genetically modified crops hasn’t led to huge market losses, says a biotech analyst.
In a 2003 report, the Soil Association from Great Britain postulated that the introduction of Roundup Ready canola cost the Canadian canola industry $300 million to $400 million a year through lost sales to Europe.
The group came to a similar conclusion about U.S. corn exports, postulating the country’s corn growers lost an estimated $2 billion in trade with Europe because of GM crops.
However, Stuart Smyth, a research associate at the University of Saskatchewan’s college of biotechnology, compared North American grain exports before and after the introduction of GM varieties and determined that hasn’t been the case with canola, corn or soybeans.
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“Huge markets worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars are not being lost as claimed by critics of agricultural biotechnology,” he concluded in his paper.
In the case of canola, what has been lost in Europe has been made up with increased exports to other countries.
“Mexico has doubled the amount of canola that they import from Canada and we export a lot more canola to China now,” Smyth said in an interview after he presented his paper to a food safety and science conference organized by the Saskatchewan Council of CropLife Canada.
In comparing 1990-96 pre-GM canola exports to 1997-2003 post-GM canola exports, Smyth determined that Canada lost the EU, which accounted for 14 percent of sales, and the Japanese market dropped from 68 to 53 percent of sales, but Mexico doubled its purchases, accounting for 18 percent of exports post-GM canola versus nine percent pre-GM canola.
China also became a bigger player, accounting for 19 percent of Canada’s canola exports versus two percent before GM crops were introduced.
That finding flies in the face of what the Soil Association was predicting, which was the loss of the $125 million Chinese market because of import restrictions.
In his 19-page report, Smyth also noted that the number of small market purchases has doubled in the post-GM environment and that the EU is still buying a small amount of Canadian canola, with purchases ranging from $340,000 to $1.1 million US over the past five years.
