Organic growers have long complained that genetically modified crops threaten their livelihoods.
But according to national standards in the United States and those under development in Canada, unintentional GM contamination has no effect on a producer’s organic status.
The Canadian Organic Standards Committee hopes to achieve final consensus on the main section of Canada’s proposed new standard by March 7.
While the document clearly rejects the purposeful planting of GM crops, it leaves the issue of involuntary contamination for the market to decide, said Janine Gibson, chair of the committee’s editorial working group.
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There is nothing in the standard to reject a crop that has been victimized by pollen drift but that doesn’t mean it will make it past the scrutinizing eyes of buyers.
“The buyers check the product for quality before it has been purchased and if a load is contaminated, the sale is diverted. It can’t go through,” said Gibson.
The situation is much the same south of the border where after years of ambiguity, the contamination issue was recently clarified during an exchange between federal and state agriculture departments.
In response to a series of questions from the National Association of State Departments, the United States Department of Agriculture said as long as a grower didn’t purposely plant GM seed and took reasonable steps to avoid incidental contact with the banned substance, such as setting up buffer zones, the product could be certified despite being contaminated.
“Such adventitious (GM) presence does not affect the status of the certified operation and does not necessarily result in the loss of organic status for the organic product,” wrote Bill Hawks, under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the USDA, in his Dec. 21, 2004, letter.
That admission raised the ire of one of the country’s most outspoken critics of organic agriculture.
Alex Avery, research director of the Center for Global Food Issues, a group that advocates the use of modern farming practices like biotechnology, said the organic industry is being hypocritical.
On one hand it claims the spread of GM crops will be its demise. On the other it approves standards that allow for the certification of tainted crops.
“It can be 99.99 percent contaminated and it is still organic. It will not lose its organic status because the farmer followed all the rules. And that is what the consumer is buying,” said Avery.
“Not a single crop or a single farmer has ever lost organic status because of so-called biotech contamination. Not one.”
Jim Riddle, chair of the U.S. National Organic Standards Board, said that statement is true but it distorts the fact that many sales are quashed for exceeding GM tolerance levels established by organic buyers.
He said the issue poses a real quandary for the industry. Ideally growers shouldn’t be penalized for doing everything possible to protect their crops from contamination but as it reads now, the National Organic Program falls short of adequately protecting consumers.
“I think it is a deficiency and something that needs to be addressed,” said Riddle.
Later this year, his board will explore the idea of adding specific GM tolerance levels to the national standard, similar to what exists for pesticide residues, although he thinks it has to be introduced hand-in-hand with changes to crop insurance regulations covering GM contamination.
“I think it’s a debate that we need to have to establish something that consumers and farmers can understand and support,” said Riddle.
Gibson said there are no GM thresholds in Canada’s proposed new national organic standard but there is talk about dealing with the issue in the organic regulation being developed in conjunction with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
It is hoped that regulation will be in place by the end of this year.
