This spring will mark the second year of commercial planting of Clearfield wheat in Canada and so far the crop has avoided the beehive of controversy stirred up by another type of herbicide tolerant wheat.
BASF’s new product has not generated the negative backlash that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready wheat caused, but a few nervous rumblings are beginning in the anti-biotech community, said a senior official of one national farm group.
“The Clearfield herbicide tolerant wheat seems to be triggering some apprehension. I’ve been noticing that,” said National Farmers Union vice-president Terry Boehm.
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However, the opposition isn’t focused because most groups don’t really know where they stand on the breeding technique used to create BASF’s CDC Imagine wheat, which was planted on slightly less than 200,000 acres of Canadian farmland in 2005.
While the NFU has called for a moratorium on GM crops such as Roundup Ready wheat, the group has no formal policy on crops derived through mutagenesis, in which crop mutations are encouraged through the use of chemicals or radiation.
Boehm said he is still trying to get his mind around the issue but at first blush mutagenesis doesn’t seem as objectionable as genetic modification.
“I believe there is a significant difference (with genetic modification) because you’re creating things that wouldn’t have occurred naturally,” he said.
And there aren’t the same control and ownership issues surrounding Clearfield systems as there is with Roundup Ready systems.
“At least so far products of mutagenesis are not patentable,” said Boehm.
However, he isn’t prepared to fully endorse Clearfield wheat because farmers are still required to sign no-fee user agreements to grow the crop. And he is disturbed by the trend to develop crops that fit with certain herbicides instead of vice versa.
The Canadian Wheat Board, which played a role in convincing Monsanto to give up on Roundup Ready wheat, said it has no similar objections with Clearfield wheat.
While there were clear market acceptance issues with Roundup Ready wheat, that is not the case with Clearfield, according to the agency.
“It has never come to our attention as being something that anybody is concerned about and I hope that doesn’t change,” said CWB spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry.
She said plant breeders need tools like mutagenesis to create new varieties.
“This is the way it is done. Otherwise it would take hundreds of years to get a new line that has the characteristics you want.”
Fitzhenry hopes the rumblings over Clearfield that Boehm referred to don’t morph into full-fledged bellyaches.
She doesn’t want to see consumers filled with unfounded fears surrounding the mutagenesis breeding technique because it is hard to wage a public relations battle against something that becomes conventional wisdom, whether it is truthful or not.
