For years, genetically modified wheat promoters found that government regulators wouldn’t listen to a thing they said.
Today, GM wheat is still not grown or accepted in any significant producing or consuming region.
But something big has changed, the annual meeting of the Canada Grains Council was told April 6 – governments of countries that import wheat have begun to listen to the biotech companies.
“Last year, when food prices were where they were, we noticed a sea change in attitudes,” said David Morgan, president of Syngenta’s North American crop biotech development.
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Instead of listening only to anti-GMO groups, governments started talking to the companies that were claiming their high-tech crops would increase yields and lower prices for consumers.
“There was a very substantial dialogue emerging saying it’s time that we need technology to first provide enough food and secondly at a price that our population can afford,” Morgan said.
The grains council spent half its annual meeting discussing the continuing complications around exporting and importing GM crops.
The world grain trade has been bedeviled by regulatory problems since GM crops were first grown in the 1990s.
Although major crop producing nations such as Canada, the United States and Argentina were quick to embrace GM crops such as corn, soybeans and canola, some importing nations blocked their import, either totally, partially or temporarily.
GM innovations in wheat, the most widespread crop on earth, have been frozen in the research lab because fear of consumer rejection has stopped countries from approving GM wheat.
The ban on growing and consuming GM wheat has led wheat to become what Morgan called the “orphan crop” among the major crops, falling far behind the others in research and development.
However, Gary Martin, president of the North American Export Grain Association, said he senses that markets might start opening to GM crops.
“We’re moving quite rapidly down the road towards some of these resolutions,” Martin said.
Getting most nations to approve trace amounts of GM crops in non-GM shipments appears to be coming closer for most markets, including Europe, which means some of the snarls in international trade may ease.
Most regulators and many politicians accept that zero tolerance is not reasonable.
Chantal Fauth, secretary-general of the European grain industry associaton COCERAL, said many European politicians are aware of the damage being done to their livestock industry by the GM crop bans but don’t want to be seen approving them, so they leave it to a slow and laborious bureaucratic process, which is gradually approving GM imports.
“This is a bit weird,” she said, explaining how European Union officials can approve GM imports if a number of levels of elected officials don’t produce a “qualified majority” in favour of it.
However, Martin said he doesn’t think GM wheat is near approval in most countries, regardless of the growing acceptance of other crops.
“It’s too close to the mouth, too close to the heart, too close to the head,” said Martin, pointing out that importing nations also won’t approve GM rice from the United States.
“Wheat has to be treated differently.”
Manitoba farmer Chuck Fossay said he doesn’t ideologically oppose GM wheat, but he doesn’t think Canadian farmers should be forced to face the risk of growing it in the present unsettled climate.
“As a farmer, I’m not opposed to any sort of genetic manipulation as long as it brings benefits to me as a producer or to the consumer, but you have to have that market acceptance.”
That creates a chicken-or-the-egg situation, he acknowledged, but said another major exporter may feel forced to take the leap into GM wheat and accept the risks.
“I can see in Australia, where they need drought tolerance, them looking at drought tolerant GM wheat as a saviour,” Fossay said.
“Maybe that’s where we’ll see the breakthrough come.”
