Farmers in the hot, dry zone may have to wait another year before they get a long-awaited new canola crop.
Health Canada has still not given full approval for two varieties of brassica juncea, a mustard plant that produces canola-quality oil and meal. If that approval does not come within a few days, it will be impossible to get into growers’ hands by spring seeding.
“It’s been most frustrating,” said Saskatchewan Wheat Pool crop developer Derek Potts.
There have been high hopes in the canola industry for years about brassica juncea, which could open up drier parts of the Prairies to more canola production. Most canola plants are too sensitive to drought and heat to survive in southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta.
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The new crop also appears to have better disease resistance, which means it might be grown in the traditional canola zone as well, said Canola Council of Canada president Dale Adolphe.
The new varieties have joined canola seeds with a drought-tolerant mustard plant through traditional plant breeding. These varieties are not a product of biotechnology.
They have received all the normal approvals from the registration system, but because they are seen as radically new, they must go through the much more rigorous process for novel foods.
Health Canada has the right to judge the new plant’s safety for use as human food, for animal feed, and can rule on whether it threatens the environment.
The crop’s oil was approved by the United States a year ago. It has almost received approval from both American and Canadian regulators to be used as an animal feed except for a technical requirement developers said should be easy to fulfil.
But getting the oil approved in Canada as a human food is the key to whether the crop is released, and that approval hasn’t yet come.
Monte Kesslering, Sask Pool’s seed business manager, said no particular difficulties have arisen from Health Canada’s scrutiny, other than delays.
“We’ve met the technical challenges. We’ve answered the questions from an industry standpoint and a health standpoint, but it seems like the bureaucracy is a slow and painful process to move through,” said Kesslering.
“It’s unfortunate. It could have been commercialized a year ago, but here we are in the first week of March still waiting again.”
Using mustard plants as a means of producing canola oil and meal in hot and dry areas was an idea originated by Agriculture Canada, which began the work on these varieties in the 1980s.
Sask Pool became involved and eventually took over the program. Potts said the company expected to be able to introduce the varieties by 1995 or 1996.
Kesslering said federal regulators are supposed to respond to new crop applications with any questions within 120 days.
“We’ve had to wait a lot longer than that,” said Kesslering.
Adolphe said approval of the crop was slowed because developers didn’t do some of the preliminary work that should have been done early in the process.
But he also said federal regulators now may be extra cautious because of recent food scares and worries, such as the European furore over genetically modified foods.
Adolphe said he had believed the crop could be registered for this year, but now expects it will be ready for the 2002 crop season.
Kesslering said he’s trying to be patient, but is getting tired of waiting.
“It’s always just around the corner.”
