CALGARY – Seed industry officials who met in Alberta last week agreed it is only a matter of time until trace amounts of unapproved genetic material begin to show up more often in export shipments of pedigreed seed.
But determining the best way to handle such incidents could take months or even years.
“We know for a fact that unintentional commingling can occur at any place from the seed onward through our supply system so we absolutely have no procedure, no ability, to keep products completely free of (unauthorized genetically modified) events,” said American grain trade consultant Paul Green, one of a handful of panelists who spoke at the International Seed Federation conference on adventitious and low level presence of GM material in seed.
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“If we are now talking about the ability to test (seed or commercial grain crops) in parts per billion, it’s irrelevant whether you have zero tolerance policy in place or not, because as far as we’re concerned, we will not be able to achieve it.”
Assessing the risks caused by low level GM contamination has emerged as a top priority for the global seed industry as transgenic crops continue to proliferate around the world.
Sarah Lukie, a regulatory affairs specialist with Crop Life International, said more than 14 million farmers in 25 countries are now growing transgenic crops.
In 2009, they planted GM seeds on 330 million acres, an increase of nearly seven percent over the previous year.
Nearly half of that acreage was grown in developing countries such as India, China and the Philippines.
“Most of the farmers (who use this technology) are farmers in developing countries, working on small subsistence farms,” Lukie said.
Data collected over the past few years also suggests that the adoption of GM crops is not likely to slow.
In 2009, 33 GM traits had been approved for commercial production by various countries around the world.
By 2015, that number is expected to balloon to 124 and could include GM crops like tomato products, squash, okra, papaya and sugar beets.
“The issue of low level presence or adventitious presence is only going to become more important for governments to consider because there will be more products on the market … more products that are at different stages of approval around the world, and more opportunities for low level presence.”
Seed industry officials are eager to address the issue before it disrupts the global seed trade, which is worth an estimated $37 billion annually.
Many GM crops that are approved for commercial planting in North America are not approved in other countries. In Canada, the commercial flax industry lost millions of dollars last year when trace amounts of an unauthorized GM flax variety turned up in shipments of Canadian flaxseed destined for Europe.
The incident also resulted in a market recall of several flax seed varieties that showed traces of the unapproved GM variety.
Bernice Slutsky, who chairs an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development working group on GM regulatory issues, said the international seed industry must develop an industry wide approach to dealing with the issue.
Slutsky said one key to minimizing disruptions is to harmonize GM seed regulations between countries.
Currently, many GM crops that have received regulatory approval in one country have not been approved in other countries, a scenario known as asynchronous approval.
To eliminate trade problems associated with asynchronous approvals, the seed industry would like to develop a system in which approvals made in one country are recognized by another country.
She also pointed to a need for more communication between regulatory agencies in different countries and the need to establish internationally recognized tolerance levels or thresholds for the presence of GM material seed and grain shipments.
The issue of stacked traits, where more than one GM trait is contained in a single plant variety, also complicates the approval process, she said.
“As more and more stacked traits are being used and we have different policies for … those stacks, the whole issue of asynchronous approvals is just going to get more complicated.”
