The U.S. National Association of Wheat Growers knows precisely where it stands when it comes to genetically modified wheat.
NAWG, which represents 22 state wheat associations and thousands of growers across the United States, supports GM wheat and is encouraging biotech companies to pursue novel GM traits that will benefit the wheat industry.
“While biotech wheat is not currently available to farmers, NAWG, USW (U.S. Wheat Associates) and the wheat farmers who lead them support innovation, research and the responsible introduction of new wheat varieties, including biotech wheat,” NAWG leaders noted in an October statement.
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In contrast, there is no consensus or clear position on GM wheat in Canada, said Neil Townsend, CWB’s director of market research.
The industry’s stance remains nebulous in the short period since the CWB monopoly ended, Townsend said.
“It’s probably still evolving. In the old days, the stated position of the Canadian Wheat Board was we didn’t really dialogue on the science of it, we dialogued on the consumer acceptance of it,” he said during a break at the Cereals North America conference in Winnipeg in early November.
“For the time being, you can’t find one person who is going to state definitely how they feel about it.”
Canadian wheat growers and grain dealers may need to take a stance sooner than later on this matter because biotech firms are spending millions of millions to develop GM wheat traits, such as higher yields, drought resistance and disease resistance.
The NAWG website provides a comprehensive list of the GM wheat projects and partnerships now underway between biotech companies and numerous public institutions. The document is five pages long and provides details on what Syngenta, Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont and Dow are working on.
“The reason for it is that wheat is one of the largest acreage croplands that has yet to have that technology,” said Bill Wilson, a North Dakota State University agriculture economics professor.
“Secondly, they (biotech firms) observed a very significant agro-political shift … where end users wanted to find ways to make wheat more competitive.”
Steve Mercer, vice-president of communications for the U.S. Wheat Associates, a market development and export agency, said U.S. wheat farmers, exporters and millers played a significant role in the resurgence of GM wheat research.
The work went dormant for several years after Monsanto abandoned its Roundup Ready wheat plans in 2004 because of wheat farmer and exporter concerns about public acceptance.
However, NAWG, USW, the North American Millers Association and the American Baking Association realized in the late 2000s that they had to do something to regain wheat acres lost to corn and soybeans.
Meetings between the organizations led to a joint position on GM wheat and the formation of the Wheat Innovation Alliance, which is committed to the commercial introduction of biotech wheat.
“U.S. wheat growers have been engaged in this for several years already,” Mercer said.
“I don’t think it would’ve happened without the (wheat) industry saying we need to look at biotechnology.”
With the exception of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, few grains industry players in Canada have taken a stance on biotechnology. The association’s website says farmers should be “free to decide whether or not genetically modified crops suit their own farming operations.”
For instance, Grain Farmers of Ontario doesn’t have a position on GM wheat, but it has told biotech firms that it doesn’t want glyphosate tolerant wheat.
“We’ve been pretty direct and consistent with our message to the biotech industry, that herbicide tolerance is not our No. 1 need in wheat,” said John Cowan, vice-president of strategic development.
Cowan said a GM trait to combat disease, primarily fusarium head blight, would be much more useful for Ontario wheat growers.
Townsend said it’s unclear how Canada’s position on GM wheat will develop now that Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have formed or are forming provincial wheat and cereal commissions.
“The Canadian system … is trying to find and sort out who is going to do what we call the industry good functions,” he said.
“There’s no clear-cut leader in that right now. There’s a lot of contenders for it, there are a lot of newbies in there and we’re going to see how that all unfolds.”
Speaking for himself rather than CWB, Townsend said GM wheat is probably inevitable. Nevertheless, there are no guarantees that GM traits will convince farmers to grow more wheat.
He said growers dislike the quality risk associated with wheat because they can lose a couple dollars per bushel if it’s downgraded to feed.
“I think wheat is really going to struggle for acreage.… Even with the GM varieties the quality risk for wheat is always going to be there,” he said.
“I think people who have experienced corn and soybeans … they’re not going to swing back…. The things that are going to get them off it aren’t the attributes of something else. It would be detrimental prices.”
