IN THE dystopian novel The Day of the Triffids, intelligent plants thought to be the product of scientific manipulation wreak havoc among mankind.
And havoc accurately describes the state of the Canadian flax industry since the European Union discovered what it says is Triffid, a variety of genetically modified flax, in Canadian shipments to GM-averse Europe. Canadian flax shipments to the EU are in turmoil while an investigation continues.
The EU is the biggest market for Canadian flax. The crop is used primarily for industrial purposes such as linoleum manufacture, but some is used in cereals and breads, and flax meal enters the livestock feed system.
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The EU bought 80 percent of last year’s crop. In 2008, it bought $317 million worth, and has long been Canada’s biggest customer for the crop. Market disruption has major implications for growers now harvesting this year’s flax acres.
It was worry about just such a disruption that resulted in deregistration of Triffid in 2001, but if EU tests are accurate, it appears some of the GM variety was retained, propagated and eventually exported.
Triffid’s particular GM modification isn’t scary science fiction akin to that in John Wyndham’s novel. Rather, the variety was developed to grow in soil containing residual sulfonylurea-based herbicides. Similar GM traits involving herbicide tolerance have been developed in other crops.
Potential loss of the lucrative EU market has flax growers and the Canadian flax industry understandably anxious. Less understandable is Europe’s zero tolerance policy for GM contamination in a food system that has a burgeoning number of genetic modifications to food crops.
While Europe develops ever more sophisticated testing methods to identify the presence of GMOs, research is bringing ever more versatile crop characteristics to the marketplace.
Never the twain shall meet unless Europe adopts a more pragmatic approach to GM crop tolerance and develops new standards for acceptable low-level GM presence in shipments.
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre recently compiled a list of new GM crop traits expected to be commercialized by 2015. There are more than 120, according to the report, involving various traits to augment soybeans, canola, rice and potatoes.
The report concludes that international trade could be severely disrupted by different GM acceptance levels among trading nations. Even more immediately, there are worries that the EU won’t be able to source sufficient animal feed because of its stringent anti-GM policies. They are clearly policies that could do harm to the EU and thus to those who would trade with it.
Until the EU rules change – and they should change – it is up to those who trade with the EU to meet its requirements. It is churlish to blame the EU for this latest disruption in flax trade.
If Triffid is indeed in shipments from Canada, despite the fact that it has been deregulated and that the flax industry agreed years ago not to develop and sell it, then the fault lies at Canada’s door – notwithstanding ridiculous EU rules.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
