Flax trade with Europe has come to a grinding halt as officials try to sort out why an unregistered genetically modified flax variety is showing up in food products, according to European lab tests.
At least four German companies have taken cereal and bakery products off store shelves after they tested positive for the presence of CDC Triffid, a GM flax variety developed at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre in the late 1980s.
Triffid was registered by Canadian authorities for feed and environmental release in 1996 and for food consumption in 1999.
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In 2001, it was deregistered at the behest of the Flax Council of Canada, which feared losing its main market after Europe placed a moratorium on the import of GM crops.
“There were many people who thought that the Flax Council’s and the flax industry’s objection to this (GM flax) really wasn’t warranted,” said council president Barry Hall.
“We didn’t realize how right we were to be concerned and years later the concern, if anything, has escalated.”
Europe took 80 percent of Canada’s 2008-09 flax exports and 76 percent the previous year.
Sales to Europe in 2008 amounted to $317 million.
All that business is in jeopardy as industry and government officials try to sort out what is going on.
In Canada, there is skepticism that European labs have the ability to detect the presence of CDC Triffid in food products.
“I don’t believe it because I don’t think they know the genome of CDC Triffid. I think what it is, is speculation that that’s what they’ve found,” said Allen Kuhlmann, chair of the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission.
“If you’re a conspiracy theorist, you might say this is a damn convenient way to lower the price of flax.”
Reports of GM flax contamination had been circulating for months but the story broke when the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed issued a notice on Sept. 8 saying CDC Triffid had shown up in Germany in cereals and bakery products.
Genetic ID, which claims it is the only lab in the world that has a test for identifying CDC Triffid, first discovered the GM flax in food products tested in Baden-Wurttemberg, a state in the southwestern portion of Germany.
It has since found more evidence of contamination in food products from Hamburg provided by Green-peace Germany.
The Canadian Grain Commission has confirmed that samples provided by European labs contain a genetic marker that indicates the presence of a GM crop, but says it has no proof the source of the contamination is GM flax.
The commission and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are comparing harvest samples as well as breeder and certified seed samples to samples of CDC Triffid they have on file.
But no definitive conclusions can be drawn until those samples can be compared to an event specific marker being developed by the Plant Biotechnology Institute. The upshot is that the much sought-after answers won’t likely be available until the end of next week.
Nobody is willing to divulge which Canadian exporters are connected to the cargoes under investigation.
Groups opposed to GM crops say this is a prime example of why they should never have been commercialized.
Stefanie Hundsdorfer, a campaigner with Greenpeace Germany, said this incident once again proves that the makers of GM crops are unable to control their products once released into the environment.
“Germany never approved GM flax but thanks to Canada we are eating illegal and unlicensed flax in our bread and cereal,” said Hundsdorfer.
Terry Boehm, vice-president of the National Farmers Union, said GM flax was never wanted or needed and is now wreaking havoc on export sales.
“This is an absolute nightmare for flax growers,” he said.
“We knew it would destroy our European markets and now we fear this has happened.”
Kuhlmann is aware of one commercial buyer who dropped the flax price by $4 per bushel in one day. Another company is backing out of contracts with growers related to a sale to China because prices have fallen.
Flax bids are still available with buyers doing business in the United States or China but they are few.
“Everybody is being very, very cautious.”
Kuhlmann said there are a lot of good looking flax crops out in the country and production will likely top last year’s 861,000 tonnes.
The grower from Vanguard, Sask., said he will be taking a wait-and-see approach to marketing this year’s crop.
Hall said there is a mounting threat that Europe will completely shut down trade due to its zero tolerance policy for GM contamination.
“It hasn’t been done yet but the fear is they’ll shut it down totally.”
