Resumption of flax trade with the European Union will be short-lived unless it agrees to less-stringent genetically modified flax contamination tolerance levels, says a major Canadian grain exporter.
Richardson International has a ship of flax on its way to Europe, the first shipment destined for Canada’s top flax market since Aug. 28.
It was put together under a Canada-EU protocol for restoring trade in the wake of the discovery of an unapproved GM flax variety called CDC Triffid in the Canadian supply chain.
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But the test-run has Richardson rethinking other sales with EU customers. It is proving difficult to meet the .01 percent Triffid tolerance
level.
“We’ve got some concerns about our ability to manage an ongoing flax trade to Europe with these low tolerance levels,” said Richardson spokesperson Jean-Marc Ruest.
Positive test results showed up throughout the grain handling system, forcing Richardson to segregate contaminated grain bins or rail cars from the shipment. The vessel could be subject to further testing when it arrives in Europe.
Ruest wouldn’t divulge specifics about the shipment but according to the Flax Council of Canada, Richardson and Viterra Inc. were loading one ship each at Thunder Bay, Ont., with a combined total of about 40,000 tonnes of flax bound for Ghent, Belgium.
The companies are trying to restore trade with a market that accounted for 80 percent of Canada’s bulk flax exports in 2008-09 and 76 percent in 2007-08. But Ruest said trade will be limited by what appears an unworkable protocol.
“At a tolerance level of .01 we’re going to have trouble as exporters of grain being able to meet those requirements for future sales into Europe,” he said.
The protocol may be revised but flax council president Barry Hall said there is little appetite in Europe for changing the tolerance levels.
Meanwhile, the industry appears to be making little progress in pinpointing the source of contamination.
As of Dec. 1, grain companies are accepting only pre-tested flax. Some positive tests are coming back from samples submitted by farmers hoping to market their flax, but so far it does not appear to be concentrated to a particular geographic region.
“We won’t know until we start looking at the data more closely but I think they’re pretty widespread,” said Hall.
The positive results are also at low levels.
Hall said the main lab doing the work will have tested 1,700 samples by the end of this week. The results will then be analyzed.
He said there is no intention of making that data public at the moment.
