PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Glen Adrain has tried planting colored beans without a streptomycin treatment on his farm at MacDonald, Man.
But treated seed seems to grow better, he said, with more vigor and less bacterial blight.
During the past 20 years, the bean industry has grown up relying on imported seed from the United States treated with the antibiotic.
But the Pest Management Regulatory Agency has told farmers 1998 will be the last year it will allow farmers to bring in the treated seed. Adrain worries how this will affect bean acreage in Canada.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“Now we’ve got a very viable industry and this comes along,” he said.
There are four kinds of bacterial blight in Canada, explained Ron Howard, of Alberta Agriculture’s new crop development unit in Brooks.
Each blight can cause severe damage to the leaves of beans, reducing yields and quality. They multiply and spread in wet conditions.
“The plants, under severe infection, look as if somebody took a torch to them and just burned them up,” said Howard.
Streptomycin was the only treatment that seemed to have some control over blight, he explained.
Bean growers were notified by the PMRA last fall that the long-standing practice of importing treated seed would no longer be allowed.
After intense lobbying, farmers found out on March 12 they’d be allowed to import treated seed until July 1.
Shannon Van Walleghem, regional manager for the PMRA, explained streptomycin had been registered for use on beans until 1988.
But the same year, Ontario farmers found strains of blight that seemed to be resistant to streptomycin. It was deregistered.
Five years ago, Howard started trying to gather enough data to get the antibiotic registered again.
But when he submitted research showing all strains of bean blight in Western Canada were susceptible to the antibiotic, the PMRA and Health Canada came forward with other concerns.
Howard said it would have cost about $500,000 for the companies wanting to sell streptomycin to gather the information required to register the product.
“There just simply weren’t enough sales of streptomycin in Canada to ever recoup those costs,” he explained.
The PMRA was left with no avenue to justify allowing farmers to import seed treated with the antibiotic, said Van Walleghem.
“We didn’t really pull it,” she said. “We finally lost everything we had to allow it.”
Antibiotics used to be more commonly used on crops and in animals, noted Van Walleghem. But health officials around the world have become more concerned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Franois Catellier, executive director of the Canadian Special Crops Association, said the temporary registration was critical for this year’s crop.
To get it, the association agreed to make sure Canadian bean dealers and Canadian bean growers are aware of the precautions for handling treated seed.
