Once again Monsanto Canada Inc. has discovered a gene in one of its genetically modified canola crops that isn’t supposed to be there.
Four years ago a gene called GT-200 appeared in two varieties of Roundup Ready canola marketed by Limagrain. Trace levels of that same gene have now been discovered in Quest canola, a variety marketed by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Agricore that has been sold to about 3,000 farmers this spring.
The gene has been approved for human consumption in Canada but was never commercialized by Monsanto and never intended to be in varieties available to farmers.
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Monsanto and its marketing partners are voluntarily recalling all Quest and offering replacement seed to farmers who bought the Roundup Ready variety.
“It has been caught. We saw it, we found it, we dealt with it,” said Monsanto spokesperson Trish Jordan.
She said the detection and swift action is proof that Monsanto’s quality assurance system for Roundup Ready canola works.
National Farmers Union executive director Darrin Qualman has a different view.
“This is just one in a long series of problems they are having,” said Qualman.
“It just shows that time and time again that this isn’t an easy technology to control.”
He said GM canola has already chased away the European Union, which was a major buyer of Canadian canola in the mid-1990s.
This latest incident won’t do anything to assuage the fears of Japan, which is already nervous about the technology, said Qualman.
“This might bring a significant amount of additional damage, but the damage has already really been done.”
However, the largest exporter of Canadian canola said there has been no talk of reduced imports from Canada’s customers.
Ken Matchett, CEO of Xcan Grain Pool Ltd., flew to Tokyo last week to meet with Japanese importers, processors and government officials about the problem with Quest.
“Frankly, they are a little surprised that these sporadic traces of this GT-200 was found,” said Matchett.
But by the time the meeting was over they were “impressed and satisfied” that the recall and replacement program would get rid of the unwanted gene.
“The fact that we went over there and brought them up-to-date face-to-face went over pretty well and probably contributed to the co-operative atmosphere that we encountered.”
Matchett and Jordan pointed out that although the Limagrain incident involved the same gene, the circumstances surrounding the two cases are different.
In the 1997 Limagrain incident, the two varieties were inadvertently mixed, resulting in a 50 percent concentration of the GT-200 gene. This time, trace levels of less than one percent were discovered in certain seed lots.
Jordan said part of the problem with testing GM canola for unwanted genes is that tolerance has been set at zero percent.
“Zero percent – that’s impossible. One of the reasons why it’s impossible is because of the sophistication of seed testing methods now. You can get down to 0.1 percent of something,” said Jordan.
She said a more reasonable tolerance level is needed.
