BIRSAY, Sask. – Ken Howell’s fields are now “mostly clear” of genetically modified canola, but the Saskatchewan farmer says questions raised by the uninvited guests have yet to be answered.
GM canola showed up on Howell’s herbicide-fallowed land this year, even though he said he took the necessary precautions to keep it off his 960 acre farm at Birsay.
He said he bought certified Hudson, non-GM canola seed two years ago and rotated it with durum last season. He said he sprayed the appropriate herbicides for broadleaf weeds, used farm equipment that had not handled GM crops, and bought seed from a dealer that didn’t clean GM seed.
Read Also
Stock dogs show off herding skills at Ag in Motion
Stock dogs draw a crowd at Ag in Motion. Border collies and other herding breeds are well known for the work they do on the farm.
Howell said Monsanto, the company that developed the GM glyphosate-tolerant canola, has sent workers to his farm to hand pick the GM plants in an attempt to eliminate it from his fields.
However, he said the company admitted to him this won’t likely be the last he will see of RoundUp Ready canola on his farm.
“They tell me the seed can sit dormant for up to five years. This is only the second year and it sounds like there is still some seed out on my fields that didn’t get cleaned up.”
Monsanto spokesperson Trish Jordan said the company is making every effort to satisfy producers who find “unexpected volunteers” in their fields.
Howell said Monsanto sent “about 20 kids for six days” to hand pick the canola plants in mid-August. The canola was bagged in garbage bags and a few unsealed, large chemical container disposal bags. Howell said he was told to burn the plants.
“I told the company that I wasn’t responsible for the crop and I didn’t want it in my slough.”
Howell said the incident has sparked questions about the larger issue of GM crops, but he says there seem to be few answers.
“Who owns these plants, me or Monsanto…? Why should I contaminate my land with a crop that somebody else has paid to grow?”
Jack Stabler, head of the University of Saskatchewan’s agricultural economics department, said there “isn’t really a legal framework to determine what happens when there are unintended spillovers” of GM plants.
“There is a larger issue that has yet to be addressed here. So far, there are no simple solutions and I’m not sure we as a country want them.”
He said that if liability for the plants is assigned to any one group or company, the result may drive up production costs for GM crops.
“If our international competitors don’t assign responsibility in the same way Canada does, we might not be competitive in the marketplace. There are many unanswered questions here.”
Jordan said the company is responding to each farmer inquiry individually.
“We can’t speculate on what will happen in the future. We will deal with individual farmers as they contact us with unexpected volunteer canola plants. Farmers have to deal with volunteers every year and most do so as a matter of their regular farming practices. If there are problems for this farmer or others next spring, then we will deal with it then.”
She said it is highly unlikely that volunteer GM plants could turn a non-GM crop into a predominantly GM one.
Jordan said it’s still not known what will happen with bigger issues, such as GM tolerance levels in non-GM crops, if a premium market will exist for non-GM crops, and if GMO-free farmland will command premium real estate prices.
“We don’t want to speculate on what might be. Monsanto will deal with those issues as they come up.”
Reports from the Canadian Seed Trade Association have discussed the issue of what percentage of GM seed is present in the overall seed bank. The association says that all non-GM varieties of crops where GM varieties are available are contaminated with an average of one percent GM seed.
Phil Thomas, a provincial oilseed specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said that canola volunteers, including herbicide-resistant varieties, are “relatively easy to control when compared to other weeds. But who pays for that control is not a clear issue so far.”
