Industry meetings | Anti-GM lobby, seed trade officials continue debate
The Canadian Seed Trade Association’s annual meeting was met July 15 with demands that plans for genetically modified alfalfa be shelved.
Protesters in front of a Quebec City hotel where the meeting was being held said delegates would finalize a plan that would set rules for a co-existence plan that would allow GM and non-GM alfalfa to be grown without cross-contamination.
The anti-GM Quebec group Vigilance OGM said co-existence is impossible, and it called on provincial governments to stop release of GM alfalfa.
“The only way to stop contamination from GM alfalfa is to stop GM alfalfa,” protest leader Thibault Rehn said in a statement after the demonstration.
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“Consumers and farmers don’t want it. The industry must abandon its plans to release GM alfalfa.”
CSTA chair Stephen Denys said the problem with the demonstration is that the meeting was not going to finalize anything.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved the GM alfalfa trait on scientific and health criteria five years ago.
Corporate promoters who want to proceed with a commercial release, including CSTA member Forage Genetics International, will have to submit a variety for the normal health and efficacy approvals.
“What is happening at the meeting relating to GM alfalfa is just an update,” Denys said. “There won’t be any broad discussion beyond that.”
He said the CSTA formed a committee once the trait was approved to develop a plan on how GM and non-GM alfalfa could co-exist. He said the plan is now completed.
“It’s now a question of the variety registration,” he said.
“The commercializing companies gave us the commitment they would wait until a plan was in place so now that it is, I assume they will have a timetable in place for commercialization at some point.”
He said Forage Genetics International has also committed to marketing GM alfalfa only in Eastern Canada, where most of the market is for hay and not export feed pellets, which would face resistance in traditional export markets including Japan.
“There is a clear understanding with the commercializing company (Forage Genetics International) that this is only for Eastern Canada,” said Denys.
“Western Canada is more complicated because of exports and will have to be approached on its own timeline and what the commercializing companies want to do.”
The CSTA executive offered to meet demonstrator leaders July 15 but say they were turned down.
In a statement July 12 announcing the protest, the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network said industry talk of co-existence is a myth.
“Co-existence or containment of GM alfalfa is not possible,” it said. “GM alfalfa will contaminate farmers’ fields and our food if it is released in Canada.”
Denys said the evidence from the United States, where GM alfalfa has been marketed for years, suggests otherwise. Prudent management practices are required, such as creating separate growing areas and harvesting before the GM variety fully flowers.
“They’ve adjusted their practices because they sell certified organic as well, and they haven’t had any issues at all.”
