The National Farmers Union says Canada should ratify an international agreement governing the movement of genetically modified organisms.
“If Canada refuses to ratify and comply with the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety, we could lose market access,” says NFU women’s vice-president Colleen Ross.
She said the agreement will eventually result in strict labelling and liability rules related to shipping GM crops and Canada should get on board with that movement.
But a spokesperson for the grain industry said ratifying the protocol is a terrible idea fraught with potential land mines for farmers.
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One of the scariest aspects of the agreement is the liability and redress section, which is still being crafted but is scheduled for completion in 2007, said Dennis Stephens, consultant for the Canada Grains Council.
Delegates attending a recent protocol meeting in Montreal discussed how exporters may be held responsible for socioeconomic damage caused by GMOs.
“This could potentially mean that a farmer who is producing canola here could suddenly be liable for socioeconomic harm in Ethiopia,” said Stephens.
He has no idea what is meant by socioeconomic harm, and until those kinds of critical details are clarified, it would be foolhardy for Canada to ratify the agreement that it signed on April 19, 2001.
“We need to develop a regime that will limit the potential liability to those specific links of the chain that may have been at fault in creating the problem.”
Other potential ramifications of ratifying the deal include moving from a well-tested trade dispute mechanism to an unknown entity, said Stephens.
“If there was a trade challenge we probably couldn’t appeal through the World Trade Organization because we would be members of the protocol and would probably have to use a yet undetermined appeal process.”
Ross said the grain industry is reluctant to embrace the new protocol because it gives developing countries rights and privileges while the WTO protects their interests.
She said there is no good reason why Canada couldn’t live up to the obligations that will eventually be established under the still evolving protocol.
“We do have the infrastructure in Canada to segregate and to test for GMOs.”
If farmers can separate winter wheat from spring wheat and malting barley from feed barley, they can do the same with GMO and non-GMO crops. Or better yet they could drop the new technology altogether.
“Given the resistance of markets around the world to GMOs, it may be in the best interest of farmers at this time to steer clear of GM varieties and go back to conventional seed varieties,” she said.
But Stephens said there are far too many unknowns in the protocol to endorse the binding agreement.
Depending on how the contentious labelling issue unfolds, it could add millions of dollars in shipping costs and result in lost markets for Canadian farmers.
The only reason it makes sense to ratify the deal is to have more influence on the discussions and a veto power on important votes, but that is a risky prospect because there could be political pressure to agree to unfavourable rules.
Ross said despite having no vote, Canada’s pro-industry delegation seemed to have plenty of clout at the Montreal meeting.
She said Canada put pressure on Brazil and New Zealand to boycott an otherwise unanimous decision by the 119 member countries to enforce stricter GMO labelling rules.
“I think they misbehaved. They acted like bullies. I was ashamed when I was there,” said Ross.
