Canada’s flax industry has grave concerns about plans to grow genetically modified flax in North Dakota.
A Canadian contingent attended a meeting in the state recently to get an update on a project that will grow GM flax to produce therapeutic proteins.
“From a Saskatchewan farmer perspective, we’re concerned about market harm and we’re concerned about contamination,” said Linda Braun, executive director of the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission.
Canadian officials found out about the project last year when AmeriFlax, a North Dakota oilseed promotion agency also opposed to pharmaceutical flax, informed them that a company called Agragen had leased space at the University of North Dakota.
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Agragen plans to use the oilseed to produce inexpensive drugs for American consumers. Company officials say it is a potential $200 million US industry for North Dakota.
In a letter that ran in the June 19 edition of the Grand Forks Herald, Agragen officials said local farmers have nothing to fear. In addition to using large buffer zones, the company is developing its own “proprietary control mechanism” that will eliminate the possibility that conventional flax could be contaminated.
However, Braun said there is too much at stake for farmers to embrace the new technology.
According to Statistics Canada’s June seeding intentions report, Canadian farmers planted more than 2.1 million acres of flax in 2005. An increasing percentage of it will be harvested for human consumption.
A number of prairie food processors are milling flax for bread, processing it into oil for nutraceuticals and functional food and toasting it to be used as toppings on yogurt and baked goods, and they don’t want to be associated with a GM product.
“It’s a sensitive issue for the industry because a lot of human consumption is in the natural health products area,” Braun said.
Another factor to consider is Canada’s reliance on the European market, she added. The industry hopes to sell 500,000 to 555,000 tonnes of flaxseed to that GMO-averse market in 2005-06.
The industry rejected commercialization of a herbicide-tolerant variety called Triffid in the mid-1990s because of the negative response it drew from overseas customers. European attitudes have changed little since then.
Those are the reasons why the commission will be working with AmeriFlax this summer to develop a position paper in response to the Agragen project.
Braun said many growers, breeders, academics, crushers and exporters who gathered in North Dakota shared similar reservations.
“The consensus was that there was a lot of concern,” she said.
