The wheat found in Alberta doesn’t match any registered commercial variety authorized for sale in Canada, say federal inspectors
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says it may never know how a genetically modified wheat appeared in a southern Alberta ditch last summer.
A patch of wheat was found on an access road leading to an oil well site, and when a custom applicator noticed the plants were not killed, samples were forwarded to Alberta Agriculture and eventually the CFIA.
CFIA officials did not say where the farm is but indicated the location will be monitored and tested for the next three years.
CFIA inspectors searched a 60,000 sq. metre area near the site of the original finding, an agency spokesperson said. They collected all remaining wheat plants, including 284 wheat heads, at various distances from the access road and submitted them for testing.
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These samples were confirmed to be negative for the presence of GM wheat, with the exception of four wheat heads, which tested positive for the specific GM wheat event MON71200).
These four GM wheat heads were located within 15 metres of the access road, the spokesperson added.
The ancestry of these plants is a mystery because it does not match any registered commercial variety authorized for sale in Canada, said Kathleen Donahue of Agriculture Canada.
“There is no evidence this wheat is present anywhere other than the isolated site where it was discovered,” she said during a CFIA technical briefing June 14.
The CFIA identified the genetic modification in the plant’s DNA but does not know the ancestry of the wheat.
The same genetically modified trait developed by Monsanto has been approved in canola, corn and soybeans, but trials on wheat have been abandoned. Canada allowed test plots in Manitoba and Saskatchewan but the modification was a different variety of wheat.
“We do not know what variety of wheat this particular wheat is so we can’t make that particular link to GM wheat that we found in Alberta versus wheat that was tested in field trials previously,” said Heather Shearer of the CFIA.
“This trait is the result of a genetic modification.”
“We have confirmed that this trait could not have originated naturally.”
The rogue wheat does not match any of the 450 registered varieties on file.
“The GM wheat has a genetic background that does not match any currently registered wheat,” said David Bailey of the CFIA.
“This is good news. This means this wheat is not present in the Canadian seed system and this is not a Canadian variety of wheat and it is not present in the Canadian grain supply.”
The trait does not pose a risk to the health of the public, animals or the environment and has not entered the commercial grain or seed trade.
“The significance of finding this wheat is that it is unusual and it is something that should not be there and it should not exist, but it is there and we have been able to isolate it, control it and destroy it,” said Pierre Bilodeau, the CFIA’s executive director of plant health science.
“Therefore it is an anomaly and it really is not significant in terms of our grain system and our seed system or the operations for our farmers.”
For more information, visit www.inspection.gc.ca/wheatdetection.
How it all unfolded
Jan. 31: Alberta informs the CFIA about finding a few herbicide-tolerant wheat plants in southern Alberta.
Feb. 12: A CFIA laboratory receives samples of wheat seed from Alberta and begins testing.
Feb. 15: CFIA confirms Alberta’s samples are genetically modified and herbicide tolerant.
Feb.16-20: CFIA runs further tests and narrows a list of wheat lines that had been grown in research trials down to three belonging to two companies.
Feb. 19: CFIA informs Agriculture Canada and Health Canada. Risk and safety assessments of the wheat begin for human health, the health of animals and the environment.
Feb. 22: CFIA contacts both companies, including Monsanto, to obtain samples from possible wheat lines.
March 9: CFIA receives the first samples from the companies that were contacted.
March 13: CFIA rules out one company after testing its samples and determining that it is not a match for this GM wheat.
March 23: Testing by the CFIA and the Canadian Grain Commission confirms that this GM wheat does not match any of the 450 registered wheat seed varieties sold in Canada.
March 28: CFIA confirms that the herbicide-tolerant wheat was not a match with previous incidents in the United States.
April 6: CFIA concludes development and validation of a testing method to detect this GM wheat.
April 6: CFIA receives samples from Monsanto to test the other possible wheat lines.
April 8: Testing by the CFIA confirms that the wheat contained genetic elements that match an event provided by Monsanto. This event (MON71200) is not approved in any registered wheat variety.
April 9: CFIA receives and begins testing CGC’s wheat samples from its 2017 Harvest Sample Program.
April 20: The landowner is informed of the finding. The CFIA collects information to identify possible scope and presence of this GM wheat.
April 20-25: Seed and grain samples from the landowner’s farm are collected and sent to the CFIA lab to test for this GM wheat.
April 26: CFIA confirms that no GM wheat was detected from CGC’s samples.
May 1: Results of all seed and grain samples taken on farm are negative for this GM wheat.
May 8: Wheat heads from the field surrounding the access road are dry enough for the CFIA to collect and test.
May 9: Health Canada and CFIA complete risk and safety assessments of this wheat. The trait does not pose a risk to public health, health of animals or the environment.
May 23: Testing of wheat heads is completed. Only four wheat head samples that were found immediately beside the access road were positive for this GM wheat. All other samples were negative.
May 24: Results are analyzed. Transition occurs from inspection activities to monitoring activities.
Source: CFIA
