Jeff Thomas says his new crop-identity system would have given European importers all the information they needed about a recent shipment of canola containing genetically modified seed.
Seed buyers in the European Union have discovered that a shipment of Hyola hybrid canola from Advanta Seeds Canada contained 0.4 percent Roundup Ready canola. As of last week they were unable to determine the source of that seed.
“Telassure would have been able to identify the sources of the seed within seconds, together with everyone who handled the seed through the chain,” said Thomas, president of Saskatoon’s Crop Guard International Inc., developers of the Crop Confetti tracking system.
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Crop Confetti is encoded strips of paper that are put in truckloads of grain. It helps end users determine what farm grew the grain.
Crop Guard’s new Telassure system builds on the Crop Confetti concept by allowing consumers to track a product from “plow to plate.”
This new tracking system is designed for processors and retailers who want to know where a product originated and the route it took to get to their plant or store shelf.
Crop Guard’s vice-president of marketing believes European retailers who are concerned about GM products will be particularly interested in the Telassure system, which will retail between $50,000 and $100,000.
“To some extent the uncertainty over GM food does help our product,” said Craig Zawada.
The Telassure system relies on the diligence of Canadian farmers and those who handle the grain once it leaves the farmgate.
“Every point that (the grain) changes hands, it gets logged in,” said Thomas.
When the elevator agent receives a farmer’s grain, he dials the Telassure number and uses the keys on his phone to enter his personal access code. Then he types in the encoded number found on the confetti strip and records the amount of grain delivered.
Down the line
A similar process happens at the seed cleaner, the processing plant, the barge and on down the line.
The only piece of equipment required for end users and for those who input data along the way is a touch-tone phone. Thomas said Telassure is cheaper than other identity preservation methods and reduces the need for expensive genetic testing.
Approximately 22,000 Canadian farmers are using the Crop Confetti system for theft protection and other purposes. It is also used as a grain industry tool to track specialty crops, organic crops and genetically modified products.
Thomas said all grain companies, seed cleaning plants and inland terminals on the Prairies are familiar with the Crop Confetti system and minimal training is required to acquaint them with the Telassure system.
One $25 bag of confetti is good for about 40,000 tonnes of grain. Zawada anticipates that farmers may get the bags for free or for a nominal fee if they buy their seed from a grain company that has purchased the Telassure system.
