U.S. wheat industry groups travelled to Canada recently looking for a meeting of the minds on the prickly issue of genetically modified wheat.
Officials from the National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates were in Winnipeg in early April to share their concerns that wheat is losing ground to other crops because of the industry’s reluctance to embrace biotechnology.
They say genetic modification could lead to new varieties designed to provide nutritional, agronomic or industrial benefits, resulting in increased profitability and increased acreage.
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The U.S. groups want wheat exporting countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States to work together to figure out how to capture the benefits of GM technology for wheat growers.
During the visit, they met with representatives of the Canadian Wheat Board, Grain Growers of Canada and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
While the U.S. groups issued a brief News release
news about the visit, officials declined to comment after the meetings, saying the discussions are still at an early stage.
Canadian officials said they’re happy to talk about GM issues, but there were no concrete proposals on any joint action.
“This was a very preliminary meeting to see if there was some common ground,” said Richard Phillips, executive director of Grain Growers of Canada.
Earl Geddes of the Canadian Wheat Board said this meeting wasn’t the first time the board has discussed GM issues with the Americans, nor will it be the last.
“I expect we’ll have more discussions,” he said. “But whether we’d be interested in moving forward with any kind of international agreement on the steps that would need to be taken before you’d introduce a GM wheat, I’m not sure.”
He doesn’t think farmers in Canada are as concerned about declining wheat acreage as their U.S. neighbours, noting that there always seems to be more wheat around than the market will pay a good price for.
Geddes said he believes most Canadian farmers would grow GM wheat if there was a market for it and it was profitable.
Blair Rutter of the WCWGA said his group believes the issue should be dealt with on a North American or global basis, in terms of obtaining necessary regulatory approvals in various countries to enable the simultaneous introduction of new GM varieties.
The proposed introduction of Roundup Ready wheat several years ago foundered in the face of strong resistance from consumers in North America and abroad.
Rutter said the reaction might be more favourable if GM wheat was developed to provide high starch for ethanol, nutritional benefits or tolerance to disease, drought or frost.
“Our view is that we need to see a lot more research and development into wheat, and we have to look at ways to encourage that,” he said.
