I was interested and alarmed by the letter from Victor Hult in the May 27 issue of The Western Producer. I am a visitor from England staying on my son’s farm in Leduc, Alta. Two years ago on my last visit there was no discussion in the agricultural press about genetically modified crops, although commercial growing of GM crops began in the States in 1996, and now seem accepted by both grower and consumer.
There is a different situation in the U.K. and Europe. Multinational firms like Monsanto and AgrEvo Canada, which have invested heavily in biotechnology, are now looking for the payoff with farmers growing GM crops on an even larger scale. But there has been no time allowed for proper trials on the safety angle for consumers, and some countries in Europe have banned GM crops.
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In the U.K. there is a vast consumer-led resistance to GM crops, and all the major supermarkets are looking to sell products guaranteed free from GM crops.
While the U.K. government, supported by its Ministry of Agriculture and the National Farmers Union continues to insist that this new technology is safe, the consumer is concerned about the impact on family health of today’s farming methods with its reliance on chemicals, particularly organophosphates, affecting the safety of our diet.
Last month the British Medical Association added its support to the growing call for a five-year moratorium on the commercial growing of GM crops in the U.K.. In the last 20 years in the U.K. we have had several food scares, salmonella in eggs, listeria and E. coli in meat products, culminating in BSE and the threat of CJD (Creutzveld Jakob Disease) in the ’90s which has brought U.K. livestock farming to the brink of bankruptcy.
The consumer now has no faith in government pronouncements. Whilst it still wants food cheap, it would prefer it to be organically grown, free from chemical contamination and genetic modification.
Canadian farmers should take note of Victor Hult’s comments. The Saskatchewan government has been persuaded by a very rich firm to give it $500,000 of taxpayers money to promote research into a presumably genetically modified hybrid wheat. With a lifetime experience of growing wheat in Saskatchewan, Mr. Hult knows that the only benefit from this will go to AgrEvo. Farmers will earn less for growing the wheat and will have to find the extra cost for new seed each year.
I am hoping to take back to the U.K. the views of Canadian farmers on this new technique. Will it help their farming and their profits?
– J.C. Whaley,
Belsay Newcastle Upon-Tyne, England
