GREAT cases … make bad law. So wrote the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. about 100 years ago.
Today, Canadian agriculture has its own great case, the question of how to handle Monsanto’s genetically modified Roundup Ready wheat when it comes up for registration.
The case is coloured by the fact that the variety is owned by a corporation often vilifiied by the anti GM movement because it is the leading proponent of the technology in agriculture. Also, herbicide tolerance is a trait consumers have little interest in.
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These factors can cloud people’s thinking when they consider the key issue facing GM wheat: is it wise to register a variety that most customers say they don’t want?
Most farmers think it is unwise. So the apparent fix is to make market acceptance a part of variety registration.
That is a bad solution because it would be a step toward the regulatory environment we criticize in Europe.
Canada’s registration system is based on science for good reason. Regardless of how a variety was produced, if it meets the standards of the class, is safe for people and animals and poses no danger to the environment, it is registered. This recognizes that genetic modification is a valuable tool in crop breeding and encourages innovation, something the world must have in order to keep pace with the food needs of its teeming population.
It is superior to Europe’s system, which has blocked GM varieties simply because they are the product of genetic modification, not because they present any danger. By catering to consumer’s GM fears, the European system has discouraged innovation and seed companies there are cutting operations.
In Canada, we need a variety registration system that assesses fully, fairly and without undue complications, all types of varieties. We should not twist it to stop one problem only to find the roadblocks also stop future varieties with traits bound to enjoy greater public acceptance, like improved nutritition or nutriceutical benefits.
But there is still the immediate problem of what to do with the Roundup Ready wheat that most customers do not want and that has the potential, if grown, to contaminate conventional crops and destroy the market for them.
This must not happen.
Some seed and grain industry players propose an industry-led system to prevent, through peer pressure and corporate good will, commercialization of GM wheat until issues of segregation and market acceptance are worked out.
While industry assistance is needed, too much is at stake to leave enforcement in its hands.
The federal government must create a new, post-registration regulation that allows a variety to be commercialized only when a workable, end-user approved identity preservation segregation system is in place that protects growers of conventional crops.
