It’s May, so the seeding plans that were months in the making are being turned into real action. Most of us do a lot of planning before any seed is actually put into the ground.
On our farm, every field undergoes a scientific soil test and all farm-saved seed is tested for germination. Moisture conditions, crop rotations, price of seed, past experiences with yields and certainly current and predicted market demand and prices all go into the calculations.
Although it’s usually not acknowledged, beauty also matters. Who doesn’t look forward to seeing brilliant yellow fields of canola? On that front, flax is my favourite.
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Making seeding plans is never a simple operation. It would sure save time and energy if there were a single, failsafe rule to follow, but the conditions are complex so good decisions have to take that complex reality into consideration.
If seeding plans require weighing a range of variables and issues, why would one imagine that seed regulations would be simpler? This question is raised by the recent debates over Bill C-474, a proposed amendment to the Seeds Regulations Act to “require that an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.”
The key argument mounted against taking market acceptance into account when registering new varieties is that it goes beyond the single science-based criteria now used. The appeal of sticking with science-based is obvious. It seems to offer a simple, reliable, unbiased, universal set of rules to follow. This should prevent any political, economic or social considerations from intruding and making things complicated.
But whose science are these rules based on? Most of the research on genetically modified crops is financed and controlled by the corporations that own the technology.
Those corporations have withdrawn from participating in independent canola plot testing. This prevents public comparisons between seeds and denies farmers science-based information that has not been filtered through company screens .
U.S. scientists complain that they can’t do independent research on GM technologies because of the restrictive technology agreements that biotech companies impose.
The questions scientists are asking help determine the kinds of answers they get. The questions that are not asked also bias the direction and results of research.
All of this shows that reaching for the single science-based criteria for seed regulations is neither as simple nor as unbiased as it might seem.
But even if scientific research was objective, comprehensive and completely reliable, it might still be necessary to consider social and market conditions.
Although the scientific data must be a key consideration in granting seed registrations, it need not be the only criteria. Given the high economic price farmers are paying for the loss of the European flax market and the even bigger risks that an approval of GM wheat or alfalfa pose, these harms need to be weighed carefully.
Making seed laws, like making seeding plans, must take the complexity of the real world into account.
Nettie Wiebe is a farmer in the Delisle, Sask., region and a professor of Church and Society at St. Andrews College in Saskatoon.
