Rick White, executive director of the Canadian Canola Growers Association, discusses the potential pitfalls of proposed legislation.
Science and innovation are the foundations upon which we have built a globally competitive canola industry. They brought us canola and the healthiest cooking oil available for the restaurant market.
They produced herbicide tolerant crops, which have allowed farmers to embrace conservation tillage and help the environment, while curbing input costs such as fuel and herbicides.
And science and innovation will be an important pillar of the canola industry’s future success with yield improvements, stress tolerance and nutrient efficiency.
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These future innovations could be in jeopardy if a new private members’ bill is passed through Parliament.
Bill C-474 would introduce socio-economic considerations into the approval process for evaluating all new genetically modified seed varieties. Canada’s current approval system is science-based, predictable and safety-oriented. The type of subjective criteria that Bill C-474 seeks to implement would breed uncertainty into the seed variety approval process and open the door to potential activist intervention.
As a result, Canada would no longer have a predictable approval system for new GM seed varieties. Investors in new plant technologies may decide the investment risk is too great and divert their research and development dollars to competing crops and to other countries where the environment is more predictable.
New traits providing additional market opportunities to Canadian farmers could be in jeopardy or be commercialized in other countries or competing crops, leaving our farmers at a competitive disadvantage.
If Canada were to move away from a science-based regulatory approval process, key customers in other countries would no longer be able to cite the Canadian example of science-based regulatory approvals as justification for maintaining similar systems.
The potential for other countries, particularly those that grow rapeseed, to use non-tariff trade barriers to control imports would be justified on the basis that Canada no longer has a solely science-based system.
The cornerstone of Canadian crop innovation is a predictable and science-based regulatory approval system that encourages investment in research and development.
That is why the Canadian Canola Growers Association views this bill as a significant threat to the future competitiveness of our industry
Since the introduction of biotechnology, canola has become a prairie success story and the number one source of field crop receipts for Canadian farmers. The Canadian canola industry has been able to double exports in the last decade.
Furthermore, the industry has set a target of 15 million tonnes of sustainable production by 2015, and 7.5 million of that seed is expected to be exported – even more if you factor in oil and meal exports.
These successes and targets speak to the canola’s industry’s ability to grow the market for canola and its confidence in the acceptance of biotechnology by our major customers.
It also speaks to the success of the Canola Council of Canada’s market access policy, a voluntary agreement that ensures new GM seed traits are introduced only when they have been approved in all major export markets.
The fact that this policy has been respected since its inception in 1995 is a reflection that the industry recognizes the importance of being responsible about introducing new technologies.
That said, ensuring Canadian farmers have access to international markets is a serious issue for the canola industry. Our time and effort would be better spent on working with governments around the world through vehicles such as Codex to develop low level presence policies and agreements that will ensure the detection of unapproved traits do not disrupt trade flows.
Rather than work toward a more realistic and forward thinking solution, Bill C-474 would maintain zero tolerance thresholds, which are impossible to achieve and cause major trade disruptions, especially as the ability to detect even the most minute traces of material increases.
By proactively developing a low-level presence policy, Canada could provide global leadership and encourage importing governments in major markets to develop better functioning regulatory systems and policies that would replace zero tolerance thresholds and facilitate Canadian exports.
To preserve and expand markets, CCGA supports our science-based regulatory system governing the introduction of all approved canola varieties, regardless of the technology platform on which they were created, and encourages industry and government to work together to develop international low-level presence policies.
