Time to stop jumping through hoops on flax

The flax industry has jumped through many hoops in recent months, hoping to get seed into Europe, Canada’s largest market.

Last fall, because of the Triffid contamination problem, the flax export industry agreed to a protocol set out by the European Union that supposedly would allow exports to resume.

But no matter how hard Canadian shippers try, they mostly fail because the standard set by the EU for zero tolerance of unapproved GM events is simply impractical in bulk shipments.

It is time to stop jumping through hoops. Canada’s flax industry must either convince the Europeans to change the standard or find other markets.

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Neither will be easy, but that is the task if it wants to save a $320 million business.

Europe now rejects grain shipments that contain any trace of genetically modified material that has not been approved in the EU. Grain must be sampled three times through the handling system: at the elevator, in the rail car and in the ship. Shipments are tested again on arrival in Europe.

The sophisticated technology can identify the presence of GM material at a level of 0.01 percent. Even one GM seed in 10,000 can be identified.

Many disruptions follow. A shipment approved at one stage can be rejected at the next. Ships can wait days, building up demurrage fees, while samples are tested. Even shipments arriving at European ports can be rejected and must then be redirected to new markets, if any can be found.

The unacceptable commercial risks of this protocol are becoming clear to Canadian flax exporters.

It simply does not work so the Canadian flax industry must work with sympathetic partners in Europe to convince EU authorities to abandon the zero tolerance policy and replace it with a workable low level tolerance.

There are allies in Europe, such as flax processors and the large livestock feeding industry.

Europe has a deficit in feed grain production and must import from places such as the United States. But it runs into problems when shipments such as soybeans arrive containing traces of GM material approved in the shipping country but not yet approved in the slow moving EU system.

But given Europe’s deep divisions over GMOs, a decision on changing the protocol is likely to be a long time coming and there is no guarantee of a satisfactory outcome.

In the meantime, the Canadian flax industry must aggressively prospect for alternate markets.

There already is some success with China becoming a customer for the first time, buying almost 100,000 tonnes so far this crop year. What the Chinese are doing with the flax is not generally known in Canada, indicating a requirement for better market intelligence.

The new market dynamic also signals the need to reassess opportunities in the domestic processing industry. Efforts in Canada to expand flax use in food are well known, but developments on the industrial side are less clear.

The industry’s blueprint for future development, Flax 2015, sees potential opportunities in domestic flax crushing and further processing such as linoleum manufacturing. They were identified as long-term opportunities, but if the European situation remains unresolved, the timetable might need to be shortened.

We must also recognize that flax is caught in a wider problem about GM acceptance. Until now the issue has been largely about how GMOs created in North America are accepted in the rest of the world.

But soon China, India and other countries will create their own GM material in large quantities. Countries must agree on co-ordinating international approval of GMOs or risk trade disruptions that make flax’s problems seem small.

Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.