Market loss fears surround Roundup Ready wheat Manitoba Co-operator, 16 January 2003 By Richard Kamchen Monsanto is asking the Canadian and U.S. governments to approve the safety of its genetically modified wheat, which is causing concern in the grain industry from those fearing the potential loss of export markets. The biotech giant December 23 submitted its Roundup Ready wheat to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for environmental and feed safety approval, said Trish Jordan, spokeswoman for Winnipeg-based Monsanto Canada. The company also provided submissions to the USDA the same week. Monsanto provided additional information to Health Canada as well December 23. The company first submitted Roundup Ready wheat to Health Canada in July 2002 for approval of the product's food safety. Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency has been reviewing Roundup Ready herbicide since 2001, Jordan noted. Regulatory approval of GM wheat likely remains a long time away: "It's a matter of years rather than months," Jordan said. But even with government regulatory approval, GM wheat will not immediately be launched into the market, she stressed. "Regulatory approval, even if we were to receive it, doesn't mean we're ready to commercially launch the product. That said, without regulatory approval you can't do anything." Jordan said such approval was only one of five commitments Monsanto wants satisfied before releasing Roundup Ready wheat to the market. Among Monsanto's four other "key commitments" for launching GM wheat includes market acceptance, namely identifying buyers for this product prior to its introduction. Agronomic stewardship is another, which includes best management recommendations for farmers. Seeing the grain handling system improved so that it could guarantee segregation of GM wheat would be the third commitment, with the fourth and final being the establishment of international GMO standards. Work on these four steps is running concurrently with the governmental reviews, Jordan said. She noted Monsanto would be submitting its Roundup Ready wheat to Japan for similar regulatory approval within a month. "Following these three (Canada, U.S., and Japan), as part of Monsanto's regulatory commitment, the company made commitments to attain regulatory approval in all key importing nations." < B>CWB cautious< B> Gord Flaten, director of market development with the Canadian Wheat Board, noted Monsanto still has other hurdles to pass following governmental safety approval before GM wheat could be introduced on the market. Any GM variety that received approval still would need to go through the traditional registration process, meaning it would have to undergo co-operative trials and be reviewed on the basis of end-use quality, agronomic characteristics, and disease resistance, Flaten said. That process could take several years. The board has taken a cautious stance with the commercial introduction of GM wheat, particularly because of the potential market rejection of such a product, Flaten said. He pointed out a little over 80 per cent of wheat board customers have told the CWB they do not want GM wheat. "This is a marketing issue from our point of view," he said. ". . . What's important to us is that our customers are saying they don't want it and that has to be, in our view, a consideration when deciding whether to approve something like this in Canada for commercial production." Flaten lamented the current state of the government's review process. "It's just illogical not to consider that (marketing issues), but our regulatory system, the way it's set up right now, does not allow consideration of that question. ". . . Sometimes the interests of the developer are not completely aligned with the interests of farmers. We think that the interests of farmers, translated into a positive cost-benefit for farmers, has to be the bottom line." < B>Farm groups mixed on GM wheat< B> "We do support the use of GMO technology," said Keystone Agricultural Producers President Weldon Newton. KAP, however, has several concerns about GM wheat, with the biggest one being the crop's marketability. "Is there a market for it and how does that (commercial introduction) impact the markets who do not want GMO wheat? We need some answers to that," Newton said. Segregation issues, how to control volunteer GM wheat, and the impact of GM wheat pollen movement to adjacent fields were other issues KAP wants clarified, he said. "Our association has said from day one that we are in favor of biotechnology," said Art Enns, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. He added, however, the WCWGA has put two conditions on its acceptance of GM wheat being put on the market: that it be acceptable to customers and that an effective segregation system be in place to keep GM wheat separated from other crops. The National Farmers Union was the most cautious about Roundup Ready wheat. NFU president Stewart Wells was concerned over the CFIA's feed safety review of Roundup Ready wheat. "The livestock feed issue should start ringing some alarm bills with anybody that has followed the StarLink corn case in the United States," he said. Japan in late December found a U.S. cargo containing about 1,200 tonnes of corn that tested positive for traces of StarLink corn, which is not approved as safe for human consumption or feed in Japan. (StarLink is approved in the U.S. for animal feed only.) StarLink has previously made its way into Japan and even entered the U.S. food chain in 2000. Wells also questioned the Canadian government's ability to review GM wheat's safety without bias. "The federal government is promoting biotechnology and promoting things like Roundup Ready wheat, but they're also supposed to be the regulator . . . I think that they are in a definite conflict-of-interest . . . It's impossible in my view to be both a promoter and a regulator." Wells also pointed to a "tremendous lack of transparency in the regulatory system and framework." "The problem has been accentuated because even though both Monsanto and the federal government talk non-stop about transparency and the need for public debate, neither of them have been interested at all in having public discussions, especially about Roundup Ready wheat." He felt the current regulatory procedures needed a major overhaul. Wells called for a "precautionary approach" when the government assesses any review of GM products. His recommended safety review approach would treat all new biotech products as though they were new pharmaceuticals set to hit the market. "It's not a fail-safe methodology, but it's certainly better than what we have now." END http://www.co-operator.mb.ca/