- Wayward pollen and seed from genetically modified crops
have cost Canadian honey producers and organic farmers millions of dollars,
according to researchers who say there is an urgent need to better control
the controversial GM crops and their novel genetic machinery.
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- "It is essential that new molecular gene-containment
strategies be developed and introduced," says a report in the journal
Nature Biotechnology this month, which points to the significant economic
risks and liabilities associated with GM crops now widely grown in Canada
and the United States.
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- In the most costly case to date, GM corn meant only for
animals ended up in U.S. food in 2000. The resulting scramble to recall
tacos and corn products cost "a staggering US $1-billion," the
report says. Canadian honey producers and organic farmers, the report says,
are also paying a big price.
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- The European Union recently banned imports of Canadian
honey because Canadian producers cannot guarantee their honey is free of
pollen from GM plants not yet approved by the EU.
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- "This action by the EU has driven down domestic
honey prices in Canada and cost the industry a market that has on average
earned more than $5.3-million over the past decade," Peter Phillips,
an agricultural economist, and his colleagues at the University of Saskatchewan
say in a paper that is part of the journal's special report on GM plants
and trees.
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- These modified crops and their pollen, which can be carried
up to 25 kilometres on Prairie winds, also "destroyed the growing,
albeit limited, market for organic canola," say Prof. Phillips and
his colleagues. "Because of the likelihood of out-crossing and pollen
flow, buyers have shown increased reluctance to buy organically produced
Western Canada canola because it might contain transgenes."
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- Transgenes, made from genes borrowed from microbes, animals
or other plants, are engineered into GM crops to confer new traits such
as resistance to insects, drought or herbicides.
-
- The researchers estimate the lost market to Canada's
organic farmers at between $100,000 and $200,000 annually. "But the
calculation probably underestimates the opportunity cost of a market that
many thought had significant potential for growth," they say.
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- Saskatchewan's organic farmers recently launched a class-action
suit against Monsanto and Aventis, biotech companies that sell herbicide-resistant
GM canola widely grown in Canada, arguing the companies should be liable
for lost sales due to contamination by its GM genes.
-
- While the courts will eventually rule on that case, Prof.
Phillips and his colleagues say industry and government regulators must
do a better job of controlling GM crops and the pollen and seed they produce.
-
- Their report focuses mainly on the significant liability
cost of genes from GM crops "escaping and going rogues," but
scientists writing in the journal also say there are many unanswered questions
about the long-term environmental risks of GM plants.
-
- There is concern transgenes will be picked up by weeds
and other plants and make them even hardier.
-
- As evidence of problems, the journal editors point to
Canada, where "canola plants resistant to three herbicides have emerged
in just two years as a result of cross-pollination."
-
- The resistant plants developed when an Alberta farmer,
unaware of the risks, planted different varieties of canola too close together.
-
- Allison Snow, an ecologist at Ohio State University,
says more research on gene flow from GM crops is sorely needed. She notes
that a transgene used in GM crops to promote insect resistance can result
in an unexpectedly large boost in seed production in wild sunflowers.
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- "Current gene-containment strategies cannot work
reliably in the field," says an editorial in the journal. "Seed
companies will continue to confuse batches, and mills will continue to
mix varieties." And farmers will continue to be "unable or unwilling"
to follow planting rules aimed at controlling unwanted dispersal, or flow,
of genes from GM crops into non-GM crops.
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- "Most seriously, gene flow could result in GM material
unintended for human consumption ending up in the human food chain,"
says the editorial, which raises the possibility of "biopharmaceutical"
GM crops, designed to produce drugs, contaminating food.
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- "It is time that industry took decisive steps to
address gene flow from their products," it says. "Environmental
concerns surrounding GM crops are not going to go away."
-
- Prof. Phillips and his colleagues say they would like
to see a reassessment of gene containment techniques such as Monsanto's
"terminator" technology, which can produce sterilized seed and
prevents genes from being passed on.
-
- It stirred up a huge controversy a few years ago. Critics
in the developing world expressed concern the seed-sterilizing technology
would reduce biological diversity and increase corporate concentration
in agriculture.
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- Prof. Phillips and his colleagues say terminator-type
technologies could be useful in solving some GM crop problems. The technologies
could act as a "built-in safety mechanism to prevent the escape or
spread of potentially harmful traits (such as herbicide tolerance) from
new GM crops."
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- And the technology could reduce the liabilities of GM
crop producers "by preventing contamination through co-mingling with
non-GM crops."
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- http://www.connectotel.com/gmfood/np070602.txt
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