Groups representing Canada’s seed, biotech and crop chemical industries warn that a bill requiring export market assessment on any new genetically modified crop varieties could stifle innovation and steer regulation away from its basis in science.
The Canadian Seed Trade Association and CropLife Canada on Thursday issued statements on NDP agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko’s Bill C-474 after it passed second reading Wednesday in the House of Commons.
The bill was then referred to the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food for further study.
Private members’ bills rarely make it into legislation, but the vote to support the bill at second reading “takes it one step closer to becoming law,” the Ottawa-based CSTA said in its release.
Read Also
U.S. grains: Corn rebounds from contract lows on short covering, bargain buying
Bargain buying and short covering lifted U.S. corn futures on Monday after the market slid to contract lows on expectations for strong U.S. output, traders said.
The bill got past second reading with support from the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois as well as the NDP, while the governing Conservatives lined up against it.
This is the first time a bill to change the rules on GMOs has passed second reading in the Commons, Atamanenko said in a separate release Thursday.
“Despite intense lobbying efforts by the biotech industry and the Conservative government to nip this bill in the bud, the opposition parties voted instead to protect the economic interests of farmers,” the B.C. MP said. “I couldn’t be happier that Parliament has made this historic decision.”
Not so for CSTA president Dave Sippell, who said Bill C-474 “threatens our science-based regulatory system and the future innovations that it will enable.
“If this bill becomes law, at best, it can delay regulatory approval of promising new plant varieties. At worst, these new varieties could be commercialized somewhere other than Canada.”
“Canada should be working hard to expand market access for our crops as we are doing now in China, Japan, the U.S. and other countries, not looking at ways to make it harder for Canada to benefit from innovation,” CropLife Canada president Lorne Hepworth said in a separate release.
CSTA said its member companies invested over $56 million in plant breeding and research in 2007 and expected to almost double that investment by 2012, citing new varieties such as healthier Omega-3 soybeans and high-amylase corn for bioenergy.
“Non-science based regulatory requirements could put this all at risk, effectively placing Canada’s innovation agenda into the hands of politicians in other countries,” Sippell said.
“Ideological reasons”
“Canada has a long tradition of providing strong, science-based regulations that serve to assure farmers, consumers and export markets that the food being grown here in Canada is both safe and nutritious,” CropLife’s Hepworth said. “Bill C-474 does nothing to enhance that.”
“Consumer-friendly products like heart-healthy oils and trans fat replacements are delivering real benefits to Canadians. Under Bill C-474 it is possible that these benefits would have been withheld from the public for completely ideological reasons.” he said.
Hepworth, a former Saskatchewan agriculture minister, said the federal government has a responsibility “to provide strong, science-based regulations for plant science technologies as well as a responsibility to give farmers and consumers the freedom to access the best that innovation has to offer.”
Atamanenko retorted in his release Thursday that he believes the government’s science-only approach to how GM varieties are regulated is “irresponsible because it completely ignores market considerations.”
The government’s “lax regulatory process” allowed CDC Triffid, an approved but later deregistered GM flax variety, to make its way into Canada’s supplies of certified flax seed, shutting out Canadian flax exports from their key markets overseas, he said.
“For the first time, Parliament has a chance to seriously consider a regulatory mechanism that will ensure farmers are never again faced with rejection in our export markets because we allow the introduction of (GM) technologies that they have not approved.”
However, the Grain Farmers of Ontario, the umbrella group for the province’s wheat, corn and soybean growers, contended in a separate release Thursday that C-474 “would eliminate advantages now enjoyed by Ontario farmers and consumers by introducing unpredictable factors into the regulatory process.”
C-474 “could indefinitely delay all future approvals on the basis that there may be one country somewhere that would not accept genetically modified crops,” the GFO said.
The CSTA said the Commons ag committee had been “in the midst of a comprehensive study on biotechnology and genetically-modified products before Christmas,” and the association was invited to appear at that time.
“We are convinced that members seeking information around biotechnology would have received more comprehensive information by continuing with this study, than it will through hearings on a very narrowly focused piece of legislation,” the CSTA said Thursday.
But the association said it “will welcome the opportunity to present its concerns when the committee begins its hearings” on Atamanenko’s bill.
GFO said its representatives, along with those of a “coalition of farm groups,” plan to “take the time prior to their testimony at the agriculture standing committee to build a strong case against the bill and to ensure farmers from across Canada are represented on the issue.”
