Flax - again!

[Hopperbin]

Sold out for sure, won't have to sell certified froze all to hell seed to the elevator then. From past experience with seed growers I now take them with great caution but only after hundred thousand in extra costs. Don't get me started on what problems. Farmers if they test their own seeds they know what they are planting. Get certified pick up during planting and get major screw job.

[parsley]

Well, you probably clicked on the link, and saw Shaun is a new kid on the Board of Director's block for Canterra Seeds:

Shaun Haney

Shaun, his wife Trish and their three young children reside in Picture Butte, AB where Shaun is actively involved in his family business Haney Farms. Shaun is a feature contributor with GrainNews and in 2008 started an agriuclture blog www.realagriculture.com. Shaun also is very involved with his community, sitting on the Board of Directors with the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

Shaun joined the CANTERRA SEEDS Board of Directors as the Alberta Vice-President in March 2009.


And Joe is a lontime Board Member.

Joe Dales

Joe, his wife Sandy and their two children live in London, ON. Joe has 23 years of agriculture industry experience working with companies such as Pfizer, Cyanamid Crop Protection, First Line Seeds, and NK Syngenta Seeds. Joe holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Chemistry and an MBA. He is founder of Farms.com and leads their business strategy, marketing and development activities.

Joe joined the CANTERRA SEEDS Board of Directors in 2003. He is also very active in several agri-food industry associations such as the Canadian Agri-Marketing Association, the US National Agri-Marketing Association, and is a member of both the Agri-food Council and Renewable Energy Council in London. As well, Joe is past Treasurer and Board Member of the Ontario Pork Industry Council, past Board Member of Techalliance and Internetworking Technology Group.

[oneoff]

Does anyone diasagree that the registered seed growers and their associations are solely responsible for contaminating the seed flax supply.
If not ; then why don't the seed growers and their association at least replace the certified and registered seed that they sold to farmers in past years (and do it out of their own pockets; and accompany it with their deepest regrets and pleas for forgiveness)
I see their proposed plan as a perfect way to expand their sales and profits. The farm supply wings of the line elevator companies are also going to benefit. Aren't these the same guilty bodies that have severely harmed the flax growers of this country.
Trust and reputations are earned; not developed by marketing and publicity initiatives unilaterally promoted by guilty scum that harm their customers.

[bucket]

How about an exchange program if the seed growers are so adamant about getting certified seed out there.

You take the required amount of flax to the seed grower and he replaces it with his certified seed. A 1:1 exchange - no money changes hands. The seed grower then has to test that lot prior to selling it to an elevator.

Plus he has to provide purity tests for every exchange they make. Doesn't matter if it is 10 bushels or 500 bushels. Not just the usual blue tag lot test that may be for 10000 bushels. And the seed grower has to have that test available for prior to pick up and the sampling has to be witnessed by an independant grading agent. The seed grower must not just pull the flax from a large bin as all exchanges must come from a separate bin and a dedicated auger is required for each bin.

Maybe then they would get the picture as to how much this is costing regular farmers thanks to the seed growers's greed, incompetence and immorality,etc.

Funny how people sitting on boards for seed companies lose their competence, morality etc, for compensation. A lobotomy must be a prerequisite for being on a board.

Once again,

THE SEED GROWERS CAUSED THE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FLAX INDUSTRY!!!

Do you non believers get it yet or have you had your lobotomy already?

[dmlfarmer]

Without question, the seed industry initally caused this problem but thinking the same growers can resolve the issue is naive. The genie is out of the bottle and it is impossible to guarantee flax grown in western Canada will ever be 100% Triffid free again.

New, tested, certified Triffid free fax is not enough. Every grower who ever planted a Triffid seed likely added Triffid seed to the soil seed bank. (A harvest loss of just one bu per acre due to poor combine setting, spillage from the truck, inability to harvest a corner or wet spot, or even a hail storm adds 113 seeds per square foot)
Granted volunteer flax is not a huge problem because flax seed is not highly viable more than a couple of years, but even if one Triffid seed survived and produced, the problem continues.
And it has been proven there is a 1-6% cross pollination between flax plants, more if there are strong winds at flowering. So that one viable seed that grew has the potential to contaminate the certified free seed you are planting if you have seeded flax on a field that had ever had even one Triffid flax plant on it. Or if you had a neighbor who had Triffid contamination in his flax planted adjacent to your flax, you likely have a low level of contamination in your crop too from cross pollination; no matter how careful and good a grower you are.
Even just growing flax on land where flax has never been grown is not a solution. There were reports across eastern Alberta this year of Roundup Ready canola appearing in canola fields that were sprayed out with Roundup because of the drought inspite of the fact the variety seeded was a Clearfield or Invigor. In some cases there were surviving Roundup canola plants where Roundup canola had never been seeded.
As I said the genie is out of the bottle and 100% cleanup is impossible. The actions of a few mean the rest of us have to live with restrictions and loss of markets until we can convince the buyers our flax (with low levels of Triffid)is safe.
And hopefully we all learn from this that the growing of any crop that is not registered for planting in Canada is not just a risk for the grower doing it but threatens the production of that crop by every grower.

Given the Triffid experience, you really have to question the wisdom of those growers wanting to licence RR wheat before the market is ready to accept it!

[checking]

So, we stay the course. We hope that Mr. Weber is correct, and this flax turmoil does resolve itself with widened tolerance levels. The one thing we don't do is reward the culprit(s) responsible as they with their seed industry have "NO SIVER BULLET" solution to clean this mess up. Their solution is only to enrich themselves a second time.

Thank you Parsley for your research.

Shaney, with your disclaimer now out there, do you agree with dmlfarmer that your "naive" to think the genie can be put back in the bottle?

[wmoebis]

Shaney brings up a good point. However can every seed producer insure that every seed was cleaned out thoughly before growing, storing and handling certified seed. NO.

Lots of samples of wheat contain trace amounts of flax and other seeds even if the farmer has never intentionaly growen them.

Certified seed has tolerances, for purity, built in. Example: Buy cert yellow peas and a trace amount maples will be in sample. This is due partly to the fact that no one can guarantee 100% clean seed, including seed growers.

The Triffid gene may have or may not have entered seed supplies accidentaly. If it entered intentionaly the rules weren't fallowed and action should be taken.

[parsley]

<p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/01/fp967-triffid-flax-under-purview-of.html"](Are these what you call grain Senators?)[/URL]</strong></p>

[cottonpicken]

Sitting in a running combine wishing I was a weather forecaster and praying I get to meet a few of the pricks that started this

[charliep]

I have to ask the question again - is anyone talking about getting
the genetic event registered in Europe? Perhaps even deeper,
does anyone feel we (speaking as western Canadian farmers) are
selling an unsafe product into Europe? Is triffid flax a food safety
issue or simply a matter of breaking the European rules? If we
are confident in our product, then the solution becomes clearer -
work with European rules. Several corn GMO genetic events have
been registered this summer albeit so residue doesn't become an
issue in soybeans (which is GMO by the way).

[parsley]

I think we're discussing the ethics of our industry charliep. About losing trust. I realize large players want to "move on" and mouth the words, "And lets learn from it" and be done with it, while we sign the cheque for the new and renewed seed. My kids used to try to convince, "But that was a long time ago, Mother."

Certainly average farmers have learned that messes, including events gone wrong, and bankruptcies left owing, will be heaped on us like garbage to the local dump.

We are understanding what happened, who broke faith, and we're going to discover still more, but especially that accountability is the most essential part of rebuilding into a healthy industry. But do those who have caused the harm have a flipping clue what they have done, let alone admit it? Let AV'ers be the judge .

Every future event that is conceived by every brainwave Inc. receieving a government grant, and then goes awry, well the cost will be downloaded on us. On farmers.

Not on you. On us.

For anyone, and I mean anyone, to think, let alone promote, the idea that ordinary farmers' 2010 crops MUST be planted with the very same registered seed from the same registered band of seedgrowers that contaminated us in the first place, makes me very, very pissy.

And you should know by now, I'm not at all reasonable about negotiating the principle of choice.

[parsley]

Food.

As you well know, I'm a passionate foodie.
You ask if there is harm from a bit of Triffid flax. You are intent on discussing tolerances, and how to increase them. If .01% is alright, what is the matter with .02%

Tolerances are not the real issue.

a lot of foodies have a healthy dose of skepticism about modifying our food.
The other camp urges, "Anything at all goes, "It's 100% safe so just give me the godamn money and we'll give er snooz."

And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will be unintended consequences derived from genetic modification and most likely a lot of them. It's a reasonable expectation. But what bothers me is irresponsible regulators, or the political leaders who would even sell their shares in an event gone wrong before you did, based on insider information, And then there is depending upon industry leadership from those who broke our system

When an event does go dreadfully wrong, so that harm could come to all of us who eat, and I presume that includes you charliep, the present leadership that we have would first of all not admit it, let alone warn anyone, or work to fix it.

A system of moving forwards must earn trust. The system we have keeps losing trust. The Triffid event showed all of us, in spades, that both dealers and card players cheat.

And of course some will argue I don't play with a full deck at the best of times.LOL Pars

[charliep]

I like this week's emalt quote. Gives me a view of the world.

Emalt quote of the week

"Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with
what happens to you."
Aldous Huxley

It is a very interesting case (realizing I am offending those in
the heat of the current battle) and will be relevant to the
upcoming research and commercialization for other crops like
wheat/barley. The questions raised here go to plant breeding
questions in general and from there our seed multiplication
system. Do the issues go to our seed multiplication system in
general or is it specific to this GMO event? How are our
competitors dealing with this issue? What needs to be done
differently in the future? Your idea of having a process to
monitor gene movement is a good one (Canada would have
known the triffid problem before our customer did).

[cottonpicken]

Ya pars,all your words and thoughts but nobody for
hyde to punch.

Bonnie and ?

[charliep]

Still eat flaxseed most mornings. My food issues (personal) are
calories/sugar, fats (trans fats and saturated), salt, highly processed food,
fibre (yes that age).

Would be interesting if someone could offer the organic industry a
perennial wheat using transgenics but the inserted gene is from another
very closely related grass species. As indicated the world of plant is going
to get very interesting as knowledge of gene/sequencing increases.