tom 4

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley and oneoff,

This is a 'fluid' situation... and changes daily.

I just sent off 4 new samples... and will recheck our own farms status... this time we will know... generation by generation... I will have 4 decending generations of/from the same lot of breeder seed checked. One would have thought CSGA and CFIA would be responsible... and proactive... . The tests they did in Nov/Dec were worse than nothing.... to a .1% of a positive/negative test... everything came back negative I am told.

[cottonpicken]

"Comerical seed growers have the most to loose"

Ignoreignoreignorenotmeonlysteersand*****signoreig noreignore

[oneoff]

Why are there so few people that seem to be willing to ask hard questions and even fewer willing to take anything more than a lukewarm stance. If the Triffid tests only a couple of months ago were tested to 0.1% and are now 0.01% levels required then there serious implications. Could you please repeat your figures T4.
The reluctance of the manipulators in the trade to respond to what are most likely valid points made byself and others is reprehensible. I'll move on to other things if I'm wrong; but trust me ; the trade will be reluctant to let this stranglehold go. Farmers are dozing if not totally asleep.

[Burbert]

I once heard a seed company salesman, say that they went through a truckload of canola seed, and found 4 cleaver seeds in it, HENCE they rejected the whole load as unsuitable. TOM 4, Why would that happen???? After all they found the 4 cleaver seeds in the load. They should have thrown them out, cause now they had a perfect load of seed.... Ya see, the whole industry is based on total bull crap, methinks, standards are phoney!!!

[haveapulse]

I repasted from Pars as really if we believe in accoutability Pars has made the best case of that process:

Commercial farmers buying seed for 2010 could avoid the primary Triffid owner sites, if they chose, fo both buying seed or for cleaning seed.

The primary contaminated sites/farmers would be publically listed on all Flax Growers' websites, for a period of two quarantined years.

This action would be similar to Toyota recalling their brakes, and the Toyota shareholders sharing in the share value reduction, not just the guy who can't drive his car.

The Trifffid shareholders would agree to two years of NOT selling flax seed, which gives each and every one of them a good opportunity to set up their own risk management program on GM Events gone bad.

Triffid owners were instructed by the last protocol, to crush the flax, but obviously, the measure was not effectively implemented, so perhaps new protocol could be adopted in 2010 with accountability built, by putting the ownership onus on the primary patent owners, whether it be a seed company, university, or a government.


Have your say. Pars

What i find amazing is we are not upset by the club root protocol of do nothing to quarantine that problem... which I believe has potential to become even more detrimental to our industry.

[TOM4CWB]

Oneoff,

We have some serious thinking to do in Alberta. DO we treat the GM flax event... like clubroot in Canola?

It is possible to make Alberta GM Flax free... if that is the position leadership at the Provicial level decides.

Then we need to set a protocol that does just that... stop the spread and clean it up. This will cost $$$millions... and take half a decade

Or;

Not worry about seed (no differnce between farmsaved and pedigreed) that tests negative ABOVE .01%. This is VERY different that getting rid of the GM event out of our environment and soil in Alberta.

What is our choice?

CFIA is responsible... down to .1% to varietial purity in the pedigreed system. That is why they tested to this level. I am told the real stats on 1 60 gram test... is .03% 95% of the time... or ".01% 67% of the time... which isn't much better than 50/50".

So those who tested with the cheap test... got a negative... now need to test using the 4 60 gram tests... taken from accurately samples seed lots... to know what they have on their farm.

Are we brave enough... to find out?

Parsley... once we know what we have... then we can figure out how to fix it. Is 2 years enough? Flax land use should be out for 5 years... just like canola... to give reasonable assurance volunteers have been grown out... then seed production should be aborted if 1 volunteer flax plant is found between seed rows.

2 years in a rotation means nothing... on the prairie... especially when we have dry years... and zero till.

[charliep]

Is anyone talking about getting the genetic event around triffid registered
in Europe? There is a process. I note it went relatively quickly for
genetically engineered (GE) corn when it started interfering with GE
soybean imports.

[parsley]

Yes, moving the discussion on is the quick fix. Hurry. Hurry.

What about making use of hindsight?

Crushing flax would have worked if there had been a follow up component.

What EXACTLY did the Seed growers Association tell the Triffid growers? T

They knew who the breeders were. The Association demands that conventional growers musttest, so I presume they inspected the Triffid seed growers' audit trail that their association requires from its' membership with that same kind of authoratative vigor.

Have you the information on that charliep?

Now maybe there was an association follow-up but with the Assocaition growers policing themselves as breeders, so no enforcement component.

And then, the Government is an active partner/player, so how competent OR impartial is CFIA if are they are also a player instead of being a regulator only?

The protocol for handling new events is flawed.

But what about future events? Food MUST have a safety component to it. Food is the bottom line. And each one of us growing a food crop holds that responsibility.

I would also like to mention to you charliep, that although we can "move on" and Triffid the entire planet with gusto, it then becomes a tad difficult to grow flax organically.

Have you considered that? Pars

[parsley]

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

[parsley]

Any farmer who sprays his crop, or treats seed, OUTSIDE the acceptable chemical time lines, and delivers it to any facility, should also be publically quarantined for two years from delivery, and have his name listed on the same website.

Cowboys get charged by the CFIA for kicking a cow, so high levels of chemical content in FOOD grain should be just as transparently punishable.

Farmers as well as companies need to be slapped.