Flax?

[parsley]

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<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/"](CGC regulates flax)[/URL]</strong></p>

[parsley]

charlie, I do get excited, because unfortunately, farmers pick up that tab for future sales, and for lost reputation.

Farmers pick up the tab.....again. Pars

[charliep]

Again, before anyone gets excited we need the facts.

Is the problem real? Was the issue an US flax delivered to a Canadian elevator? Was it a Canadian farmer (individual or group)? Was it a second berth in Duluth to pick up US flax after loading in Thunder Bay?

From there, why is it a government/CGC issue? The variety was de-listed. The EU is enforcing there rules around ensuring strict compliance to their GE approval process (more than flax caught).

If you want government involved, my solution is genetic testing of all samples with the costs and impact on timing of sales picked up by the supply chain (you will tell me the farmer). There would be no exceptions. But you say it is not farmers fault this variety was released. The answer then is to tighten up the CFIA/Health Canada rules around varietal development and approval even more than today (plants with novel traits).

So Canadian farmers live in a world of more regulation around developing and releasing new varieties and higher costs (detection and traceability) versus competitors?

Perhaps the real solution is to work towards international processes that indicate how biotech can be used that are accepted and adhered to by the major crop producing and consuming regions.

[parsley]

[parsley]

"Barry Hall, president of the Flax Council of Canada, confirmed that European labs have been testing Canadian flaxseed and initial analytical results indicate the presence of NPTH, a genetic marker, in some samples" UNQUOTE


Uh, you think he's talking out his ear, do you?

[craig]

I don't understand. So approved GMO is fine but unapproved is not. They have been accepting thousands of tonnes of South American GMO soybeans for years and now their excited about flax which for most purposes is an industrial product for paint and lino. It's great that we're enjoying all the benefits of GMO flax such as improved yield and better weed control. Would seem in today's world non tariff trade bariers are part of the business of restricting trade and driving prices down. Good old Canada just takes in on the chin and tries to absorp the additional risks. Glad we have such good margins to work with.

[parsley]

I thought there would be a show of concern about the obvious lack of responsibility by the guardians of the GMO flax variety, targetted soley for one use.

Not even a "whoops."

Is it that anything at all goes? Anything will be acceptable? With no concern let alone one word of censure?

A little like the kid who stole cigarettes and then is indignant because he didn't get to smoke them all. The stealing didn't bother him.

What about our basic responsibility as farmers, for ALL FOOD WE GROW AND PRODUCE? To sell what we say we sell? Or is that concept a little too old fashioned and needs modifying too?

If so, stock up on some melamine.

If we as farmers do not show concern about food, and how we handle it, and grow it, the trust we have built over the years throughout the world, and is an asset to us, will disappear.

Pars

[charliep]

I will note that flax is mainly an industrial product used in paint and linoleum (plus other uses of linoil). I find it interesting that a human food user of flax went to the same pile (and paid a commodity price) for something that would enter the food chain. The result in the European supply chain is that crushing plants that rely on flax for use in an industrial product (linoil) will be denied supplies for their business commitments within. Put another way, Canada is the major exporter but Europe only has one source of supply. There will be pain in the industry there because they are denied access to their needed supplies.

Perhaps an unexpected good outcome of this process is that Canada will crush flax for the linoil market and value add here.

Given the level of sophistication of testing, every sector of the agricultural industry will get caught off side for some infraction of a regional rule at some point including the organic industry. Hopefully we all have the patience as a Canadian industry to seek the facts before we (being members of the industry) put the knives in each others backs - Lord knows our competitors will do it anyway.

[ward.toma]

Craig

The transgenic events in canola, corn, and soybeans
have safety approvals in the EU. They did the
paperwork. The transgenic flax variety does not have
EU approvals, thus the tolerance is zero.

[parsley]

Trust. Owning up. Responsibility. Doing the right thing. Read it again.

Not covering up sorry asses.

As you well know, I'm a call a spade a spader.

Maybe you can't understand the point.

Speaking of knives.....The indiscriminate flow of GMO flax into the food chain will decimate the established organic flax market in Europe, as was the organic canola market decimated much the same way.

A thousand cuts out of a market.

I'm gone for the day, Parsley

[Fransisco]

From Agriweek...

The futures market for flax having expired some years ago, there is no standard pricing reference for the crop and it isnot easy to know how the market is going. But flax cash prices have dropped by as much as $100 a tonne from the $325 to $350-a-tonne range in barely 30 days. Most grain companies are not buying flax at any price because of the lack of forward orders from reliable, traditional European importers. With seaway navigation to end in 90 days, flax not cleared by then will have to be held into the spring in a very uncertain and confused market. European linseed mills appear to have all but stopped buying flax.

A rumor circulated, unconfirmed as of late in the week, that a small shipment of Canadian flax recently arrived at Antwerp containing extremely small amounts of illegal GMO material. It was assumed that it could have been linked to a genetically-modified glyphosate tolerant flax variety developed in the late 1990s but not registered and grown only in test plots. At last word the Flax Council, a couple of grain companies and Canadian Grain Commission were trying to sort it out.

There was no official announcement from any European source about the GMO issue but coincidentally the European Union Council of Agricultural Ministers debated the zero-tolerance policy for GMO contamination. In June Germany and Spain blocked cargoes of U.S. soybeans found to contain traces of GMO corn not approved in the EU.

European linseed mills buy the bulk of the Canadian flax crop. They took 76% of 2008-09 exports. Small amounts go to the U.S. and Japan but without reliable European demand there is basically no home for the Canadian crop.

Oil flax is not grown in Europe to any significant extent, though fibre flax as well as hemp are produced and have are heavily subsidized. Canada is the only sizable exporter. Therefore if European users are not buying Canadian flax they are not buying any flax and are not using it. This abrupt change in the flax market may have little to do with GMOs, but whatever it is, it is a bad omen for prairie flax. The only two high volume uses for linseed oil are in paint and linoleum, both of which are declining markets due to the development of newer products.

[Fransisco]

Will note that the zero tolerance policy is having a very detrimental effect on EU livestock producers. They have a very tough time sourcing feed because of it. Little is grown in Europe and most has to be imported.