Flax?

[Fransisco]

I don't think someone who accuses their neighbors of intentional wrongdoings, without any evidence to back it up, should be giving lectures on ethics.

[parsley]

fran, I said on my blog:

"It has been documented on the internet that GMO flax has been tested positive for Triffid in E.U. Maybe yes, maybe no. But it's in the public ear."

I have made the point that we cannot simply diregard other countries' laws.

We need to address boundaries.

Do we have Triffid in our food system in Canada?

You are so busy trying to legitimize an unfettered expansion of GMO's, you ignore the violation that is being claimed. Don't you think that an importing country would like to hear from Canadain farmers that "We are worried about and regret this situation."

Isn't that what we should do for customers?

[parsley]

fyi, this test is positive:

http://www.genetic-id.de/downloads/Genetic%20ID%20Press%20Release%20on%20GMO%20Linsee d.pdf

Now they could find it lacking legitimacy. But the word to the consumer is out. And the CANADIAN RESPONSE has unfortunatley been noted.

1. Now we can hide and hope it goes away until next time,
2. We can tell buyers their rules are stupid, they are unreasonable and THEY have to change.
3.We can plan a strategy so it won't happen with other grains as it did flax. Or it will.

[charliep]

Agree with point 3. This is a learning experience that will change the way
Canada does business.

Call point 2 a draw. My points and others are there has to be a rule based
system agreed to by all international partners. This is particularly true as the
world moves ahead with new breeding technologies based on new technologies
like gene mapping. In the spectrum, I guess you assume that new techniques
like genetic engineering/transgenics really bad and should be outlawed,
mutagenics/other same species borderline and traditional breeding good but
the new technologies create lots of gray areas. I highlight the challenges in
Canada's breeding system to get a plant with a novel trait licensed under
domestic rules (Plants with Novel Traits). Multiply this process times 7 for the
different jurisdictions and the expense goes up to the point where only big
international companies can participate (something everyone in Agriville tells
me is bad). You have also increased the risk of shipments being rejected, extra
segregation costs, etc. All these costs will be paid by farmers - a point we
agree on. Perhaps we also disagree on whether animal feed should be handled
differently than human food. I note the British article on no GMO - if they have
any meat in their stores from animals fed US corn or soymeal, this would be a
lie that is misleading their consumer.

On the first point, we disagree. I believe a lot is happening in the investigation
to come to the truth and I would encourage patience. I prefer this route to a
knee jerk response - lynched bodies hanging in the wind after being convicted
in a kangaroo court. The consequences of over reacting are just bad as under
reacting.

[parsley]

"Genetic modification in agriculture is a reality ; a scientific application which will accelerate, and although I have always encouraged laboratory experimentation and will continue to do so, there are two issues that need open airing amongst Western canadian farmers seeingst the Triffid puck got thrown down on EU ice, and is in play."


That's a sentence from my commnentary on PN.

[bucket]

Percy gets to the supreme court for growing his own seed from a registered variety. Didn't really affect the market.

The jerk off that has been growing an illegal variety - will he get off scott free and pass all the costs on to his neighbors. Don't need neighbors like that. Just wait until the rr wheat problems start occurring.

When these programs are developed shouldn't farmers in general know where the site are and whose growing it. It makes for a quick traceability trail and whose to blame. This will take years.

Although a more practical approach is to tell Europe that Canada has no flax for sale. They will only go a year without their plants running and they might smarten up.

[parsley]

I created a rudimentary audit trail for Triffid on my blog, starting with the U of S, and following an internet trail from press releases and company documents, and ended with a signed bankruptcy declaration Order.


I'm not saying there aren't things missing, as quite often, I encountered no-name documents.

I only entered what I found.

Food needs to be transparent.

[Fransisco]

I am not ignoring it.

But I am also not letting my imagination run wild with unfounded speculations and thoughts of revenge on my fellow farmers without any proof. I prefer to follow the evidence and right now we don't have much to go on.

Randomly and viciously throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, while claiming the "sky is falling, the sky is falling" for flax in Canada, in my estimation, is counterproductive.

And you yourself are ignoring three things. There is no danger to man or beast from GMO's, the EU zero tolerance rules are unreasonable, and we don't know if anyone intentionally broke the rules.

The fact that a rule is unreasonable does not excuse breaking it, if that is what someone knowingly and purposefully did. But we don't know yet if that's the case.

I do know this, unreasonable rules tend to get accidentally broken more often than reasonable ones.

[parsley]

I recognize some people do not differentiate food quality.

If grain is modified for a certain characteristic, will you say, who cares?

If you don't care if you put linoleum flax in your mouth, or paint flax in your mouth, or shingle flax in your mouth or estrogen flax in your mouth, fine.

But organics works towards being particular. And fussy people buy organic.

It's a market.

That market stands to feel the waves stemming from the conventional market.

I'm saying sleep on your side of the bed.
Is that so difficult to understand?

Don't be surprised if I am not happy.
I'll quote from Parsley's Notebook comment section:

"I just read one Saskatchewan commodities' newsletter characterizing my complaints as follows:

"Groups known for their opposition to GM crops are already charac-terizing the German report as a major contamination incident which shows GMOs can't be controlled or recalled once released in the environment."

I say this: Triffid was indeed bred and indeed released. It's out there. Uncontrolled.

Whom would I call to inquire about Triffid contamination? About accountability? About seed integrity? The Bankruptcy Court's telephone number?

I expect that the conventional market will come out unscathed.

But it is the beginning of the end of the Canadian organic flax market."

[charliep]

Perhaps I have to side with Parsley.

When someone asks me about Genetic Engineered crops, I cannot say there will be no risk. The same can be said for all biotech crops. What scientists and regulators can do is risk assessment to best of their ability, evaluate probability of a bad outcome (as well as the contribution of potential benefits), approve or not and if approved, establish protocols. The same risk assessment goes on for all new technologies - not just agricultural ones. Perhaps the real discussion is about measurement of risk and determining what is acceptable. As human being, we make these decisions every morning when we get up.

If things go the way they seem to be, a European rule around GM (maybe I like biotech better) has been broken. As trading partners who have businesses dependent on flaxseed trade, it is in both regions benefit to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

In the solution, hopefully there is some separation of different supply chains and the needs of each. Perhaps flax destined for the linoil and the European feed market should be treated differently than product moved into the human food channels. Of the 500,000 to 700,000 tonnes exports, how much flax is consumed in the human food market? I do my share to help the flax industry (had some in my hot cereal this morning) but domestic flaxseed consumption isn't enough to show up in the statistics.

A final comment is a lot of this fight isn't about flax - its about another crop that will go nameless. It is interesting that European pressure stopped the process of getting Triffid approved (or perhaps better delicenced) based on simple cost benefit analysis that somebody like me would do (cost of moving Triffid through the European regulatory system versus benefit) and the cost of not doing this is upon us today. It is important that all the process in varietal/technology in different markets be done perhaps in spite of the cost - the Europeans need to be continually challenged on their policy which needs to be rule based.

[charliep]

On your comment, I have to admit to getting frustrated. If you think moving organic products through the supply chain in the same manner as other commodities, then you have a recipe for disaster. The same net that got flax will get your industry (better testing and tight tolerances including zero). The commodity system can't afford to be loaded up with supply chain requirements to meet the needs of your industry. Too expensive and too risky.

The route many of these issues will not be regulation but rather contract terms and supply chain checks/balances. If a system exists that can move new varieties from the plant breeder to a farmer with varietal, surely a system can be developed to move organic grain forward farm to customer. You and the buyer can put whatever terms you want in the contract and be held to them by the court system.

[parsley]

I don't think it's a matter of sides, charliep.

I don't want to pit farmer against farmer. Taking sides is not winnable for anyone. Or throwing pies at fran. I's sooner make the pie and he makes the coffee.

I actually support conventional flax farmers to sell linoleum flax for fifty dollars a bushel.

But all farmers have to understand the food issue. Food is not industrial. And accept that food is our future generation's survival. Not just nutritional, but genetic survival.

I know I am old fashioned. And ornery. But I am sincere.

When it comes right down to it, there isn't hardly a farmer reading this, that doesn't have a tiny seed of doubt about eating genetically modified FOOD. Even fran? lol

And organic is, at the very least, your insurance policy.

If the massive GMO experiment on North Americans is a miserable failure, organics is at least a backup of sorts.
Agriculture Canada came here years ago to select weeds with no resistance in them.

I understand why farmers sell what they see as making the most money. We need money We have taxes. We have children to educate. My gawd, ours never seemed to finish school. LOL

But there can be a place for both organics and conventional if we commit to due diligence between food and industrial.

At some point we have to deal with the moral issues of modification.

[charliep]

Hopefully nothing I says says I am anti organics or food. You didn't say that by the way Parsley.

I am a mechanic and look at the process. Farmer takes flax and gets a cash ticket including grade. Blended and sampled on loading a rail car. Hauled Thunder Bay where blended some more and sampled. don't know if shipped direct Europe or handled St. Lawrence. In a ship across the ocean. Unloaded Belgium - sampled and tested. Trucked or railed mill Germany - tested. Cleanliness and attention to detail has the ability to impact the flax/organics at each step along the way. This is the commodity world with all its worts. If organics is loaded containers (farm to mill), then there is opportunity to put much tighter specifications and testing even to the genetic level - a good thing. If organics are going to meet the specific needs of customers through the commodity system, a lot attention has to be spent on detail (clean legs in elevators, clean trucks/railcars, clean holds of ships, etc). Zero is an extremely tough target in this new world of testing.

[Fransisco]

The issue of industrial vs food grade crops just isn't there, it's another red herring. If you are growing something for an industrial purpose such as flax for paint there is a possibility that it will end up in the food supply. Accidents happen. That is why Triffid flax was tested for human consumption even though that was not it's intent. If it hadn't passed that requirement it would not have been granted approval. I think that's a good thing.

And no, there is no doubt in my mind that food produced from GM is safe. I have asked many times if it's so dangerous can someone please show me a body? And at this point, 12 years in you're going to have to point to a whole lot of them.

There are far greater risks to things such as the new H1N1 vaccine out there that I and many other people find perfectly acceptable. No doubt a small number of people will have negative reactions to this vaccine but I would still much rather have it than not.

[parsley]

charliep,

There is no such thing as perfection and no one can expect it.

My main purpose in this discussion is to make farmers and handlers and shippers, and ordinary people working with grain companies, and university plant breeders, or "foodies" to be reminded, be more aware, that they are dealing with human food.

And to treat it thus.

All of us are careless.

But if we consciously make an effort to guard, to label, to brand, to brag, that we're dealing in GRAINFOOD that nourishes our minds, anyone who eats...gains.

If Triffid had been handled differently, this fiasco would not have occurred. Handling is a result of the way it was viewed. Linoleum flax shouldn't end up in your porridge.

At some point, fran, there is going to be a modified crop you are NOT going to want to put into your mouth.