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Apr 16, 2010 | 12:40
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2010
Grain Growers work to reverse Bill C-474 decision at Ag Committee
The Grain Growers of Canada are asking to be called as witnesses to testify at committee on Bill C-474, an NDP private member’s bill which would have harsh effects for Canadian farmers.
The bill, which would change seed regulations to make it more difficult for Canadian farmers to buy new plant technologies, passed second reading on Wednesday with support from the NDP, Bloc Québécois, Liberals and two Conservatives.
The bill is now headed to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Agriculture where witnesses will be called to testify.
Current seed regulations require years of extensive testing of new plant technologies and are based on solid principles of sound science. The NDP private member’s bill would encourage rejection of environmentally friendly new crops.
“The NDP are simply ideologically opposed to genetically modified foods,” said Doug Robertson, President of the Grain Growers of Canada. “Without any credible scientific ground to stand on, their argument is based on unsubstantiated, fear-based claims.”
The Liberals have made it clear that they want to have a discussion about genetically modified foods at committee. They have a long history of supporting sound science and approving new plant technologies.
“Farmers rely heavily on new technologies to produce crops that are healthier for consumers, more environmentally friendly with less pesticides, and put more dollars in our pockets,” said Robertson. “This well meaning, but poorly conceived bill ignores the fact that farmers have overwhelmingly adopted these new crops.”
“We are confident that once the Committee hears from real farmers, this legislation will be defeated,” said Robertson.
The Grain Growers of Canada represent over 80,000 successful farmers through its membership organizations who grow wheat, oats, barley, canola, corn, peas, lentils and triticale.
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For more information:
Doug Robertson, President - Grain Growers of Canada, 403-819-8372 (cell)
Richard Phillips, Executive Director – Grain Growers of Canada, 613-875-1795
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Apr 16, 2010 | 12:45
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Vote was 153 to 139 - I hear 2 Conservatives stood to support it.
Anyone know which two, they might need a call?
A few Liberals did not vote. Every time I think that the Liberals might start to listen to rural Canada, they pull a stunt like this.
Comments?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 13:46
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"farmers have overwhelmingly adopted these crops" said Robertson.
Dandy. You want em? You got em and all their warts, too, it looks like.
I repeat the question, WHO PAYS?
If the organic market is going to be decimated by unintended consequences: WHO PAYS?
charliep admits organics will get prob get trashed:
" As long as organic uses conventional bred seed, it you are at the mercy of what ever decisions are made in the about biotechnology and plant breeding. Even the current issues about adventitious presence of GE in crops and better testing processes/tight tolerances put your industry at risk. The question will be how the organic industry responds."
In other words, farming next to GM farmers will destroy the purity of organics. Buyers don't pay for contaminated grain. It will destroy the market.
Uh huh.
So....WHO PAYS for that loss? Organics has buyers, contracts, customers, markets, stores stocked, and all of a sudden we are infected with GM Aids from cross-pollination of which we have no control...so who pays?
There will be/is a loss, I'm sure of that we can agree.. Want to calculate the organic tab?
By fighting this bill, what you are saying, is that FARMERS themslves will bear the cost of loss. And there will be a loss.
Governments can then comfortably stepback and say, "Farmers didn't want any regulatory eye over unintended consequences.
Do farmers really want to bear the loss-responsibility themselves?
Farmers were more than accepting, almost to the point of accomodating, to pick up the cost of testing for someone's elses's flax plant property rights...no protest. Just pay.
So, do I presume farmers will also be willingly keen to pay the cost of market-loss due to an estrogen gene some scienced-owner-whacko plunked into a HRSW that crossed in a field and ruined/resulted in an organic shipload being rejected in Germany?
How would the invoice be best forwarded? Microsoft Excell to the Grain Growers of Canada?
I am enjoying a little burst of spring vigor today. Pars
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Apr 16, 2010 | 13:58
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By the way Gusty, since Biotech companies now OWN their patented plants,and the benefits thereof that accrue from that ownership, would you support legislation that stipulates that they must also own the consequences and liabilities that flow from ownership?
That would solve the problem nicely, wouldn't it?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 14:48
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I'll make sure and send some MP's some info:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HouseChamberBusiness/ChamberVoteDetail.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&S es=3&FltrParl=40&FltrSes=3&Vote=24
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Apr 16, 2010 | 16:28
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So how much money are the organic growers going to fork over for denying everyone else the ability to grow newer better crops?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 17:20
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Have you been denied?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 17:46
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maybe the glyphosate junkies should compensate organic producers for having to establish a buffer strip agains their practices. it's the organic producers who are being denied use and enjoyment of their property.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 17:52
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Seems to me the gene junkies screwed up an entire export flax market. In 22 countries is a prime-time #$@%- up. And future markets. And reputation.
And who should pay?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 18:05
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Got nice and hammered with canadas largest organic
farmers last night,do you know them Pars?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 18:35
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Size-wise or numbers-wise?
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Apr 16, 2010 | 19:18
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Maybe for a change we should make sure that our customers will actualy accept our NEW and improved product. Seems like they don`t have to at pesent due to world shortage of grain!! Maybe we should educate them or maybe we should listen to them, THEY are the customer, it`s their money, therefore their choice.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 19:33
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From where I sit it was the organic junkies that screwed up the European flax scene. They're the ones who needlessly inserted themselves between willing buyers and willing sellers.
And yes I've been denied all sorts of wonderful crop improvements because of expensive, time wasting, crazy regulations meant to appease the unappeasable.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 19:48
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We still have to educate the end user that they need our product, otherwise there is no point to more production. That means jumping past the politics to the people who need the food to survive.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 19:54
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So we may be forced to burn 2x-3x more fuel to grow crops that are not GMO? That makes envionmental sense!!! There is still no evidence what so ever that GMO crops are nutitionaly different than non-GMO.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 19:58
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"Maybe for a change we should make sure that our customers will actually accept our NEW and improved product"
The customers have never been the problem, it's the busybodies who think they know what's best for our customers that are the problem.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 20:19
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LOL..size,make me look like a shrimp.
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Apr 16, 2010 | 20:33
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AWktx-
tCZg&feature=player_embedded
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Apr 17, 2010 | 08:23
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Parsley,
You are being logical and fair on this one.
If there is one thing I have learned from the flax event that has cost 100's of $ millions... organic growers didn't cause this... and any flax grower lost 20% of their income pronto after the gm contamination occured.
DID we LEARN anything from this Billion dollar blunder?
Are we farmers just stupid or what?
We can grow more... so we can get paid much less... wow... how smart we are!
Shouldn't the triffid gm event have been registered in the EU... before it was released?
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Apr 17, 2010 | 08:25
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Local or international, cott? You talking about the big Swede?
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Apr 17, 2010 | 09:42
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Your words sound as happy as if they've been coated with acid reflux, fran. LOL Maybe that's why you're telling tall tales.
You screwed up your own market. Your European buyers couldn't have made it any plainer from Day#1 NO GMO
Take a round out of your elite seed growers and the University of Saskatchewan's Crop Development Centre. Was it that the former couldn't keep their bins clean and the latter were too lazy to rogue a row? This pair are responsible and where you should point fingers.
Organics never grew, distributed or developed Triffid, and even the dullest would agree that organics was not the perpetrator.
You say:" And yes I've been denied all sorts of wonderful crop improvements because of expensive, time wasting, crazy regulations meant to appease the unappeasable."
Lawsey. GM biotechsters have begged/lobbied every available ag research tax dollar, year after year. Still not enough for you?
Why don't you personally write your customers and ask them plainly what they want? You say:
"The customers have never been the problem, it's the busybodies who think they know what's best for our customers that are the problem."
Your flax customers seem to be able to communicate their message ably, imho.
NO GMO
Hey, fran, and while you're at it, tell the flax Council of Saskatchewan they'd better get up to speed just like you did, because here they have been saying all along, even back in the '90's:
****"Europe has not authorized any GMO flax events"
****" Europe has a zero tolerance policy for events not authorized in Europe".
You'll next be advocating that the flax council also needs to be informed that the whole Triffid fiasco is organics' fault!
You are such a biotech sleuth, fran, with GMlogic; well, my my, all farmers will be relieved that the GM industry is in such sound thinking hands. Pars
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Apr 17, 2010 | 09:53
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Too correct your statement, Canada never went through the process of getting triffid flaxseed approved as a genetic event in Europe. To put another way, the EU was never given the chance to approve or reject triffid flaxseed.
The EU has approved genetic events involving genetic engineering including most recently sugar beets which can be grown in Germany. The EU has been importing GE soybeans for years.
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Apr 17, 2010 | 10:10
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I should high light that Europe is a big user of biotechnology in plant breeding. Not genetic engineering however in the stuff available for release in the current market. Same companies that are doing genetic engineering in other regions of the world are also working in Europe so a change in consumer attitude would have product available to EU market in short order.
A project and a workshop highlighted that advances in biotech have been as much a matter of money and research versus access to any individual technology (eg. genetic engineering). If anything, current technology picked off the wins (eg. herbicide tolerance via GE or mutagenesis). Solutions to other agronomic issues (nutrient use, salinity tolerance, drought tolerance, disease, etc) are going to come via a whole range of breeding techniques/technologies. This creativity is occurring all over the world via a number of programs/activities.
The process may not be genetic engineering in Canada. Too much risk in a country based on export markets. I suspect we need to continue to invest in other breeding alternatives including conventional enhanced by things like marker assisted gene selection. Will Canada be on the bleeding edge, leading edge, early adopters, go with the flow or be a lagard in plant breeding research? What does Canada bring to the table in terms of dealing with issues like fusarium graminearium/more virilant DON types with implications for human health/tolerances in crops?
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Apr 17, 2010 | 10:46
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Sigh...
There you go again Pars, working under the assumption that EU bureaucrats are our customers. They're not, they never have been, and they never will be. But you just go on pretending that they are and pretending that you know better what my customers want than they do.
No, organics never grew(although who knows maybe they did and just never said so), distributed or developed Triffid. But the organic fingerprints are all over the crazy non-science based, zero tolerance rules set up by the eurocrats. Heck, the green lobby in the EU is heavily funded by taxpayer dollars to petition for exactly this kind of ridiculous rule.
BTW- speaking of being denied cropping opportunities I haven't grown flax for a long,long time now. Why? Because of low yielding varieties. If Triffid had actually gone commercial I think that wouldn't be the case. But some folks who thought they knew what was better for my farm and my customers made the decision for us and yanked it before we could even decide for ourselves.
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Apr 17, 2010 | 10:56
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****"Europe has not authorized any GMO flax events"
****" Europe has a zero tolerance policy for events not authorized in Europe".
Charliep, both sentences above, are cut and pasted from the Sask Flax page. http://www.flaxcouncil.ca/files/web/GMO%20Flax%20Update%20No%201%20REVISED%2028%20Sept ember%202009.pdf
Maybe you should correct them instead of me. I don't own those words. Pars
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Apr 17, 2010 | 10:57
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To the original posting, here is the bill. Only two paragraphs. Would have to ask who would do the analysis, on what basis and what good it would do?
[URL="http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4330153&Language=e&Mode=1&F ile=24"]Bill C-474[/URL]
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Apr 17, 2010 | 11:06
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Oh dear. You've forgotten how organics works so I'll refresh your memory.
Organics tries to always deal DIRECTLY with their buyers in Canada, in Europe, in New Zealand, in Japan etc. We access names, phone numbers of the buyers, even offer a complaint log!
You're getting orhganics mixed up with your markets where there is a lot of Government to government negotiating, and backroom dealmaking, where you don't quite know what went on because you are not allowed at the meeting because a bureaucrat does indeed represent you.
ie Pulse Canada's fresh announcement after Government lobbying and grant-grabbing. Or the Government of Canada run Flax Council of Canada ordering you to test your flax.
Now, I will admit, that as new entrants grow organically, they too have swamped organics with the governmentcandoit mentality, and we're quite frustrated with that kind of mentality, as only the bureuacrats and governments can win at a game farmers are legislated to pay for.
But don't confuse. Get back on track! Hope this helps. Pars
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Apr 17, 2010 | 11:11
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Oh yes, that's right how silly of me, organics never try to legislate and regulate their competition out of business. LOL, that's a good one!
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Apr 17, 2010 | 11:21
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"so a change in consumer attitude would have product available to EU market in short order."
charliep, you are going about it bass-ackwards again. That's exactly what I can't do. My consumers are more educated than I!
Maybe Canada's Biotech fervents' best bet is to insert a non-biting gene in GM cat and dog exports heading to Europe,(these new canine inventions created for poor disadvantaged traumatized little Betsy to brush and braid), so they don't come back to bite us in the ass.
I'm like an old horse. Feeling my Harrington oats this morning. LOL Pars
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Apr 17, 2010 | 11:23
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And yes, I said oats.
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