By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
OTTAWA, Ontario — Organic and other Canadian groups are fighting back against attempts to market wheat that is genetically engineered or modified (GMO). GMO wheat made the news in Canada recently when several newspapers reported the national government’s research arm, the National Research Council (NRC), was planning to pursue GMO wheat.

After stating the reports were misleading, the NRC indicated it was not planning to pursue GMO wheat. It issued a statement containing the following points: The NRC believes wheat productivity is a problem since yields have not increased as they have elsewhere; however, GMO wheat is “not an objective of the NRC wheat program.

“We will be developing a number of tools that will be used to reduce the breeding cycle, increase yield and adapt to climate stresses,” the statement reads. “GM varieties are not contemplated at this time.”

The statement also indicates Canadian wheat needs to be more profitable for Canadian farmers and that other crops have seen a higher rate of yield improvement over the past 10 years in comparison with wheat.

Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, is opposed to GMO wheat as well as other biotech seed. “Globally, GM wheat is rejected by consumers,” she said. “In Canada and the U.S., the farmers rejected Roundup Ready wheat, so it’s puzzling why industry is discussing GM wheat at all.

“Wheat has not followed with those (other crops’) dramatic increases in yield. The fact that wheat has lagged behind doesn’t mean there’s a problem with wheat. There will be a problem if GM wheat is approved.”
Sharratt also said there are similarities between problems with GMO wheat and GMO alfalfa.

“A major concern is the inability of farmers to control genetic drift,” she said. “If GM wheat is approved, growing wheat will be highly problematic for farmers.”

After having dropped its first attempt to launch GMO wheat in 2004 because of lack of market acceptance, Monsanto Co. in 2009 bought WestBred, a Butte, Mont.-based company that specializes in wheat germplasm.

“The reason why we’re back in it is there’s been a real industry push,” said Sara Miller, a spokeswoman for Monsanto’s wheat program. She said they’re using both breeding and biotech approaches to focus on yield and stress traits.
Miller said the company has no plans to market Roundup Ready wheat. She added in 2004 people in the industry weren’t sufficiently supportive of the company’s innovations with wheat and so Roundup Ready wheat was dropped, but the picture looks much different today.

According to Monsanto, in seven of the past 10 years the world has consumed more wheat than it has produced, and while wheat yields are projected to rise by 0.3 bushels per year for 2008-17, corn and soybean yields are projected to rise 2 and 0.45 bushels per year, respectively.

Also, in 2009 the industry published a paper called The Case for Biotech Wheat. In it the case was made that wheat has a “competitiveness” problem.
“If producers can reliably earn more than $400 in net returns per acre with corn or soybeans but less than $200 for wheat, this reality will continue to drive the long-term decline in wheat plantings,” the report reads.

It goes on to state this competitiveness problem is long-term and structural, not short-term or the product of recent volatility in commodities markets.