CP Wire | November 3, 1999 | Scott Edmonds
WINNIPEG - Canadian Wheat Board president Greg Arason was cited as saying CWB is sinking $1.5 million into a project to develop a high-tech gizmo that could detect genetically modified grain.
The federal government is also being asked to put money into the Rapid Instrument Objective Testing project, which Arason hopes will bear fruit before the first genetically modified varieties of wheat and barley hit the market in about three years.
If the idea bombs, and until some other method is found to satisfactorily separate genetically modified grain from the natural product, Arason doesn't want to see modified grain on the market.
But he says that bridge doesn't have to be crossed just now and hostility in markets such as Europe may diminish with time, adding, "We've got the three years to work with this. Maybe at the end of the three years we'll find that the acceptance of the technology is much greater and we have less problems than we think we do."
The RIOT project isn't an entirely new idea but so far no one has been able to come up with the miracle "black box" needed to make it work.
Arason said that doesn't mean the concept is a dud.
The story says he raised the subject in a wide-ranging address to the annual meeting of United Grain Growers, the third-largest grain-handling company in Western Canada.
Arason faced a rough ride from directors and delegates who want to see the wheat board lose its monopoly over all wheat and malting sales and feed barley exports.
