National Post | December 4, 1999 | Terence Corcoran
Canada's biotech industry, a world leader by any standards, has every reason to feel under siege. At the WTO mayhem in Seattle, the industry was fighting Greenpeace and a group of European nations that want to keep biotech off the WTO agenda. The Greenpeace plan is to move biotech out of the science-based grasp of the WTO and turn it over to the wobbly hands of another international forum, the Biosafety Protocol, where hard science is likely to take a back seat to fear, junk science and green activism. At the WTO, trade is generally expected to increase. At the Biosafety Protocol, trade is guaranteed a hard time.
At home, Canada's biotech industry faces other foes. The industry association, Biotech Canada, has just sent a letter to Harrison McCain, chairman of McCain Foods, expressing disappointment over McCain's decision to ban the purchase of genetically modified potatoes from New Brunswick growers. "While we appreciate your acknowledgement that there are no scientific reasons for your decision," said association president Joyce Groote, "it is unfortunate that your marketing considerations appear to be based on the views of a small but very vocal minority of activists." The letter was circulated to cabinet ministers, politicians and industry officials all over the country.
The impact of McCain's decision, outlined by Guelph University professor Douglas Powell in an article on this page, is more trouble for the industry. As Ms. Groote adds in her letter, McCain has contributed to consumer uncertainty and doubt, and raised questions about Canada as a place to invest in new technologies. "Your decision was particularly surprising, given that McCain has been a strong supporter of integrated pest management potato beetles which damange crops and reduce farmers' yields."
So far, McCain's explanations for its ban on genetically modified potatoes have been short on clarity. In some cases, the company has told industry officials that the ban is a short-term marketing decision for the Y2K potato crop only. The company has said it is simply concerned that American farmers who do not use modified potatoes could seize market share if a consumer backlash developed over modified food. With its decision, of course, McCain could help create that very backlash.
But there appears to be more to McCain's decision than concern over U.S. potato farmers. A McCain Foods official in an interview painted a much larger picture of a company preparing for major corporate-wide action.
McCain may even be preparing to screen out all genetically modified food entering the company's supply chain. When asked about peas, beans, canola oil, tomatoes and other food products that go into McCain products, the McCain spokesperson said: "We don't know where [other ingredients we use] are coming from. That's what we're trying to identify. ... We're surveying our suppliers and attempting to get the answers to these questions." One problem, she said, is that there is no segregation of genetically modified and non-modified food. Most canola oil used in food preparation in Canada is from modified seeds, but the company doesn't know yet whether it uses modified canola product. "The situation with oil is very unclear."
The company's pre-emptive move against potatoes also jumps the gun on an industry-wide attempt to come up with clear labelling standards.
Grocers, food manufacturers and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture are preparing a plan that would label foods based on standards that would make it possible for consumers to understand what's what in their food and make their own choices.
With McCain's move, the labelling effort running off the rails food company is going to have to be able to identify segregate added up the cost of such a wasteful effort to placate Greenpeace, the Council of Canadians and other activists. In the end, it won't placate them anyway. They openly state that their real objective is a world-wide ban on genetically modified organisms. Nothing short of a skull and cross bones label is going to make Greenpeace happy.
Back at the WTO, the international fight over the future of biotech will continue. Canada currently wants to keep the regulation of genetically modified food and other products of biotechnology from falling into the hands of international activists and green bureaucrats. The assumption is that if biotech products can be kept within the WTO, where science tends to prevail, then science will drive trade in biotech. But if biotech becomes the exclusive franchise of the Biosafety Protocol, the industry could be hung up in an environmental swamp for decades. The protocol is now being negotiated under the wing of the Biodiversity Convention, the global green monster created by the United Nations at the infamous 1992 Rio conference. The next Biosafety Protocol negotiating session is in Montreal next month. At home and abroad, Canada's biotech industry is defending its turf and fighting for its long-term survival.
