Agriculture Committee on Feb. 9th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We'll call our meeting to order.

I hate to rush anybody, but the chair always takes the heat if we start late, so we're going to start on time.

It's great to be here in Guelph, and thanks to our host, Member of Parliament Frank Valeriote, for having us here, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Our first meeting format this morning is an hour and a half. Each group, organization, or individual is allowed 10 minutes or less to present, and then we'll open it up to questions.

First of all, we have, from the University of Guelph, Mr. Michael Emes, dean of the College of Biological Science.

[Dr. Michael J. Emes, Dean, College of Biological Science, University of Guelph]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to begin by offering some explanation of my background. You'll recognize from the accent that I'm not a native son of Canada, although I'm working on it. I'm a scientist whose research is focused on improving crop productivity. I moved from the U.K. to Canada in 2002 to take up my present post as dean of the College of Biological Science at the University of Guelph.

It's the role of scientists like myself not only to develop the opportunities for improving food security and the quality of life for ourselves and others, but to do so in a way that is sustainable. I would hope, therefore, that you would regard me as someone who is trying to assess the facts from an objective standpoint, with no political or financial axe to grind. I should add that I have no funding from biotech companies.

As you know, from where I am, the reaction in Europe to GM technology has been much more negative than in North America, and its commercial and agricultural use as applied to crops has been extremely limited. By contrast, GM crops are widely grown in the U.S. and Canada.

I thought it might be useful to offer as part of my presentation my views on why it is the reaction to GM crops has been so different, particularly in the U.K., from where much of the negative reaction emanated early on. While there during the 1990s and early 2000s, I took part in many public debates and discussions and have some first-hand experience of the nature of the debate.

In my view, the heated debate about the acceptance of GMOs in Europe has been largely that. It created a lot of heat but very little light, largely because of the way in which issues were portrayed in the media and by the various protagonists. The use of emotive terms such as “Frankenstein foods” conjures up images that are themselves based in the world of fantasy. The attempt to reduce complex issues to a 30-second sound bite or a one-line quotation in a newspaper article does no service to either side of the argument on what is already, on a global scale, a widespread phenomenon.

Almost all of the global biotech crop area derives from soya beans, corn, cotton, and canola, which in 2008 approximately accounted for 115 million hectares. Biotech traits accounted for 37% of all the global plantings of those crops. GMs have been adopted by the U.S.A., Canada, China, South Africa, and much of South America, including Brazil, so the European position seems to be out of step and has also presented trade barriers, which arguably could affect Canadian farmers as well as those in developing countries who depend on exports to Europe.

Why is it that Europe became so suddenly opposed to this technology? One reason, I believe, is that it actually became an issue after the BSE debacle in the U.K., and the general public was highly sensitized to what they perceived as the failure of agriculture. In fact, at the time when it became a major issue in the late 1990s, GM products were already on the shelves of U.K. supermarkets and had been for a couple of years, but subsequently had to be withdrawn. There was then one scientific paper, which has never been validated, which produced a health scare. Prince Charles got involved, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What do we mean by genetic modification? This is about changing the genetic makeup of organisms, particularly in crop plants but also in livestock. This is, in fact, what breeders in agriculture have been doing for decades, if not longer, including, I might add, exchanging genetic information between species that do not hybridize or cross-pollinate in the natural environment. I'm not talking about GM technology at that point.

Agriculture, by definition, is not natural. The global population relies for its daily food primarily on only 15 plant and 7 animal species. Whether you believe that is a good thing or not, it is a fact. In the last 50 to 60 years, thousands of genes have been transferred into crops from species with which they are not compatible in the wild, most of which genes we know nothing about. Let me emphasize again: I am not describing GM technologies here. Triticale, which is the forage grown in Europe, is a good example of this. It's a cross between wheat and rye.

Therefore, if you take a fundamentalist view that moving genes across natural selection barriers is unacceptable, you should be aware that much of what we already eat has arrived on our plates by exactly that route because of the way these previous and still used methods work. The transfer of the desirable handful of genes that might, for example, confer resistance to a crop disease is often accompanied by the uncontrolled transfer of perhaps even 1,000 genes about which we know nothing.

Yet this relatively uncontrolled process has helped ensure a supply of nutritious food that most of us now take for granted. But rest assured, it has been a relatively haphazard, uncontrolled method of genetic modification, which has also included the use of potent mutagens and teratogens, which cause birth defects, in order to increase the number of chromosomes and produce desirable mutations.

Now, you can imagine that the media and press could have a feeding frenzy on the words I've just used. Just imagine the headlines: “Genes Cross Species Barriers”; “Teratogens Used In Crop Production: 'It's unnatural,' says boffin.”

Taken out of context, I have to tell you that all those things are true. Golden Promise, for example, is a widely grown cultivar of barley that is also grown by organic farmers. In fact, it's a mutant that was produced through irradiating barley with x-rays, causing all sorts of chromosome rearrangements—in fact, to get desirable properties for the whisky-making industry.

The point I'm trying to stress is that plant breeding of food production has always involved genetic modification and exchange of genetic information, and a lot of it has involved unnatural methods, even prior to GM. But headlines like the ones I've just made up could have put a stop to the last 60 years of progress before it had even started. My contention is that much of the debate has been distorted by sensationalist headlines that do no good to either side of the argument.

Neither is GM a panacea to solve the problems of food security and global hunger, but it is, I contend, another powerful tool in the armoury. Recently, Sir John Beddington, the U.K. government's chief scientific officer, wrote:

There will be no silver bullet, but it is very hard to see how it would be remotely sensible to justify not using technologies such as GM.... No single approach would guarantee food security.

So what do we mean by GM in the context of the current use of the term? It involves the transfer of either a single gene or a chosen small number of genes from one species to another, or the modification of a gene that already exists within the plant. In terms of the technology—that is, the way we can achieve the particular genetic modification—the major difference between GM technology and what I discussed earlier is that GM is arguably more precise. It is, for instance, the incorporation of a single known gene into a background of, say, 30,000 genes and is traceable. Contrast this with what I described a few moments ago, whereby thousands of unknown extra genes may be incorporated as well as the ones you want.

So what can you do with GM technology, and what is likely to be the impact of such changes on the food chain and environment? Well, the examples I'm sure we all know most about involve putting in single genes that confer either herbicide tolerance or pest resistance. These are usually derived from micro-organisms.

The most important factors that can devastate crop yields are weeds, pathogens, and insect pests. How do we control these? Well, the bulk of what we've done is spray and pray, using masses of herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides, about which people understandably have reservations. The pro-GM lobby claims that they're better for the environment because they'll reduce chemical inputs; the anti-GM lobby says they will be worse. So what's the evidence? Well, the answer is, unfortunately, that both sides tend to use and misuse data accordingly. But what is indisputable, as an example, is that the use of GM cotton in Australia saved the cotton industry, which was on the verge of being eradicated because of the use of large amounts of pesticide. Similarly, in Canada there have been reductions on GM maize of about two-thirds of pesticide use. Dr. Van Acker will be able to talk more knowledgeably about herbicide tolerance.

Europe has started to change. There are now GM potatoes, which will be grown in Germany, Sweden, and the Czech Republic, and GM maize, which is grown in Spain and Portugal with the approval of the EU. Ireland has just approved GM maize in foods and feedstocks, and perhaps most significant of all, this week the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, with the backing of governments, including that of the U.K., has voted in favour of import of animal feed containing unauthorized traces of GM crops. So the regulatory landscape is changing in Europe. I have little doubt that more will follow.

Jonathan Swift—and I hesitated before introducing this quote, but I will finish on it—wrote in Gulliver's Travels that if a man can make “two blades of grass to grow...where only one grew before”, he will have done more for mankind, and I hesitate here, “than the whole race of politicians put together”.

That is an interesting challenge for all of us in this room.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much. That's a good quote to finish on.

Now I'll move to Mr. Rene Van Acker, also from the University of Guelph, from the Department of Plant Agriculture.

You have 10 minutes or less, please.

[Dr. Rene Van Acker, Professor and Associate Dean, Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph]

Thank you very much.

My name is Rene Van Acker. I'm a professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture and associate dean of the Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph, Canada. I thank the committee for the opportunity. I was also previously a professor of weed science and crop management, from 1996 to 2006, at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. My research areas include weed seedling biology and ecology, robust cropping systems, coexistence of genetically modified and non-GM crops, and trait movement from crop to crop.

My trait movement work has led to international collaborations, presentations, and consulting work in Denmark, Germany, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, and the United States, including membership on the scientific advisory committee for the international conferences on the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops in the agricultural supply chain, which has hosted conferences in Denmark, France, Spain, and Australia.

I grew up on a farm in southwestern Ontario. I hold B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in crop science and weed management from the University of Guelph and a Ph.D. in crop-weed ecology from the University of Reading in the U.K.

I thank you for the opportunity to present. My presentation is intended to draw attention to the challenges that may exist in trying to ensure that one type of crop does not contaminate another type of crop, and in particular how challenging this is in the context of preventing novel traits from appearing in crops in which they are not intended or wanted, especially when the threshold of presence that can cause harm is very low. If there is a regulatory consideration of potential harm due to the unintended presence of a given trait, it has to be realistic in that regard.

Most risks related to the release of crops with novel traits are related to novel trait movement, both from crop to wild type, for weeds, and from crop to crop. This is especially true for the movement of traits within and among farming systems and agricultural supply chains.

The issue of containing novel traits and/or transgenes and making sure they do not show up where they are not intended or wanted is a key point in debates about the desirability of certain novel traits. Coexistence is typically discussed in the context of accepted threshold levels of adventitious presence, but it is important to recognize that traits that are regulated must be fully contained to prevent escape and that the threshold for the presence of regulated traits is zero. This is the policy in Canada, as it is in the United States, Australia, Japan, Korea, and all EU countries currently.

In North America we have well over a decade of experience of commercial production of GM crops that contain distinct and easily traceable novel traits, and this experience provides us a wealth of examples and evidence that bear on the consideration of trait containment.

In a review I co-authored in 2005, I provided information to support and emphasize two important points in this regard. The first is, when crops of novel traits are grown commercially outside for any length of time, the movement of those traits beyond their intended destination is virtually inevitable. The risk of escape increases with scale of production and of associated equipment and as the number of participants in the production and handling increases. The second is, once a given trait has escaped into the environment, which includes the agricultural supply chain, retraction is difficult if not impossible, and as such, in situations where the escape is a problem, the problem becomes persistent and likely permanent.

These points support the need for great caution and care in the production and testing of novel traits that require containment or that can cause harm, if they appear where they are not wanted or expected. The challenges in managing trait containment are many, and they include the fact that the traits are often invisible and their monitoring requires effective detection methods.

Traits can move via either pollen or seed. That movement occurs within a complex of subpopulations across the landscape, which include crop, volunteer, and feral subpopulations. Trait movement can occur via equipment or via human handling during planting, harvesting, seed cleaning, seed handling, and seed storage. Each piece of equipment and each human participant can act as a sink or a source for traits, often as seed. In this respect, each piece of equipment or human operator can be considered an additional subpopulation for a given trait or latent populations of seed.

Traits can move among these subpopulations, which taken together act as a meta-population or an overall population with respect to a given trait. In this context, responsible containment efforts must take into account all possible subpopulations and possible pollen and/or seed movement opportunities between them. In particular, it's highly dependent on detection and eradication at reception points, in the receiving crop. This is a critical consideration, because the trait reception points may occur in fields, farms, equipment, and business operations of people who are not involved and perhaps not even aware of the containment effort. So that's a difficulty.

The required stringency of a given trait containment system depends on the threshold level and the facility of trait escape and movement. The latter depends on the nature of the crop species and the complexity of the crop production and handling system. To be effective, these plans need to extend beyond individual fields or farms, and the plans must reflect a healthy respect for the challenges of containment.

Since commercial production in 1996, we've had long experience with glyphosate-tolerance canola, for example, in western Canada, and it shows that volunteer canola can exist as a meta-population with respect to the Roundup Ready trait. This is after unconfined release. We have published work recently that shows the accumulation of novel traits in roadside canola populations. For the Roundup Ready trait in canola, trait containment would have required—although it wasn't required—a plan that encompassed the entire region. Management for containment within a given field and for a given crop alone would have been insufficient and unrealistic.

Given the number of mechanisms leading to trait escape and the fact that escapes can self-replicate and self-disseminate and persist, those who hope to prevent it must employ all methods available. A redundancy of methods is fundamental, because even low levels of trait escape into a seed lot can easily result in significant levels of trait presence in the harvested product, even for species that are primarily self-pollinated and have very limited seed persistence, such as spring wheat in Canada.

Physical isolation is one traditional means for limiting pollen-mediated gene flow; however, it does not assure protection from trait invasion, and those working to contain traits must take into account that traditional isolation distances were established to assure seed purity, not necessarily absolute absence of a given trait or genetic purity. Isolation distances must be suited to the nature of the species and the tolerance threshold.

Another containment method is temporal isolation, often used by plant breeders and seed growers; however, traditional seed purity assurance systems were not designed to deliver the type of seed purity levels required for containing explicit trait movement. We reported in a peer-reviewed study released in 2004 that certified seed lots of canola tested from western Canada had unintended GM traits in 97% of the seed lots, in some cases at levels as high as 4.9%.

A famous example of failure of trait containment is StarLink in the U.S., where corn engineered to express insecticidal protein was approved for animal but not human consumption. There was insufficient segregation oversight between food and feed streams in the U.S. bulk commodity handling system, and the insecticidal protein was found in a number of processed foods in 2000. Three years after this discovery, and after the execution of a massive recall effort, the USDA was still finding traces of StarLink within both food and feed handling streams in the U.S.

The StarLink case showed not only that insufficiencies in containment protocols resulted in problematic trait escape, but that full retraction of traits and their products from complex and massive commercial food and feed systems is extraordinarily challenging and maybe impossible.

A more recent example is the LibertyLink rice case in the U.S., in which regulated GM rice events escaped contained field trials and were eventually found in many elements of the U.S. commercial rice supply chain, including certified seed, mills, and final consumer products in key U.S. rice export markets, including several European countries. The economic impact on U.S. rice farmers has been estimated to be in excess of $1 billion. The final cost to farmers will not be known until the nearly 3,000 cases filed against the GM rice developer have been settled.

These and other cases highlight the potential impact of trait escape and the pervasiveness of escape when it becomes part of a large supply chain.

In summary, trait development in crops is in a new era, an era that includes any and all possible traits, including traits that can have true potential human health or environmental risks, traits that can affect farming system costs, and traits that are being considered and deregulated at varying rates around the world, leading to asynchronous deregulation and balkanized farm commodity export markets. In this era, economic harm could occur when traits appear where they are not expected and/or wanted. In addition, trait movement from crop to crop across diverse agricultural landscapes and within large integrated agricultural supply chains is very complex and challenging, and if there is an escape, trait recall is difficult and could be impossible in some cases.

It is important, therefore, that if there is a regulatory consideration of potential economic harm, it be realistic with respect to realities of trade movement and trade containment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks very much, Mr. Van Acker.

Mr. Raizada, for 10 minutes or less, please.

[Dr. Manish N. Raizada, Associate Professor, International Relations Officer, Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph]

My name is Manish Raizada and I'm an associate professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture, and I'm also the international relations officer.

I was told in the early to mid-1990s that I might have been the first graduate student in the world to make GMO corn, and I'm a molecular geneticist. Before that, however, I was actually an employee of Greenpeace, so I consider myself also an environmentalist. So I'm going to try to bring in both perspectives here, as well as the perspective from developing nations.

I often get asked, are GMOs good or bad? My response is, well, are drugs good or bad?

Some drugs are great. If I have a cold, Aspirin and Tylenol are great. Cocaine is not so great. Maybe some drugs are good at low levels and not so good at high levels, so it depends.

There are lots of genes out there. It depends on the gene, it depends where you turn that gene on or off, and to me, it's all about relative risk and benefit for any particular gene, and that's what has to be assessed. And I think on both sides, on the risk and on the benefit—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Raizada, the interpreters are having a tough time keeping up. So if you could just—

[Dr. Manish N. Raizada]

Slow down?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Maybe a little bit, if you wouldn't mind?

[Dr. Manish N. Raizada]

Sure.

I think both the relative risks and the benefits get blown out of proportion. The theme here is relative risk and relative benefit. I've broken the presentation down into a few topics today. Again, I want to bring in different perspectives.

The first topic is ethics. I think what the population believes is that molecular geneticists are tinkering with nature; they're playing God. The perspective of a molecular biologist is the following. Remember, a transgene is breaking the species barrier; it's taking one gene from one species and putting it into another species.

From a molecular geneticist's point of view, the way we think is that species really are not that important, to be honest. I'll give an example. Genes come from other genes; they're inherited from other genes through evolution. When molecular geneticists discover a new gene in plants, one of the first things they do is look to see how similar that gene is in a bacterium or in a human, where something that looks like it may have been more studied. What that tells you is that genes are related across billions of years of evolution, because they're derived from one another.

That's a very important concept. When a molecular geneticist looks at the fact that we're taking a gene from one species to another species, it's not such a big deal, because they all came from an ancestral species from which all species are derived. In fact, 30% of human genes work in yeast cells, and potentially vice versa. Yeast cells—what you make bread from—are separated from humans by 1.5 billion years of evolution. That just tells you how related all organisms are. In fact, to me that is the greatest discovery of the twentieth century: all of life on this planet and all of its DNA is highly related.

So breaking the species barrier is not such a big deal for us. In fact, when we look at crop plants, we can become more subtle. We know, for example, when we look at corn, that corn is the ancient fusion of two different species; one of them is related to sorghum. In fact, all of the crops that we see out there are fusions of multiple species. So again, through natural evolution, it's not such a big deal.

Look at corn—again, we're talking about tinkering with nature. Corn comes from an ancient grass from Mexico that looks nothing like modern corn. It's called teosinte, and ancient indigenous peoples in Mexico bred teosinte into modern corn. To put that in perspective, what the ancient people did was take a Chevy Nova and make it into a Ferrari. What GMOs do is change the cover of the steering wheel. To me, that's really again how molecular geneticists look at it.

Even if we look at modern corn varieties—again, this is not a GMO issue—some are missing entire suites of genes and others have entire extra suites of genes. This is all natural. At the bacterial level, microbiologists are actively discussing whether they should even talk about species, in the case of microbes, because there is so much natural gene flow between species.

All of the above is more or less the perspective of the molecular geneticist.

Contrast that with an equally valid perspective from an ecologist. Ecologists definitely care about species, and they care about how those species interact in an ecosystem. If you change how one of those species behaves in that ecosystem, you can disrupt the entire ecosystem. So crossing a species barrier or changing the behaviour of a species can have drastic effects.

I think these are the two large perspectives that you see from biology. Both are valid. Both come at it from different perspectives. I just wanted to address the ethics of tinkering with nature.

On the environmental front, Dr. Van Acker talked about gene flow, and that is a real issue. We should not dispute that issue. What I would suggest is that there are tricks that molecular geneticists can do, that companies can do, to reduce gene flow.

I'll give you a simple example. We all know that we get a gene from our mother and a gene from our father. It's the same case in plants. We can develop transgenes that will only work when there are two partners—in other words, when there are two genes. Only then will they work. You can put one of these genes on the mother chromosome and in the exact opposite location put its partner on the father chromosome. Without getting further into it, what will happen, if there is pollen flow, is that one of the genes will flow, but it won't have any effect.

So I'm saying that there are tricks molecular geneticists can do, and which I would encourage the regulatory bodies to encourage, to reduce the impact of gene flow. In terms of reducing biodiversity, when companies create a new GMO, they do put it into a diversity of genetic backgrounds that are adapted to local environments, so that's less of an issue.

The much bigger problem, to be honest--and this has nothing to do with GMOs--is that the world is focused on only a few crop species. I suppose GMOs may make that problem worse because of the emphasis on a few species. There are potentially 20,000 edible species, and if we really want to address the global issue of food and climate change, I think the issue is increasing biodiversity. That's less of an issue than GMOs. GMOs do not take the place of practising good ecology.

Let me address human health issues. We have this concept that natural is better. I often hear this: nature is better. No, nature is not wonderful. Nature does not want to be eaten. Plants do not want to be eaten. What do they do? They produce a toxic soup of chemicals. That's why leaves are not eaten alive when you walk through a forest. In fact, in terms of land plants out there, there are up to 100,000 different chemicals on this earth that are natural chemicals. We say that chemicals are artificial. No, chemicals are totally natural, and the world is a dangerous place.

Now, in my opinion, it is exaggeration and even a myth to suggest that all GMOs are necessarily safer to humans than spraying with pesticides. If the GMO produces a toxin and if that toxin or its breakdown product gets into seeds or whatever is edible, of course it's not safe. Of course it's not; it's a toxin.

So the key is, which gene? That's the key. Which gene is it and what does it do? Does it produce a toxin or does it not? Or does it have a breakdown product that is toxic? There needs to be appropriate regulation at that level.

This gets to the labelling issue and the relative risk issue. We're very obsessed with GMO and if it's safe or unsafe. Three studies done several years ago suggested that half the carcinogens you take in on a daily basis are from drinking three to five cups of coffee--I'm looking around to see who is drinking coffee today--because the coffee bean has 100 different chemicals, several of which are carcinogens.

So we could talk about the relative risk of GMOs, but to me the bigger issue is that we do not have a good database anywhere in the world about the toxic effects of natural chemicals in our foods. I think that's the most important issue when it comes to human health. Cancer rates are going up. We do not know the natural interactions between natural chemicals in the foods we're eating in all sorts of combinations that we've never eaten before.

Some people are concerned about eating DNA. Animals have been eating DNA for 1.5 billion years and we have not turned into plants. People are worried about unintended consequences of putting new genes or DNA into plants. It is absolutely true that if you put a novel gene into a plant, it produces a protein. That protein will interact with other proteins--it might--and it might have unintended consequences. So as part of the regulation we certainly need to look at the molecular interactions. There are technologies to do that. One of them is called a microarray.

We've been eating GMOs for a very long time. If any of you are diabetic and are injecting insulin, that is a GMO product. People who have taken a human insulin gene express the insulin protein in another organism. If you're lactose intolerant, as I am, and take Lactase pills, like I do, that is also a GMO. Several of the medicines we consume are in fact GMO products. So again, we have to look at this in context.

In terms of socio-economic issues...I take students on a tour of the U.S. Midwest, and I've spoken to a lot of farmers. A lot of farmers like GMOs. They really like these new traits; they're fantastic and they work very well. However, what farmers do not like is being forced by the companies that have their best breeding stocks.... They have no choice. If they want to get that best breeding stock, they have to get the GMOs with it, or they have to get combinations of GMOs, whereas they might like some of the GMOs, but not the others.

So I think that's important.

I think if you're going to impose novel regulations, there's a trade-off here. The trade-off is it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get a GMO to market today. That is reducing competition and increasing the monopolies in this area, which is a concern, I think, for everyone.

Lastly, and very briefly, on the international side, a GMO is not going to feed the world, as was mentioned earlier. There's no silver bullet. What underlies global poverty in Africa and Latin America and Asia is a number of things. It's poor access to good seed. It's lack of fertilizers. It's lack of irrigation. It's lack of agricultural extension officers. A GMO is not going to solve any of that.

However, GMOs have a place, particularly when it comes to traits that have to do with ecological interactions, and by that I mean insect resistance and disease resistance. They seem to work very well. What might be game changing in this area is that while we're talking about introducing one gene or a few genes, there is now a technology available to introduce entire chromosomes. There's a company called Chromatin that's doing this. They have the upcoming ability to introduce entire artificial chromosomes into plants, which means one can potentially introduce thousands of genes at once.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Mr. Raizada.

We'll now hear from Mr. Derek Penner and Mr. Mike McGuire from Monsanto Canada, for ten minutes or less, please.

[Derek Penner, President and General Manager, Monsanto Canada Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the standing committee, for the opportunity for Monsanto Canada to appear before the standing committee.

My name is Derek Penner, and I am the president and general manager of Monsanto Canada. I am joined by my colleague, who is our vice-president of sales and marketing for our corn and soybean business in Canada.

I'm a Canadian who grew up in Winnipeg. I have been employed in various positions within Monsanto since 2002. Last fall I was appointed to my current position, leading our Canadian business. Prior to this role I spent the last couple of years in Europe, as Monsanto's director of strategy, licensing, and product management for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region based in Europe.

As a company that is 100% focused on agriculture and a leader in the field of applying the science of biotechnology to agriculture, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about our work in Canada and throughout the globe.

During the brief time I have been allotted today, I thought I would review our presence in Canada with you, which, in addition to our eastern business office here in Guelph, extends across Canada. I also want to share a bit about our pipeline of beneficial products that has been embraced by Canadian farmers; touch on our industry as a whole and the value and benefits of agricultural biotechnology to Canadian farmers; and finally, reiterate our support for the current science-based regulatory system in Canada, which is critically important to our ability to invest in this country and bring the solutions to growers they are demanding on their farms to run profitable businesses.

On this last point I want to thank the committee for taking the time to look at our industry and ask the questions that will keep it vibrant in the years ahead. The future development and investment in crop technology research in this country is obviously important to our business and to farmers. We want to work cooperatively with our industry colleagues and farmers to continue to bring forward innovative products that will benefit the agricultural sector in this country.

Monsanto Canada employs approximately 280 full-time and part-time people, at 15 different locations and facilities across Canada. In addition to our head office in Winnipeg and our eastern business office in Guelph, we also have a government and regulatory office in Ottawa; a seed manufacturing facility in Lethbridge; research farms in Saskatoon, Yorkton, and Edmonton; breeding facilities in Carman and Oakville, Manitoba, and Oakville, Guelph, and London, Ontario; and a seed production facility in Cranbrook, British Columbia.

Recently we completed the construction of a $12 million state-of-the-art breeding facility in Winnipeg, located adjacent to our head office at the University of Manitoba. I would encourage the standing committee, if you have the time, to come and visit that facility. We would be more than open to share that with you. We are also in the process of investing another $12 million in the upgrade and expansion of our seed manufacturing and canola breeding centre in Lethbridge, Alberta.

It is at these facilities that our research into introducing favourable traits in crops that include corn, soybeans, and canola takes place, and it is where we field test the commercial products that have come out of our extensive research pipeline. These traits, which include weed and pest resistance, yield enhancements, and stress tolerance traits, such as cold or drought, hold considerable potential for the future of agricultural production.

We believe it is important to have Canadian regulatory agencies review the food, feed, and environmental safety of all products of biotechnology. The current system has ensured the safety of the current biotech crops on the marketplace today, and it gives Canadians the confidence that these products are safe. Indeed, they are. Since their introduction in 1996, more than one trillion meals containing biotech crop ingredients have been consumed without a single reliably documented case of harm to either humans or animals. The continued review of these technologies for food, feed, and environmental safety, using a science-based system, sends an important message to our customers around the world that these products have been comprehensively reviewed and they are deemed safe.

We fully recognize that regulatory approval alone doesn't give us permission to proceed with commercial introduction of future products, but it is a critical first step to addressing any issues associated with consumer acceptance of biotech crops. In this regard, we continue to work with other industry players and farm associations in Canada to ensure all products are introduced responsibly and with comprehensive stewardship plans, to not only protect the technology and those who are embracing it, but to ensure that those who want to make a different choice are not negatively impacted.

There is precedent to show that market issues related to the introduction of biotech crops can and have been addressed effectively by the industry. A good example of this can be found in the introduction of transgenic canola in Canada. Working together, farmers and the industry were able to capitalize on the benefits of biotechnology and maintain trading relationships with key buyers throughout the world.

In 2000 the Canola Council of Canada did an economic assessment of the introduction of herbicide-tolerant canola in western Canada. It found that from 1997 to 2000, an incremental cumulative value of up to near $500 million was created for the industry.

Our work is directed at facilitating unburdened access to innovative new technologies that will allow Canadian farmers to remain competitive in a global market. Delivering innovation to the farm starts with research and development. This year Monsanto invested more than $1 billion to develop the most robust pipeline of products in the industry.

Today our researchers throughout the world are actively working to discover, develop, and deliver the next generation of agricultural products so farmers can get more out of each acre of farmland. Everything we do at Monsanto is aimed at helping to make agriculture more productive and more profitable for farmers as well as more efficient and more sustainable for our planet.

Canadian farmers are strong adopters of technology, and they are demanding solutions to help produce more to feed a growing planet while reducing agriculture's impact on the environment. Biotechnology is one tool that can help address these demands. Our ability to conduct and complete research in Canada is critical to allowing us to adequately and accurately answer the many questions farmers and others have asked us to look at.

These are some of the reasons Monsanto continues to invest in the area of agriculture biotechnology and to work with the industry in finding solutions so that new technologies can be brought forward in a positive and responsible manner.

In closing, the research we have undertaken internally, with academics, and with other third-party researchers into bringing new biotech traits to crops like corn, canola, soybeans, alfalfa, sugar beets, wheat, and vegetables indicates that Canadian farmers are searching for new, more economical and sustainable options to enhance their yields and their profitability.

Biotech crops have offered farmers a compelling value proposition, including product effectiveness, yield improvement, simplicity, conservation tillage enhancement, cleaner grain, no crop restrictions, and a solid environmental safety profile.

Canada must continue its leadership position in the biotechnology sector by defending its science-based regulatory system and challenging unjustified trade barriers that are inconsistent with WTO trade rules. We have been encouraged by the positive feedback we have received from Canadian farmers, and indeed farmers around the globe, and we remain fully committed to working with the industry and with government to find manageable and effective solutions to allow the benefits of biotechnology to be shared with farmers, industry, and consumers.

Finally, I would like to bring to the committee's attention an announcement made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this past week, at which a coalition of 17 companies and governments from around the world, including Monsanto, launched a strategy to improve food security, economic growth, and environmental sustainability by improving productivity and the pace of growth of agriculture.

There's a brochure online called “Realizing a New Vision for Agriculture: A roadmap for stakeholders”. I would encourage the committee to download that. This roadmap sets out ambitious yet critical targets for increasing production by 20%, decreasing greenhouse gases per tonne of production by 20%, and reducing rural poverty by 20% in each of the next three decades. You've heard a lot about that over the last few years and about population growth, and I think this piece is another critical component of the standing committee's notes.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Penner.

If you wouldn't mind forwarding the document you just referred to in your report, either to each member of the committee or at least to the clerk, that would be good.

[Derek Penner]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Last on this panel, but certainly not least, we have as an individual, Mr. Frank Ingratta, president of Ingratta Innovations Inc.

Welcome. Please go ahead for 10 minutes or less.

[Dr. Frank Ingratta, President, Ingratta Innovations Inc., As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to the committee for affording me the opportunity to participate in the deliberations on this significant issue.

Since I am listed on your agenda as an individual, not representing an organization, I believe a quick background will provide some insight as to why I've been called as a witness.

I have recently retired, after eight years as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for the Province of Ontario, and I was actively involved in the development of agricultural policy and regulation, both provincially and nationally. Prior to 17 years in administration with the ministry, I was involved in numerous scientific and technical committees. For example, I chaired the Canada Committee on Crop Production and the Canadian Expert Committee on Horticulture. Lest I get branded as a technology sycophant, I also participated in the first federal-provincial committee on the development of standards to foster the development of the organic food industry. Interestingly, it convened at Meech Lake in the early nineties.

Additionally, I'm the vice-chair of the board of directors of the George Morris Centre, which is broadly recognized as Canada's leading agrifood think tank. After more than 20 years of quality analysis, the centre has earned a strong reputation in agrifood strategy, policy development, regulatory commentary, and for constant support for economic viability and competitiveness of the Canada agrifood systems.

With regard to today's issue of regulation of genetic modification, the centre clearly supports safe technology, which would improve the competitiveness and profitability of Canada's farmers and food industry. In their most recent newsletter, Schmidt and Stiefelmeyer pointed out the negative impact of antiquated and unnecessarily restrictive regulation. The centre has accumulated significant data and expertise on this topic, and I'm convinced that should this committee require an in-depth analysis of regulatory options, the centre could provide excellent technical and strategic advice.

So I have both a policy and a technical background, but I will admit that the technical background is certainly not as current as some of the other colleagues in the panel this morning.

Today I'd like to provide you with my own explanation of the issue, discuss some of the options, and, with your indulgence, provide broad comments on a recommended course of action. Unless I'm very wrong, the issue in front of us today is not whether Canada should support the use of genetic modification technology or drastically restrict its use. Quite clearly, the advantages of genetic modification have been repeatedly demonstrated. Biotechnology was identified in the Harvard Business Review at the turn of this century as having the potential to impact both the economy and innovation even more than the digital revolution of the eighties. The examples range from gene insertion to achieve cold tolerance to stem cells used to dramatically improve healing of skin burns. So I believe our focus today is not to discuss whether genetic modification is good or bad; my comments will focus on the appropriate regulation of the industry.

In my view, regulation is the basis of the development of a strong industry. In order for the technologies to continue to advance, a set of well understood and consistent rules is required. Regulations need to be based on fact, on science, on safety and security of the environment and the people of Canada. They cannot be whimsically based on some litigant's moralistic view or a longing for a return to a bygone era. Regulations need to be transparent. Those developing the technologies need to know the rules, but they must be transparent enough so that those who need assurance that the rules are being followed have an appropriate opportunity to participate in the process. For too long, opponents have argued potential bias in the research innovation community. Transparent regulations can minimize this lament.

For many of the new biotechnological developments, the resulting products are international in scope and potential utilization. Although I would not support the wholesale adaptation of another jurisdiction's rules, surely the science behind the testing for safety, efficiency, and repeatability can be shared by regulatory agencies around the world.

On the issue of other jurisdictions, I'm sure this committee is aware that in the United States the House Committee on Agriculture is currently examining the exact issue that's in front of us today. Appearing before that committee only 20 days ago, Secretary Vilsack extolled the potential of biotechnology but concluded, and I quote:

...conflicts have produced ongoing litigation and resulted in uncertainty for producers and technology innovators. We are at a crucial juncture in American agriculture where the issues causing the litigation and uncertainty must be addressed, so that the potential contributions of all sectors of agriculture can be fully realized.

In the U.S. there are currently two options: either to grant or deny non-regulated status, and over 750 products have been granted the non-regulated status. They are currently considering the option of granting unregulated status with geographic restrictions and isolation distances to accommodate the individuals who demand certainty around genetic drift.

It's also germane to note--and it's certainly not as recent as articles in today's newspapers--that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, with a membership of more than 20 Nobel laureates, has requested a relaxation of excessive unscientific regulations currently in place in some jurisdictions for improving genetically modified crops. Even the European Union is considering the easing of import restrictions on genetically modified crops as part of rewriting the overriding common agricultural policy.

It is my opinion that new regulatory challenges will arise in the near future. Today there are many samples of genetically modified crops with altered input traits, such as insect resistance, and a growing number with environmental traits. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to review a horticultural research program in Chile where they featured 9,000 genetically modified peach seedlings capable of growing in highly saline soils and created as a result of their natural resource extraction--an example of environmental traits.

However, the significant future impact will be from output traits--or, if you will, consumer apps--in which altered crops will have human health benefits, such as reduced trans fats or vitamin enhancements. The only logical regulatory system to govern these new traits is one that is based on scientific evidence of safety to the consumers and to the environment.

The real challenge of regulations is that invariably one size does not fit all. With the dramatically different innovations that currently exist and that are on the horizon, it is important that relatively mundane changes do not endure the detailed scrutiny logically required for a modification that has real potential for a dramatic impact.

The regulations also need to be clear on whether we are regulating a process or a product. Regulations are not put into place to ensure an improvement to the innovator's bottom line, but there should also be opportunity to consider the potential positive impacts of an innovation. If the innovation truly has the opportunity to reduce hunger or increase production in inhospitable environments, that should form part of the scientific and policy considerations in utilizing that technology.

In summary, regulation for genetic modification should not be differentiated from the characteristics of good regulations, whether it's the Highway Traffic Act or for monitoring financial institutions or looking at the pharmaceutical industry. The regulations must be current, based on best available science, and not driven by vested interests. They must ensure safety of citizens and the environment, be flexible enough to accommodate diverse technologies, and be transparent to all and efficient in application. For the most part, Canada has that type of regulatory system. The rules for utilization of genetically modified technology must meet those standards.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ingratta.

We'll now move right into questions. We just have the exact amount of time for everyone to have another round.

Mr. Valeriote, because this is your riding, you get to go first. You have seven minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

First, gentlemen, I want to thank all of you for taking time out of your busy schedules to accept the invitation to come and speak before us. We all appreciate that GMO is a tool that's going to be used, one tool of many, to fight growing hunger, feeding three billion more people in the next 40 years--and increasing food production by about 70%, I'm told, will ultimately be the need.

We've heard so much, and there are, as I have described, two solitudes out there. I don't know if these two solitudes can ever reconcile their differences, but without getting into all the incidents today, because it's impossible--Manish, you discussed a number of regulations you thought would be important tricks that can be used to reduce gene flow and look at molecular interactions to avoid toxicity. Rene, you talked about possibly developing not barriers but buffer zones. I gather that's based on what I've read from the Canadian Seed Growers' Association—identity-preserved isolation distances.

Frank, you were in politics. It seems to me you had...not politics as such, but you were a deputy minister, rather. Thank you--I'm sure you're pleased I corrected that. It seems to me—and Derek and Mike—you're in the business. Michael, you understand it historically. It confounds me that it took Bill C-474 to bring this conversation to a crescendo, because Bill C-474, by most of our responses, isn't the answer. It certainly has raised issues that need to be discussed. I'm talking about, for instance, the right of organic growers to be able to grow their crop without threat of contamination. It's not an easy solution, but it's a simple proposition. I'm wondering why, if any of you, or all of you, have the compulsion—because we're not going to be able to do it—to come together, revitalize the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee, bring everyone together, and start having the discussion so we can find these solutions.

Don't rely on us. It's better that the solution comes from the industry. Can you guys address that? Rene, you talked about buffer zones. Is it realistic to introduce that, manage regulations? Frank, you had some ideas. Can we discuss that?

[Dr. Rene Van Acker]

If I could comment a little, the first thing is I don't think it's two solitudes, to begin with. There's a lot of pragmatism in this issue. I think when we saw the concerns around potential introduction of GE wheat in western Canada, what you had was farmers who loved their Roundup Ready canola saying that while they loved their Roundup Ready canola, they didn't want to see GE wheat if it were going to cause a market threat. It was very practical and pragmatic. It wasn't philosophically based at all. Many of the same farmers would adopt GE wheat if the markets went away. I see it as a very practical thing for many people and for many of the farmers involved, so I don't see it as two solitudes. That's part of the dilemma.

The other thing is there is a question about the nature of maintaining zero, given the article in the European press about the potential changes. Are Europeans allowing unauthorized traits? That's something that has to be discussed, because what is our own policy in Canada in that regard? Right now, our policy is a threshold of zero for regulated events. Will we change that? We argue that the Europeans need to change that, but if China, for example, wanted to export something to Canada that would not yet be regulated in Canada, what would our policy be? Currently, our policy is zero.

It's not simple. It's not black and white, and it's not two solitudes. I think people want choice and guarantees.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Do you think that a low-level presence...? We spoke to Mary Buhr two days ago in Saskatchewan, and she indicated that perhaps low-level presence has to be adopted here as well, because zero is just not realistic.

[Dr. Rene Van Acker]

I think we have to think very carefully about what we say when we say that. I think we would want to hold the option for low-level presence where we think it's okay, because we want to maintain the efficacy of our regulatory system, and we want to maintain our right to our own regulatory system.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Are these buffer zones realistic?

[Dr. Rene Van Acker]

Again, it depends. What I will say is that if we produce something on a commercial scale, maintaining a zero is probably not realistic. I think the supply chain would agree with that. It's difficult in a broad landscape.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Do others want to jump in here?

Yes, Frank.

[Dr. Frank Ingratta]

I'd like to comment on the issue of where we find the solutions. Certainly the committee is making a significant effort in hearing about potential solutions. Part of the reason I even mentioned the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is they are a body of significantly knowledgeable people who come together to discuss a broad array of issues.

As our political leaders, you have a mammoth number of issues that confront you. There really is an opportunity for...and I believe strongly in the ability of the participants in the industry to come together, share their views, and discuss and debate them. That is where the solutions can come from, as long as government is involved and ready to listen to those dialogues and help shape the policies and regulations based on those varied views.

Whether it's the committee that you've mentioned or some other organization, it is absolutely critical that the broad range of views, whether it's two solitudes or not, be able to come together and develop, through some significant debate, some of the regulatory details that we're talking about. I certainly encourage that activity to restart or perhaps follow one of the recommendations coming from the committee, which would be to create such an organization. It is critical to finding that solution.