Agriculture committee  I don't know what the best regulator would be. The example of golden rice was a classic one. You've probably heard about that at various levels. It was developed with the idea of making a nutritionally enhanced rice. When they actually tried to roll it out in rice breeding progra

Agriculture committee  I think they will probably be useful and might even be quite important in some areas. Are they useful and important in the North American industrial agriculture? I would argue no, they're simply a way of making the producer's life easier and of probably making more money off the

Agriculture committee  There's a lot of interest in some quarters of the world in working with the Africans on the crops that are important to Africa. I know, for instance, there's a big project on cassava and trying to get better yields and better disease and pest resistance. That addresses a very rea

Agriculture committee  It's primarily because a lot of the products under development in the pipeline right now involve modifying the plant's natural characteristics. So you're basically pushing it in a particular direction using its internal machinery, as opposed to the products out there right now, i

Agriculture committee  In my earlier career I worked with the Canola Council, and there's no question about how receptive they are to GM canola. It's been a real success story. On the other side of the coin, I have interacted with greenhouse growers in British Columbia, for instance, and with berry gro

Agriculture committee  It's absolutely a market concern. This gets back to the labelling business. Nobody in their right mind would put a GM label on a product in the marketplace right now if they didn't have to. So voluntary labelling will not work. It is so demonized as a technology, in the public's

Agriculture committee  That's true for the health issues. Environmental impacts and the non-health issues are dealt with by CFIA. Then finally, all these recommendations come to an approval committee. They don't talk about approval, they talk about “not denying”--but it's an interesting turn of phrase.

Agriculture committee  There's no absolute safety in anything, obviously. Is there any evidence that can quantify the risk? I would argue probably no. First of all, just what range of factors do you take into account? How many of the externalities do you address? It's almost a meaningless question.

Agriculture committee  Countries that didn't accept it before that have now accepted it?

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure of the numbers. I think there may be, yes, a small number that have, particularly in Africa. I know that Australia has moved from a non-GMO stance to accepting GMO. Once we get into GMO wheat, which is back on the agenda again, it will change a lot of things around

Agriculture committee  Do you mean the number of approvals or the number of crops?

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry to be difficult, but is that at the level of a variety or at the level of a crop? There are many different canola varieties out there that are GMO.

Agriculture committee  Yes, maize.

Agriculture committee  Are you asking whether those studies that have reported deleterious effects have not been—

Agriculture committee  I haven't seen any studies that have confirmed deleterious effects on human health or animal health.