Terminators are set
to invade the Canadian prairies. No, not the cybernetic killers sent from
the future made famous by James Cameron's 1984 sci-fi film. "Terminator
seeds" is a scary term that certain non-governmental organizations use
to describe Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs)--a gene-switching
method that makes crops produce sterile seeds. It sounds dangerous, but terminator
seeds may turn out to be some farmers' best friends--if only they were allowed
to use them.
Terminator seeds are designed to enhance crop traits--yield, quality, et cetera--and
protect them from harmful environmental conditions, such as insects and cross-contamination.
Some farmers like that idea. But Terry Boehm, vice-president of the Saskatoon-based
National Farmers Union, is anything but thrilled. He says the technology will
rob farmers of the ability to reuse their own seeds. Boehm says he reuses
95 per cent of his seeds on his 4,000-acre cereal farm near Allan, Sask. "Farmers
around the world are opposed to this because it only has one purpose; it's
about control of the seed," he says.
The technology, developed in 1998 by Mississippi seed producer Delta and Pine
Land Co. and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, isn't available yet (Delta
is greenhouse-testing the seeds, and industry watchers predict the technology
could be marketable by 2009). Boehm heads up the Canadian contingent of the
worldwide Ban Terminator coalition, made up of 327 NGOs formed to block the
development of GURTs. The group was behind the UN's 2001 world moratorium
on terminator seed sales. The anti-terminators celebrated again in March when
the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity's working group, meeting in Brazil,
refused to lift the ban, despite a push from Canada, the U.S., Australia and
New Zealand to lift the moratorium to allow some field testing of terminator
seeds.
Opponents of GURTs insist that the technology is a capitalist power play and
will deny farmers the ability to save their own seeds, making them captive
consumers to biotech corporations. About half of Canadian producers reuse
seeds, estimates Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel, president of the Western Canadian Wheat
Growers. No wonder: second-generation seeds are usually low quality compared
to the store-bought stuff, they don't always grow and they are often cross-contaminated
by other crops, even after they've been cleaned. Meanwhile, the better yield
and quality produced from the purchased seeds more than makes up for the extra
expenditure. Canola growers have been happily producing nearly sterile "hybridized"
crops for years because they produce higher quality canola, says Jolly-Nagel.
"About 95 per cent of canola is grown from pedigree seed, which is seed
that you purchase every year that has been certified," Jolly-Nagel says.
"Round-Up Ready canola is an example. You can't reseed it, but it's perfected
in its pureness."
Delta Pine and Land have said that terminator seeds are only useful for certain
crop varieties, and it plans to keep marketing non-terminating seeds alongside
GURTs seeds. "Farmers will continue to select those varieties offering
them the highest returns and the most benefits," notes a Delta brochure.
"As is currently the case with transgenic varieties, farmers will still
be able to choose from Test Protection System (TPS) [GURTs seeds] and non
TPS varieties." And history shows that, as long as there's a demand for
certain kinds of seeds, marketers will make them available, says Philip Schwab,
vice-president for policy and sector affairs with Ottawa-based BioteCanada,
an industry association. "Genetically modified crop varieties are sold
along with non-GMO crops and farmers can choose which varieties best meet
their needs," Schwab says.
So why would Canadian farmers be opposed to simply having the option of buying
terminator seeds if they want to? Well, they're actually not, says Harry Collins,
vice-president of technology transfer for Delta and Pine Land. Despite claims
by the National Farmers Union (which has a history of socialist activism),
Collins says much of the opposition to GURTs in this country is coming from
environmental and anti-corporate groups. But their fight against big biotech
may be hurting farmers more. About five years ago, farmers in Bangladesh began
using hybrid rice seeds, and many were happy with the higher yields--enough
to sell off surplus crops--despite the poor quality of the second-generation
seeds. Still, NGOs campaigned to stop them. "They tried to talk some
farmers into not using it," says Collins. "But some farmers liked
what they were buying; they were making very good yields and able to sell
their crops so they wanted to continue doing it. They didn't care about having
to buy the seed every year."
Farmers in Canada aren't likely to be bamboozled out of better crop yields
by a bunch of pushy environmentalists. But, notes Collins, "What we're
doing is giving farmers a choice; if they don't like our product, they don't
have to buy it." Yet until either the UN lifts its moratorium--or countries
such as Canada and the U.S. start defying it--farmers won't have the freedom
to make that choice for themselves.
Source:
Jamie Tarrant. Terminating choice: Maybe farmers – not NGOs –
are best able to decide whether they want terminator seeds. Western Standard
(Alberta) (April 24, 2006) (http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=1630);
reproduced with permission
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