Canadian Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced on May 3 that Canada will exempt gene-edited plants from regulation and mandatory public notification unless they contain foreign DNA or if they are herbicide tolerant.
For all other changes in a gene-edited plant, the company decides if its product might cause environmental harm and thus should be assessed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
There is no way for the public to know whether a biotech company’s assessment was thorough, and no mechanism to ensure a company reports problems.
Nobody doubts that gene editing is a powerful tool. With CRISPR, it is possible to change a plant’s DNA at specific locations by silencing or forcing the expression of specific genes, altering the DNA sequence or removing a gene altogether.
The trouble is, science doesn’t fully understand what happens when changes are made this way. CRISPR can cut a gene sequence at a precise spot, but it is up to the cell to knit the DNA back together, and it might not do that exactly as envisioned.
Gene editing is likely to change more than just one trait. A gene-edited vegetable might, for example, produce a less bitter-tasting leaf, but the altered genome might also make it more susceptible to insect infestations, leading growers to use more pesticides. Or the bitterness gene might also regulate the plant’s response to heat stress but changing it might mean the new plant needs more intensive irrigation, or produce lower yields during summer weather.
Canada regulates genetically engineered organisms as “plants with novel traits” based on their outward characteristics instead of the technology used to make changes.
The CFIA’s new regulatory approach defines most gene-edited plants as non-novel or not new and thus exempt.
The companies that hold patents on CRISPR have licensed the world’s biggest seed companies to use the technology in seed, allowing them to collect royalties on gene-edited varieties. Because it is deemed patented technology, farmers will not be allowed to save gene-edited seed for future planting.
To obtain a patent, inventors must demonstrate their product or process is new. So how can the same gene-edited seed be non-novel in the eyes of the CFIA, but novel when seen by the patent office?
In spite of having no experience assessing gene-edited crops, the CFIA assumes that, for gene-edited seeds that have no foreign DNA, there will be no new questions.
Allowing biotech companies to market gene-edited seed without mandatory public disclosure puts huge financial risks on farmers, who will pay the cost when buyers use new tools to find unwanted gene-edited products. How will our agriculture sector recover if our export customers lose trust in Canada?
The biotech companies claim that by using gene-editing, they can create seed with amazing new qualities to solve our biggest problems, and at the same time say these high-tech seeds do not differ from the seed that has been developed over centuries of traditional breeding.
Since both these claims cannot be true, shouldn’t gene-edited plants and seeds be publicly disclosed and examined with unbiased science and publicly listed before being released?
We need mandatory, independent safety assessments and mandatory reporting to government for all gene-edited seeds and foods. The CFIA and Agriculture Canada have put their faith in the biotech lobby’s claims and self-interested promises.
Bibeau must re-evaluate this misplaced trust and reverse her decision to give biotech companies free rein over gene-edited seed.
Until then, it is simply not possible to claim that Canada’s regulations are independent, science-based, or in the public interest.
Cathy Holtslander is the National Farmers Union’s director of research and policy.
