Grainswest - Fall 2022

Fall 2022 Grains West 20 Y ears in the making, the agriculture industry celebrated a substantial victory when Health Canada announced crops produced by gene editing are as safe for consumption as those produced by conventional plant breeding. The announcement was made in early June and was accompanied by a number of key changes and updates to regulatory policy that provide a higher level of certainty for both plant breeders and companies looking to Canada as a base of operations. “With this clarified policy, Canada now has an opportunity to be a world leader in plant breeding innovation,” said Ian Affleck, CropLife Canada vice- president of biotechnology. He noted CropLife Canada has worked behind the scenes for nearly a decade and published papers in 2014 and 2016 that advocated for change. In 2018, the momentum had built and the guidance around gene editing began to be formally studied and updated. “Prior to this policy, we were falling behind in plant breeding innovation. Regulatory policies weren’t clear about what was required of the plant breeder to get product to market. Now it’s really clear.” A major opacity surrounded pre- market assessments. Under the old system, a pre-market assessment was issued for a breeder who created a plant variety that exceeded the typical parameters of what would be considered a normal variation. So, if a breeder struck gold and created a canola variety that reduced pod shatter by 20 per cent, that could be flagged. Such a development would be seen as producing results far outside the norms of typical variation and would have been classified as a novel food or food ingredient. If it was flagged, it would then be subject to a two-year assessment process before moving forward, if it did so at all. “There was a lack of clarity in what the trigger was for a pre-market assessment,” said Affleck. “This wasn’t only inhibiting things like gene editing. It was dragging on conventional plant breeding.” Just to get an answer from government could take months to more than one year. Now, with more clearly defined rules for breeders, it provides great clarity up front and everyone involved in the process will know what is required of them. Affleck added the FEATURE BY TREVOR BACQUE “This is world-leading regulatory policy because it’s science-based and pragmatic.” — Krista Thomas SHARED VICTORY Gene editing regulatory update will make crop innovation faster, more predictable