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NE HUNDRED AND NINE NOBEL LAUREATES
can’t be wrong.
Matt Sawyer, a grain and oilseed farmer who raises
Black Angus cattle near Acme, AB, and Western Canadian
Wheat Growers Association director, said scientific consensus
overwhelmingly pronounces foods made from genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) safe and nutritious.
“Non-GMO organizations are well-funded and have a lot
of power, and they do a lot of lobbying,” said Sawyer. Such
frustration runs deep in the ag sector, and the vast flack cloud
of anti-GMOmaterial found online exhausts morale. When
absurdly non-scientific advice about detoxifying your body by
sleeping with onions in your socks goes viral on social media
channels, what hope is there for a nuanced discussion of
biotechnology’s potential to boost agricultural sustainability?
Nonetheless, Sawyer cited a 2016 open letter endorsed
by the above-mentioned prize-winning scientists backing the
safety of foods produced using biotechnology as yet another
irrefutable scientific endorsement. But the fight has increasingly
been framed in marketing terms—an apples-and-onions battle
between science and consumer demand.
As more and more agri-food corporations act on increasing
consumer demand for certified and labelled non-GMO
products, and anti-GMO advocates claim an emerging, game-
changing victory, the Canadian farm sector is quietly rallying for
a counterattack.
WHAT’S IN A LABEL?
In March of this year, a skirmish erupted on social media
between farmers and agri-food giant Cargill over the
company’s engagement with the openly anti-GMONon-GMO
Project based in Portland, OR. Cargill had taken it on as the
certifying body for its non-GMO food products. Many in the
ag industry, Sawyer included, see such GMO content labelling
as misleading. “Singling it out is suggesting to the public it’s
not as healthy as a conventionally grown crop, and that’s false,”
he said. “Losing the ability to use that genetically modified
system would be very detrimental to our industry.” This is an
understatement, considering the total average economic
activity generated by canola alone in Canada in 2012/13 and
2014/15 was $26.7 billion.
Commenting in the media, Cargill management in the United
States affirmed the company’s commitment to GMO crops,
but claimed the demands of its food-company customers for
certified non-GMO products could not be ignored. As well,
Cargill defended the use of Non-GMO Project as the only
viable certification option given the lack of U.S. federal or
private standards.
“I can understand why this feels threatening,” said Non-GMO
Project executive director Megan Westgate in a
St. Louis Post-
Dispatch
interview. “There’s a big paradigm shift happening.
The largest food companies in the world are looking for non-
GMO ingredients and that’s really changing the supply chain.”
O