Focus on Corn: The good and bad news about seed hybrids

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Farmers might not find a Market Choices emblem on the side of a bag of seed with cutting edge genetics. But the good news is that there are fewer markets in Ontario that care

By DON STONEMAN

This month, for the first time, Better Farming's familiar corn hybrid chart, published annually since 2000 and pointing producers towards the newest genetics available to them, will be available on the magazine's website at www.betterfarming.com

The website chart will be searchable in a number of ways. One way, in particular, is that hybrids not suitable for export to the European Union will be clearly identified as such by the marketer. This reflects the ongoing controversy over corn products approved in Canada and the United States but not in Europe.

By the time the 2009 May planting season rolls around, it will be 10 years since the genetically modified organism debate blew up in the faces of Ontario's corn producers.

A decade later, some questions remain unresolved. Scientists working for seed corn companies are churning out new combinations of genetically modified hybrids and governments this side of the Atlantic are approving them far faster than  the European Union (EU) allows them to be sold in that giant trading bloc.

As producers get ready to order new seed hybrids, there is both good news and bad news. The bad news is that farmers might not find a Market Choices emblem on the side of a bag of seed with cutting edge genetics, usually the triple stacks. The emblem indicates that the genetic characteristics associated with this hybrid are not acceptable in products sold in Europe, even if they were approved for feed and food use in the United States, Canada and Japan. The good news is that there are fewer markets in Ontario that care. That comes later.

Last October, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) announced that it was suspending the Market Choices grain marketing program and certification mark, citing "the lack of timely regulatory approval for corn biotech traits" which "essentially stopped" trade with Europe.
The reason? Exports of U.S. corn, corn gluten feed, and distillers dried grains and solubles to markets across the Atlantic Ocean had virtually dried up. The Europeans were exhibiting a "zero tolerance" policy for traits not approved in Europe and that made importation of American corn nearly impossible since 2007.
The Canadian Seed Trade Association used the Market Choices emblem under license. Since the Americans discontinued the trademark's use, Canada must do the same, says Patty Townsend, vice president, Canadian Seed Trade Association.

The emblem will be dropped at the end of the 2009 growing season.

Where you are marketing your crop will still have some effect on the hybrids that you plant in 2009. Casco announced in December that it no longer had markets for its products in Europe. So it was opening its receiving elevators to those controversial in Europe, triple-stacked feed and food hybrids that are approved here but not accepted in Europe.

The good news referred to earlier is that, for now, at least, the only commodity market in Ontario that doesn't want some approved feed and food hybrids is Greenfield Ethanol Inc. plants in western Ontario. While the Johnston plant in eastern Ontario takes all corn varieties, Greenfield's plants in Chatham and Tiverton do not. Both of them make and sell some industrial alcohol to markets in Europe, says communications director Melissa Armstrong. "They need to follow different rules."

Tiverton makes 26 million litres of alcohol annually, Chatham 190 million litres.

The Canadian Seed Trade Association is looking for some other way to mark those of itshybrids which aren't suitable for export to Europe. "We see it as a stewardship issue," says Townsend.

Market Choice isn't as critical as it was two years ago, says seed trade association board member Stephen Denys of Pride Seeds. That's likely why the United States dropped it, says Denys, adding that now the onus will be on the grower.

With any new trait, it is still a good idea for growers to ask their distributor if the crop is accepted by a processor, he says. In 2010, there will be new combinations of traits available, such as Smart Stick, which Pride and Monsanto are working on.

Smart Stick is a combination of a number of different traits – three genes attacking corn borer, three genes taking a shot at corn rootworm, plus resistance to Liberty Link and Roundup, all in one hybrid. Denys predicts that these trait combinations will provide yet another reason for controversy in the ongoing genetic modification debate.

If the EU should provide for a commercially viable tolerance or demonstrate a functioning regulatory system for the approval of biotech products, ASTA says it would evaluate re-establishing the use of the Market Choices certification mark and the related program. BF