Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Canadian authorities are taking a more precautionary approach.
Unlike the United States, they explicitly recommended the use of
nonfood crops for PMPs and are limiting the size of experimental field
trials per applicant to 1 hectare per province and year.
24
The sensitivity of certain actors results from contamination incidents,
especially the StarLink
25
and the ProdiGene incidents,
26
which are also
discussed in Chapter 2.
StarLink is a GM maize variant harboring the bacterial protein
Cry9C. This protein is specifically toxic to a variety of pests and thereby
renders the maize insect resistant. In 1998, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) did not exclude the possibility of an aller-
gic potential in humans, and therefore granted a tolerance exemption
for feed and industrial use only (i.e., not for human food). The EPA
required a buffer zone of 200 meters between the GM and any conven-
tional maize to avoid pollen contamination. StarLink maize and maize
derived from the buffer zone were to be processed separately from food
maize. Despite such safety measures Cry9C was detected in taco chips, a
human food product, in September 2000 and subsequently also in maize
24
Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Interim Amendment to Dir 2000-07 for Con-
fined Research Field Trials of PNTs for Plant Molecular Farming (2003), available
at www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/bio/dir/dir0007ie.shtml.
25
See Ellstrand, supra. See also B. Freese, Manufacturing Drugs and Chemicals in
Crops: Biopharming Poses New Threats to Consumers, Farmers, Food Companies and
the Environment (2002) www.foe.org/camps/comm/safefood/biopharm/BIOPHARM
REPORT.pdf; A. Sp ok et al., Toxicity and allergenicity of GMO products - Part
2B: Regulation of risk assessment for genetically modified food in the EU and
the USA (2003); EPA, EPA Preliminary Evaluation of Information Contained in
the October 25, 2000, Submission from Aventis CropScience (2000) available at
www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/2000/november/ prelim eval sub102500.pdf.
26
B. Cassidy & D. Powell, Pharmaceuticals from Plants: The ProdiGene Affair (2002),
www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/pages/grain/news/newsarchive/02biotechnews/021202
bionews.html; C. Q. Choi, Black Eye for Ag-biotech: Texas Company Under Fire
for Possibly Contaminating Food Crops,
The Scientist
, November 20, 2002, available
at http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20021120/03; C. Q. Choi, BIO Backpedals.
Politics Push Biotech Organization to Withdraw Heartland Policy on GM Crops,
The
Scientist
, December 11, 2002, available at www.biomedcentral.com/news/20021211/04.
