GM Wheat and Biofuel

Written - 25 October, 2007

Genetically modified crops have found a new partner in Canada, the biofuel industry. Bans have been placed on Canadian agricultural produce in Europe and Japan because of genetic modification and therefore GM has found an alternative market to further its sales. However, the focus of GM biofuel research is on a crop that was overwhelmingly rejected by farmers for genetic modification: wheat.

The GM industry has received significant criticism for its policy and procedures regarding the implementation of GM crops. The seeds are sold pesticide ready, ensuring that the GM companies are making money from selling the seed and the treatment. Regardless, many farmers still found the technology to be useful and GM has been widely adopted in Canada. In 2004, 5.4 million hectares of GM crops were planted in Canada.

There has been considerable debate regarding the health implications of GM food, both sophisticated and not. However the most tangible problem with GM crops has been largely overlooked. When GM crops are planted, they often return as ‘volunteer’ crops the next year. This means that GM crops grown one year will return in future crops. This is particularly troublesome for farmers because the GM volunteer is pesticide resistant and therefore becomes a pest that cannot be removed by conventional methods.

Farmers were aware that GM pesticide resistant traits were cross breeding amongst crops, creating ‘super-weeds’ that required multiple (expensive) treatments. It was because of the GM volunteer issue that GM wheat was overwhelmingly rejected by farmers as a future crop. If grasses and broadleaves were pesticide resistant crop control would become extremely difficult.

Today, GM wheat has taken an alternative route rather than the garbage bin. Wheat is being manipulated so that the sugars can be more easily converted to ethanol for gasoline. Sounds exciting; however there are dangers with this new modification.

Conversion of sugars could seriously affect the way in which wheat is digested in feed for cattle, should it crossbreed or become a volunteer. In addition, cattle farmers have opposed the development of GM wheat for biofuel because of the economic impact of price inflation of wheat on cattle operations. In the face of opposition from farmers again, it will be interesting to see whether GM wheat makes it onto the market or not. The track record of big industry suggests that the product will be forced on farmers one way or another.