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economist sunsuntribune saturday july 19 2003 modified food grows despite protest company controlling food gormley farmer says bymikeadler staff writer john doner steps into a field of soybeans planted two weeks earlier and tears out some pigweed we just sprayed this today says the gormley man who farms 4000 acres along the urban edge of richmond hill mr doner had applied a generic form of roundup a herbicide farm ers use to burn fields clean of vege tation these weeds how if you come back here in a week they should be just deader than door- nails but the rows of soy wont be harmed in 10 more days the plants will start to flower but mr doner may spray again if necessary you cant have weeds in crop he says mr doner enjoys absolute weed control because the soy is roundup ready the genetically modified variety that has become me norm in ontario but he dislikes the power of monsanto which owns ws geneti cally modified seed and also pro duces roundup the company rig orously pursues anyone it believes is illegally using monsanto seeds the multinational can send inspectors some farmers call them police into mr doners fields next year if the inspectors spray roundup on what are sup posedly nongenetically modified beans and they dont die youre going to court he says and theyte not coming after you for 1000 bucks besides the cost of genetically modified seeds mr doner must pay for a technical use agreement royalties for monsantps expert ise monsanto is controlling your food says mr doner his arm slashing the air the farmers are the smallest rung in your ladder how his dismay is shared by other fanners but thats not stopping roundup ready soy two seasons ago 30 per cent of the provinces soy acreage was roundup ready this year its 50 or 55 per cent according to the ontario soybean growers marketing board at the same time europeans and other consumers reluctance to buygenetically modified organisms provides ontario farmers with a growing niche market for unaltered beans kim cooper the soy boards market coordinator has urged growers not to blow it by letting plwsm photo illustrationmike barrett more corn and soybean crops are being grown with genetically modified seeds genetically modified soybeans slip into gmorfree shipments our reputation could be shot he warned mr doner grows both genetically modified and nongenetically modi fied beans and thinks he can keep them separated but says monsanto hot the farmer should be accountable when a gmofree soy crop is contaminated and crop contamination is inevitable some farmers and experts say its now impossible to grow a pure field of nongm canola on the canadian prairies because of the dominance of roundup ready varieties there canola plants resistant to three herbicides evidence of gmo crossbreeding were found grow ing along the canadian side of the st lawrence river says suzanne wuerthele a regional toxicologist for the united states environmental protection agency monsanto is fighting to have its roundup ready wheat approved for sale in canada mr doner thinks genetically modified wheat is a rnis- takej you will have contamina tion he says because pollen moves mr doner grows both genetically modified and nongenetically modified beans and thinks he can keep them separated but in 1990 he was one of york regioris first to grow insectresist ant bt corn so new at the time a chinese delegationcame to see it bt corn a gmo which produces a bacterial protein poisonous to a pest called the european corn borer is a godsend for farmers says mr doner he recalled how the worms once hollowed out his corn stalks so they often rotted and blew oyer in the fall few farmers in the region still refuse to grow bt corn adds mr doner who says the years first frost doesnt bother it either the sugars in the stalk are dif ferent they dont freeze as easy these days he only grows non- bt as a buffer around his crop to i stall the development of corn bor ers that can resist the toxin he has heard of bt varieties car rying a secondary event to control other pests and predicts companies will one day sell three or four events in one seed mr doner may not have long to wait dozens of experimental trans genic food crops were grown in ontario last year including varieties of corn combining an insect resist ance or fungal resistance with a her bicide tolerance canola with both insect and antibiotic resistance was tried as was genetically modified tobacco with reduced nicotine farmers can keep these experi mental crops secret even from their neighbours its a precaution against thieves and vandals says phil macdonald a manager of envi ronmental release assessment for the canadian food inspection agency mr macdonald says the fields are visited by inspectors and all experimental plant material has to be accounted for and destroyed none of the hundreds of experi mental genetically modified foods he maintains has ever escaped once a crop has approval for use as food however its continued seg regation from nongenetically modified varieties is beyond the agendas authority mr macdonald says all well say is this stuff is safe to grow experimental crops are also being grown here to produce phar- maceuticals the reason ms wuerthele says is extracting drugs from engineered plants in a field can be cheaper for companies than making them in a lab but the farming of drugs in the open is approaching total lunacy says prof joe cummins a geneticist at the university of western ontario theyre saying to these average farmers you can make a bundle by growing pharmaceuticals in your field prof cummins says corn modi fied to produce a drug called interleukm 10 was recently grown near london without controls to stop possible seed release or con tamination through water runoff people or animals who drank water tainted by such a crop or its soil could compromise their immune systems he charges a spokesperson for health canada which oversees such experiments could not be reached for comment in richmond hill last year broadcaster and geneticist david suzuki reminded ah audience the pesticide ddt seemed a scientific triumph until biologists discovered it was killing birds and collecting in higher animals through biomagni- fication something no one knew when ddt was introduced and mark my words exacdy the same thing is going to be the case with gmos he says because as with any revolutionary technology most current ideas about gmos will turn out to be wrong so what the hell is the hurry victoria sofas beds lighting vases entertainment unitsmore hwy7 j yorktech h l hw407 wfimusfmas si ekgantsofa we also carry marble tables chairs italian leather sofas directly from the factory td 905948 j135 1 iiiiii ii iii m h iii m m ill l n j i i it m iii i 11 1111 li ii i ml i i i i 11 i i i l if iri mm 111 11 iivurarri 11- pm aaraun 110 pmjozoi woouomi avc uniiza ana po iviarkoam xej 1 h n h ii 1 m i i i 1 jiin 1 j 1 i i i i vw it 1 yfvii i i i i tvs