In a spring when a record Canadian crop seems landlocked by a struggling grain handling system ill-equipped to deliver a huge crop to port, and generally softer farm commodity prices, other issues tend to get lost in the world of agriculture.
One issue which is going to have a longer term effect than whether a badly set up, and poorly government regulated rail system can manage to get a big crop to port in years when yields are the best ever is the broad area of genetically modified crops.
Crops which have been genetically modified are no longer new. Almost the entire Canadian canola crop is now a GM variety of type, or another. Farmers were quick to buy-in to the idea of canola varieties modified to be resistant to certain herbicides. It made weed control in canola crops more manageable, and allowed farmers to push canola in terms of cropping rotations. What that has meant is canola has become the major cash returns generator on the Canadian Prairies.
Restrictions on other GM crops like wheat and alfalfa are short-sighted in terms of providing a false sense GM crops have somehow shown themselves to be non-safe, and it also is a stance which limits the upward movement of production a growing world population will eventually need.
Read the full, original article: GM has to gain advocates
