Okanagan farmers are afraid that their businesses and the reputation of B.C.’s fruit industry will be damaged if Ottawa approves genetically modified (GM) apples developed by Okanagan apple producer and biotechnology entrepreneur Neal Carter.
The orchardists believe that many consumers are so spooked by what they see as the potential negative health impact of GM foods that they’ll stop buying B.C. apples if Carter’s wins Canadian Food and Inspection Agency (CFIA) approval to grow his Arctic apple commercially.
The new variety, which is engineered to resist browning when exposed to air, has been developed by Carter’s seven-employee Okanagan Specialty Fruits.
Kirpal Boparai, who farms 70 acres of apples and is president of the British Columbia Fruit Growers’ Association (BCFGA), said CFIA approval would lead to contamination as bees flit between GM apple trees and organic apple trees.
But Carter said his contemporaries’ opposition is based on emotion, not science.
“We’re disappointed that nobody has reached out to us to get educated on our improvement,” Carter told Business in Vancouver.
“Folks such as the organic growers and the British Columbia Fruit Growers’ Association (BCFGA), they won’t even give us an opportunity to educate them on what we’re doing.”
Carter dubs his innovation “GM-light” because he claims that all he has done is turn off an enzyme that causes apples to turn brown.
“We have not added any DNA from any new species. We’re taking something away by turning off an enzyme.”
He then pointed to a PG Economics Ltd., UK study released last month that found GM technology significantly improved global farm income thanks to a combination of better productivity and efficiency.
GM Crops: global socio-economic and environmental impacts 1996-2010 noted that, in 2010, global farm income from GM crops was $14 billion. It estimated that would be equivalent to having added 4.3% to the value of global production for the four main GM crops: soybeans, maize, canola and cotton.
Consumer fears over GM foods were seeded in the 1991, when DNA Plant Technologies engineered what it hoped would be a frost-resistant tomato because it contained a gene from a fish.
That product never made it to supermarket shelves, but activists raised concerns that people who were allergic to fish would get a reaction if they unwittingly ate the GM tomatoes.
Carter stressed that his non-browning apple would not harm anyone.
But Southern Interior NDP MP Alex Atamanenko said he has introduced a private member’s bills to ban genetically modified foods in part because of the potential damage GM crops could do to B.C.’s fruit industry.
“Our farmers, especially organic farmers, would take an economic hit.”
Indeed, farmers have signed petitions and lobbied local governments to pass motions banning the production of GM foods.
The Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen (RDOS) earlier this month unanimously passed a motion barring farmers from growing GM apples.
Richmond council took that a step further in May when it approved a motion to ban all genetically engineered plants and trees within city limits.
But Ottawa, which enforces laws regulating genetically modified food, has not banned the cultivation of GM crops. •
