Feds Abandon Safety Assessments of Gene-Edited Seed and Food

My inbox is fast filling up with agriculture and food issues of major importance. It’s hard to know here to start.

May 22 is the International Day for Biological Diversity, also known as World Biodiversity Day. In a previous column I included information on Seeds of Diversity, a Canadian non-profit working with volunteers in an attempt to save heritage and other seed. The challenges are huge, and the efforts are stoic…and it is seed by seed by seed.

In May, the federal government also approved practices that allow seeds to be  genetically edited without federal government oversight, assessment, or regulation.

Essentially the decision means that farmers won’t be able to trace if seed is gene edited or not.

In early May the Federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, approved the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) guidance or recommendations on gene-edited seed, essentially deciding not to regulate these seeds, and also not to let consumers know when seeds have been gene-edited. More specifically, those genetically modified seeds — known as “Plants with Novel Traits” (PNTs) — that do not introduce foreign DNA will no longer be regulated by the CFIA. Prior to this change, all of these seeds were regulated under the CFIA’s Seed Regulation.