Farmers’ Independent Weekly
March 4, 2004

Monsanto told to expand its buffer zone
Wheat pollen transfer has been measured as far as 300 metres

by Laura Rance
Farmers’ Independent Weekly staff

Monsanto Canada has been told to increase the buffer zones between its Roundup Ready wheat trials and adjacent fields of wheat to prevent the possibility of cross-contamination.

The wheat, rye and triticale sub-committee of the Prairie Registration Recommending Committee for Grain made the move last after hearing a complaint that at least one of its 12 sites last year the Roundup Ready trial was too close to adjacent wheat fields.

The subcommittee is responsible for establishing the protocols Monsanto uses while testing its Roundup Ready wheat lines in the cooperative trials for agronomy, disease, and quality performance.

The lines will enter their third year of the required co-op testing next summer in preparation for consideration by the committee for registration. However, that can only occur once the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada approve the varieties under the Plants with Novel Traits regulations, which assess it for food, feed and environmental safety.

When the varieties first entered the co-operative trials, the committee expanded the buffer zone requirements from 3 metres to 30 metres and asked the company to plant strips of a tall crop such as corn to help trap any pollen that could escape from the test plots.

Committee member and organic farmer Marc Loiselle told the meeting he inspected a plot near Aberdeen, Saskatchewan last year and found fields of AC Superb seed and AC Barrie being produced immediately adjacent to the 30 metre buffer zone of corn and canola. “The wheat was flowering at the same time in the test plots and the surrounding wheat.” he said.

Further, Loiselle said the corn buffer was not high enough at the time of flowering to serve as a pollen trap.

Loiselle said the incident calls into question the protocol used by Monsanto, as well as the purity of the Superb wheat, which he said was to be used for seed.

The allegation prompted a discussion within the group over what constitutes a safe buffer zone.

Monsanto officials said their trials were audited by the CFIA as well as internally and found to be 100 per cent in compliance.

But the incident surprised other researchers at the meeting. “To me, it’s a no brainer that you wouldn’t put that kind of trial in the middle of a wheat field,” said Keith Briggs, a University of Saskatchewan wheat breeder. “Why not put it next to a canola field, there’s plenty of them around?”

When the issue came to a vote, the majority of members at the committee rejected the existing buffer zones. But the question became how wide a buffer is required?

Pierre Hucl at the University of Saskatchewan has been conducting research on wheat outcrossing. He told the committee that while the rate of outcrossing diminishes with distance, it is impossible to come up with a distance that guarantees zero outcrossing. “I can’t give you a number, I don’t know what it is,” Hucl said.

“The vast majority of the outcrossing was within 30 to 50 metres, but there was one hit at 300 metres in one year,” he said. Researchers sampled up to a radius of two kilometers.

Loiselle said the buffer zone should be expanded to 400 or 500 metres. But the committee voted to impose a buffer of 300.

Trish Jordan, spokesperson for Monsanto, said the company will comply with the protocol, but she said it will not serve to reduce the risk of pollen transfer because the risk is so marginal beyond 30 metres anyway. “They already have minimal risk. I don’t think they have achieved anything.” she said. “What’s the end game? Is the end game zero now?”