Agriculture in the Classroom Canada (AITC-C) has partnered with CropLife Canada to develop interactive teaching resources designed to help students explore some of the realities of modern farming by seeing how to successfully grow carrots, turnips and potatoes.

The resources draw on CropLife Canada’s Real Farm Lives documentary web series, which was created to showcase the work and lives of farm families across the country.

“Teachers play an instrumental role in shaping the future of our next generation by guiding students towards a deeper understanding and appreciation of the vital role agriculture has to play in our lives,” Mathieu Rouleau, Executive Director of AITC-C, said in a news release. “By fostering a deeper understanding of our agriculture and food system, we empower students to become informed citizens and stewards of our planet’s future.”

Season 3 of Real Farm Lives, which these resources are focused on, features the McKenna family from Prince Edward Island, who are deeply committed to growing high-quality food for their family and families across the country while leaving the land in better condition for the next generation.

Both AITC-C and CropLife Canada said they believe in providing accurate, balanced and current information to educators to promote agriculture education in Canadian classrooms. Resources like these help students build knowledge around key ideas such as food preparation, food waste and crop protection.

“We know that fewer and fewer kids have a direct connection to the farm. Through Real Farm Lives, we’ve provided an easy and engaging way for Canadians to look inside the lives of Canadian farm families and what it takes to grow our food.

“By connecting students with real farmers who sustainably grow safe, high-quality food, we hope they learn about some of the obstacles farmers have to tackle and the tools they need to do their jobs,” said Pierre Petelle, president and CEO, of CropLife Canada.

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Hepworth was among 78 appointments announced by governor general Mary Simon in late December.

The London, Ont., resident was recognized for his contributions to agriculture and research “which have propelled the sector to new heights,” according to Simon’s office.

He was a farmer and veterinarian in Saskatchewan before entering provincial politics during premier Grant Devine’s Progressive Conservative governments, where he served in several portfolios until 1991.

After his political career, Hepworth moved to Ontario and began working with the Crop Protection Institute and Canadian Agra Group of Companies. He was instrumental in the formation of CropLife Canada and retired as its chief executive officer and president in 2014 after 17 years. He was appointed to the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame that year.

Hepworth has also served as chair of Genome Canada and the Global Institute for Food Security at the University of Saskatchewan. The list of his involvement with other institutions includes the Canadian Council of Academies Expert Panel on Sustainable Management of water in agricultural landscapes, the Scientific Advisory and Governance Committees of the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund, the advisory board of the National Research Council of Canada’s Plant Biotechnology Institute, the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council and the federal pest management and national biotechnology advisory committees.

He was on the board of Input Capital Corp. and a director and chair of Canterra Farmland Holdings LP.

He received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2020.

—Karen Briere is a reporter for the Western Producer. She writes from Saskatchewan.

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“We’re working proactively on some of these approaches,” said Krista Zuzak, director of crop protection and production with Cereals Canada.

On May 3, federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced updated guidance from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The decision put most gene-edited (GE) seed on the same regulatory level as conventionally bred varieties.

This puts Canada in a similar camp with the U.S., China, Japan, the U.K. and several other countries.

However, not all of Canada’s trading partners are as open to GE foods. The European Union is in the process of clarifying its policy, but now lumps GE crops with traditional GMOs, which are not well accepted there. Organic buyers ban them completely.

The Canadian organic sector is concerned that more GE crops in rotation will increase the risk of organic crops becoming contaminated, according to Tia Loftsgard, executive director of the Canadian Organic Trade Alliance. If the sector is not able to guarantee its products are free of GE content, it could lead to trade breakdowns.

Loftsgard pointed to an incident in 2018 when GM wheat, which is not in commercial cultivation, was found in Alberta. Japan and South Korea temporarily suspended wheat imports from Canada following the discovery.

A similar incident occurred in 2009 when the EU halted trade of Canadian flax after GM material was detected in a load.

“We do flag that, and we do see that that could possibly be an issue for some markets,” said Zuzak.

She said the industry has seen an uptick in questions from foreign buyers about Canada’s policies on gene editing. The tone is mostly curious, with questions largely centered around what approach Canada will take. Buyers want to know what to expect so they can communicate this to customers, she said.

“It’s very much an information gathering stage.”

Cereals Canada wants systems in place that will allow market choice, according to Zuzak.

Some of those systems are already in place, said Krista Thomas, vice-president of trade policy and seed innovation with the Canada Grains Council.

For instance, grain handlers can supply customers with organic or conventional product, GM and non-GM, and many other characteristics. Exporters can keep types of grain separate and ship and receive them according to customer needs.

Grain companies may also be able to use grower contracting to source specific characteristics, including non-GE.

“That’s a concern for all farmers in Canada. All farmers need to know if their seed was developed using gene editing or not so they can pass that information along,” Thomas said.

In a news release, Soy Canada said the industry has “excelled at meeting diverse customer needs” including organic, non-GM, GM and identity-preserved soybeans. It also said that meeting specific needs “remains an important priority for the industry.”

“Our customers know that we excel at providing a diverse range of products,” Soy Canada’s executive director Brian Innes said in a release. “We’re committed to continue providing customers what they want once we commercialize soybeans created using gene editing.”

Transparency moves

The federal government has announced initiatives designed to encourage crop developers to be transparent about their practices. This includes the Canadian Variety Transparency Database and a transparency steering committee.

However, transparency isn’t mandated, and that will be a problem for the organic sector, Loftsgard said.

“Without it being mandatory to report all GE, I think that they’re pretty futile,” she said. “All it takes is one GE-wheat leak, as we’ve already experienced, in order to affect all trade.”

A best management guide developed by Seeds Canada and CropLife Canada recommends that developers participate in voluntary transparency mechanisms.

“Each developer will make their own choices when it comes to marketing information. Their choice to specifically market a product as gene edited, especially if their product is not considered novel, will depend on the specific edit and resulting trait,” a Seeds Canada spokesperson said in a statement to the Co-operator.

“Our members support the Canadian Variety Transparency Database and are committed to ensuring it is complete and accurate,” the spokesperson said. “We encourage our members to remain in contact with the grain supply chain and national commodity associations so that our entire sector is aware of what products are entering the market.”

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“The Pest Management Challenge is an opportunity to get people talking and to encourage the adoption of resistance management best practices,” said Jennifer Hubert, an official with CropLife Canada, one of the organizations behind the Manage Resistance Now initiative.

It’s website, www. manageresistancenow.ca, offers info on best practices and recommendations for preventing or slowing herbicide, insecticide and fungicide resistance, as well as case studies.

To enter the Pest Management Challenge, which closes March 31, go to pestmanagementchallenge.ca.

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CFIA officials, however, reject the NFU’s allegation that the metadata attached to the proposal document in question may suggest plant science industry lobbyists are “effectively directing” the CFIA.

The NFU, in an Oct. 17 release, cited a report last month by Radio Canada examining a embargoed Microsoft Word document it obtained on the topic of environmental release of seed.

Under “author,” the document’s metadata names Jennifer Hubert, the same name as the executive director for plant biotechnology at plant science trade organization CropLife Canada.

The NFU on Oct. 17 called the Radio Canada report “alarming evidence of inappropriate collaboration between our public regulator and the private corporations whose products it regulates, to the point that it appears CropLife is effectively directing the CFIA.”

MORE TO READ: Seeding the future

The NFU said the document “puts forward a system that would benefit the multinational seed corporations by allowing them to release many new gene-edited seed varieties without independent government safety assessments or other government oversight, and without disclosing they are gene-edited to government or the public.”

NFU president Katie Ward, in the same release, said the regulatory guidance as proposed would “weaken public trust in our food regulatory system by preventing independent scientific evaluation by government regulators before these products are sold.”

In the NFU’s letter to Ag Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, Ward said the biotechnology companies represented by CropLife and like-minded groups “will be the main beneficiaries of regulatory guidance that excludes gene-edited plants from government safety assessments and public disclosure.”

In the guidance, “neither the concerns of farmers, nor the broader public interest have been properly addressed,” Ward wrote in the letter.

NFU’s former president Terry Boehm, in its Oct. 17 release, said CFIA is “formally committed to maintain regulatory independence from all external stakeholders” — thus the agency’s head Dr. Siddika Mithani should be replaced with “a new president who we can count on to put this value into practice at all times.”

‘Never’

Responding Thursday via email, CFIA representatives called out “inaccuracies” in the NFU’s release, emphasizing the CFIA remains “an independent, scientific and evidence-based federal regulatory agency committed to ethical transparency and accountability” and “always authors its own independent guidance and policies.”

The document, CFIA said, was developed in the wake of four months’ consultations in 2021 with the public, plant breeders, ag industry and not-for-profits.

Later consultations, CFIA said, were held with “seed and grain industry associations” including CropLife as well as plant breeders, researchers, organic industry associations and “non-government organizations” — including the NFU, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network and Vigilance OGM, all of which signed onto the NFU’s letter to Bibeau.

“After considering and then incorporating some of the stakeholder feedback on the draft guidance, the CFIA updated all its working documents within one of the returned copies,” the agency said, and the revised document then went out to stakeholders for further comment.

“For this reason, the metadata erroneously identifies the ‘author’ of this document as someone other than a CFIA employee,” CFIA said, but “in fact, the entire draft guidance document, including the proposed key directions, was written by the CFIA, incorporating some of the feedback from multiple stakeholders.”

External parties, including industry associations, “are never the authors of CFIA documents,” the agency said.

CropLife’s Hubert, for her part, is quoted in the Radio Canada report as saying she is not the author of the document but did provide “suggestions and recommendations.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on Monday released its classification of “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for 2,4-D herbicide, along with new classifications for now-defunct insecticides DDT and lindane.

Lindane, previously used in canola seed treatments under brand names such as Vitavax RS, Cloak, Foundation and Premiere, was fully phased out of use in Canada by the end of 2004. The IARC on Monday classified it as “carcinogenic to humans” with “sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity.”

DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), which was phased out of most uses by the mid-1970s, completely off the market by the end of 1990 and since prohibited from sale or use in Canada, was classified Monday as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

2,4-D, registered in Canada since 1946, has been evaluated for cancer risks in population-based case-control studies and in cohort studies of workers manufacturing and applying pesticides, the IARC said Monday.

Occupational exposures to 2,4-D come through manufacturing and application, while the “general population” can be exposed through food, water, dust and during spraying. In humans, the IARC said, 2,4-D is “eliminated largely unchanged in the urine.”

Studies involving exposure to mixed herbicides, or to herbicides containing dioxin, were “regarded as uninformative about the carcinogenicity of 2,4-D,” the IARC working group said in its report, published online in The Lancet.

A “historical cohort study” of workers at 2,4-D manufacturing plants in the U.S. showed “some indication of increased risk in the highest categories of estimated exposure,” while population-based case-control studies of 2,4-D exposure looking at lymphoma and leukemia found “mixed” results.

The IARC working group’s consensus “was that there is inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of 2,4-D, although a substantial minority considered that the evidence was limited.”

The IARC also cited a study of female mice that showed increased incidence of reticulum-cell sarcoma from “single subcutaneous injections” of the isooctyl ester of 2,4-D, and a study of male rats in which 2,4-D in the diet “induced a positive trend in the incidence of rare brain astrocytomas.”

In all, the IARC working group said it found “limited evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of 2,4-D, due to methodological concerns regarding the positive studies, although a substantial minority judged the evidence to be sufficient.”

“Mechanistic” studies — that is, studies of the product’s physical processes — showed “strong evidence” that 2,4-D induces oxidative stress that can operate in humans, plus “moderate evidence” that 2,4-D causes immunosuppression.

Putting 2,4-D in its Group 2B (“possibly carcinogenic”), the IARC said the classification was made “considering all the relevant scientific data.”

The agency has previously said its Group 2A (“probably carcinogenic”) and Group 2B (“possibly carcinogenic”) classifications have no “quantitative significance,” but added that by definition, “probably” signifies a “higher level of evidence” than “possibly.”

Dow AgroSciences, which along with Nufarm and Agro-Gor Corp. holds technical registrations on 2,4-D, retorted Monday that the IARC classification is “inconsistent with government findings” from countries including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Japan, Brazil and China, “which have for decades affirmed the safety of 2,4-D when used according to approved labeling.”

By comparison, Dow said in a release, an IARC working group “reviews an incomplete set of information to focus solely on whether a substance or activity could be a carcinogen, not whether it is a carcinogen when used under real-world circumstances.”

The IARC classification, Dow said, “should not be mischaracterized in ways that are misleading and harmful to farmers and consumers.”

John Cuffe, Dow Agro’s leader for regulatory affairs, said the IARC’s findings on 2,4-D “are not the last word even within the WHO, whose JMPR (Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues) does not consider the handling and use of approved 2,4-D herbicides to pose a cancer risk.”

“No regulatory agency in the world considers 2,4-D to be a carcinogen,” epidemiologist and toxicologist Julie Goodman, a consultant to the 2,4-D Research Task Force, said in a release from the manufacturers’ group after acting as an observer at the recent IARC meeting. “This ranking does not mean that 2,4-D causes or is even likely to cause cancer in people.”

CropLife Canada, a crop chemical industry group, added in a separate statement that the IARC “ranks things based on their potential hazard, not the actual risk that something will cause cancer.”

“No other herbicide in the world has been more thoroughly studied than 2,4-D,” CropLife Canada president Ted Menzies, a former farmer and Alberta MP, said in the same release. “Every health and safety regulator in the world, including Health Canada, has concluded that 2,4-D does not pose an unacceptable risk to human health.”

Health Canada, which last re-evaluated 2,4-D in 2009, has said the herbicide “can be used safely when used according to label directions, with some uses requiring additional protective measures.”

The federal re-evaluation led to aquatic uses of 2,4-D being phased out, and “label improvements” to reduce users’ and applicators’ exposure to the product.

The IARC working group on DDT, lindane and 2,4-D was chaired by Manolis Kogevinas of the Barcelona-based Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), and included Thomas Sanderson of the Laval, Que.-based INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier Research Centre as its lone Canadian member.

The next IARC monograph on evaluation of carcinogenic risks to humans will be a review of red meat and processed meat.

The agency is accepting relevant studies until Sept. 11, ahead of its working group’s meeting on the topic, scheduled for Oct. 6-13 in Lyon, France. — AGCanada.com Network

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The program is an initiative of Bees Matter, a group consisting of chemical and agricultural groups including CropLife Canada, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta, the Canola Council of Canada, the Canadian Seed Trade Association, and the Canadian Honey Council.

“The agricultural community recognizes the importance of pollinators, like honeybees, that are responsible for one in every three bites of food we eat,” said Greg Sekulic, the canola council’s agronomy specialist in Grande Prairie and spokesperson for Bees Matter.

“The Buzzing Gardens program is our way of helping Canadians get involved in supporting honeybees, just as the agriculture community has always done.”

A free Buzzing Gardens seed packet with enough seasonal and perennial seeds to plant a five-square-foot garden can be ordered at beesmatter.ca.

The website also offers information on “the complexity of honeybee health.”

Bee deaths have become a hot topic in recent years, and prompted the Ontario government to bring in rules that will slash use of acreage planted with neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seed by 80 per cent by 2017. That move has been widely condemned by most farm groups, which note that bee numbers are increasing nationally, particularly in the West, where neonic-treated canola seed is the norm.

“Most bee health experts agree that there is no single factor affecting honeybee health,” Bees Matter states in its Buzzing Gardens press release.

“Instead, parasites like the deadly varroa mite, diseases, harsh weather, incorrect use of pesticides, and inadequate nutrition all affect honeybee colonies.”

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Developed by a group of seed industry professionals, the guide offers best management practices for insecticide- and fungicide-treated seed. It is designed to complement CropLife Canada’s seed treatment operations standards, which provide uniform health and safety practises for the storage and handling of seed treatment products in Canada.

It may also be helpful for those making operational decisions on the stewardship of seed enhanced with biological, inoculants, fertilizers, or functional seed coatings such as polymers.

The new guide expands on the storage and handling guidelines developed in 2005 to encompass transportation, use and disposition, said Dale Adolphe, executive director of the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association.

“We encourage seed growers and commercial producers to familiarize themselves and adopt these important stewardship practices,” said Adolphe.

“We strongly advise those who handle, transport, and use treated seed to implement the best management practices found in the guide,” added Dave Baute, president of the Canadian Seed Trade Association, which partnered with the seed growers’ association to develop the guide.

It is available at seedgrowers.ca and cdnseed.org.

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“Habitat loss is caused by farm consolidation and wetland drainage, as well as taking new land into production,” said Greg Sekulic, a Peace Region-based agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada and a member of the Habitat Working Group.

“Farm consolidation, which involves taking out fencerows between previously existing fields, is a huge thing in southern Saskatchewan. And GPS-based drainage programs can take out seasonal wetlands that are repositories of biodiversity,” he said.

Wooded tree areas, windrows and shelterbelts are disappearing as drainage becomes more efficient, resulting in a huge loss of habitat. Discussion about these issues inspired a group of concerned industry representatives to form the Habitat Working Group at last year’s Pollinators and Agriculture symposium in Saskatoon. Group members include Ducks Unlimited Canada, Pulse Canada, CropLife Canada, the Pollinator Partnership and the Canadian Fertilizer Institute.

The industry-led national working group is focused on finding and disseminating data on habitat conservation and how it impacts beneficial species. Instead of one group leading the charge, the working group is pooling resources and working with other commodity groups to spread the word and influence necessary research and extension.

“One thing we want to do is find out exactly what habitat is required and what types of plant species are required to be hospitable to beneficial insects in crops,” said Sekulic.

When the group met this April, it shared literature and resources, and it will be pushing to have research done to quantify the benefits of habitat conservation to the ecosystem and to an individual operation on a per-acre basis. The group is also looking into research on the importance of creating beetle buffers, and maintaining beneficial carabid beetles on the landscape. The working group will be disseminating this information to various commodity groups.

An extra day has been added to the Canola Discovery Forum, to be held in Canmore in October, for a special research workshop with agronomists, ecologists and entomologists to discuss studies on yield and ecological benefits of maintaining habitat.

What producers can do right now

“Producers should really be thinking about maintaining their critical biodiversity on their farmscape, because these things are hugely important on a landscape level. Farmers sometimes underestimate what their impact is on landscape diversity. Taking out a couple of low spots doesn’t seem like much, until you aggregate what is happening all across Western Canada. We really want guys to be cognizant of that,” said Sekulic.

Maintaining habitat beside cropland can have a benefit for crop yields. Many of the sustainable agriculture certification initiatives feature an emphasis on conserving habitat and landscape biodiversity.

Producers can do many small things to conserve habitat. Canola produces nectar and pollen in July, but there aren’t a lot of other nectar-bearing sources in Western Canada during the rest of the growing season. Many parasitic wasps that feed on pest species require flowering plants to complete their life cycle.

Sekulic recommends that producers skip the second herbicide pass to leave a few kilograms per acre of flowering and native weed biomass out in the crop — not enough to affect yield, but enough to help beneficial insects complete their life cycle.

All of the group members will be advocating against the prophylactic use of insecticide.

When a producer sprays an unnecessary product into a wheat or canola crop, they could be killing the beneficial parasitoids that preyed on the pests that infested last year’s crop. The field across the road will then miss out on some valuable parasitic species.

Keeping trees and wet areas in the landscape can preserve water receptacles. Shelterbelts and tree bluffs slow down wind and let snow pile up, keeping moisture on the landscape.

“If you’re taking out a tree bluff that is in the way, consider relocating it instead of eliminating it entirely, so you give species a chance to complete their life cycles,” said Sekulic.

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