This high-tech whodunit has regulators scratching their heads to figure out how a known glyphosate-resistance gene from Monsanto got into an unknown variety of wheat hundreds of kilometres from the nearest test site.

And to make matters even more confounding, the find comes nearly 20 years after the last known test using the gene in question.

How the gene got where it was found last summer has been much on the minds of staff at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the body leading the investigation.

“It’s a very good question, and one that we have asked ourselves,” David Bailey, director of the agency’s plant production division, said in a media briefing.

Monsanto Canada, which was developing glyphosate-tolerant GM wheat in the late 1990s and early 2000s in partnership with Agriculture Canada, is co-operating with CFIA, but the company hasn’t been able to independently verify CFIA’s findings, said spokesperson Trish Jordan.

What’s odd is the specific GM trait (called an ‘event’ in biotech lingo) that CFIA found was dropped by Monsanto in 2000 in favour of other ‘events’ it planned to commercialize, Jordan said.

“It is an event we did field trial research on,” she said. “But the last time we did any research on the germplasm that we were given, which was a hard red spring wheat, was 2000. How do you get six or seven wheat plants showing up in 2017?

“It doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t happen through cross-pollination. It shouldn’t happen by windblown pollen. It’s just not in the right spot.”

CFIA is just as puzzled.

“The field trials for these were done many hundreds of kilometres away from the discovery site and many years ago so there is no relationship between that given field trial and this particular discovery and this particular location,” Bailey said. “I cannot speculate further in terms of where it may have originated.”

Noticed and tested

The process leading to the discovery began last summer. A commercial herbicide applicator reported wheat plants along an access in southern Alberta had survived a glyphosate treatment. Provincial scientists grew new seedlings for those plants and confirmed they were indeed resistant to glyphosate. The province then notified the CFIA, and its laboratory tests again confirmed the wheat was genetically modified.

With assistance from Monsanto, CFIA was able to conclusively determine that the Alberta GM wheat is not a genetic match to previous unapproved GM wheat releases in the U.S. (in Oregon in 2013, and Montana and Washington in 2014 and 2016, respectively).

“These incidents involved GM wheat lines that are genetically different from the GM wheat found in Alberta,” the CFIA report says. “There is no evidence linking Canada’s GM wheat finding to previous United States cases. Similar to Canada’s finding, GM wheat cases in the United States were isolated incidents, and GM wheat did not enter commerce.”

Unknown origin

It’s also strange that while CFIA has a genetic “fingerprint” of the Alberta GM wheat, it doesn’t know its name.

“The GM wheat has a genetic background that does not match any currently registered wheat in Canada,” Heather Shearer, CFIA’s acting national manager of plant biosafety, told reporters.

“Between the CFIA and the CGC (Canadian Grain Commission), we have approximately 450 wheat varieties on file. This is not a match for any of those 450 wheat varieties.”

The wheats Monsanto experimented with in Canada were AAFC varieties, said Jordon, adding AAFC was also adding Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistance gene to its own wheats. In either case CFIA would know the names of those wheats and could identify them.

The answer could be simpler than it first seems. The unknown wheat is likely an obscure variety Monsanto was working with in the early stages of developing Roundup Ready wheat, said Rene Van Acker, a weed scientist at the University of Guelph who has experimented with Roundup Ready wheat. The variety was Bobwhite, developed by CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) in Mexico.

However, a Canadian Grain Commission official says the mystery wheat is not Bobwhite.

It’s also unlikely Monsanto’s gene outcrossed because gene pollen is heavy and doesn’t go far, wheat is self-pollinating and Monsanto did an excellent job of monitoring its Roundup Ready wheat trials, Van Acker said.

Not knowing how this GM wheat got to where it was found is a concern, said the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, an opponent of genetic engineering.

“We’re relieved this is an isolated contamination case but we’re concerned that the government couldn’t determine how it happened,” network spokesperson Lucy Sharratt said in a news release. “Without knowing the cause, contamination could happen again.”

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Among the council’s priority issues are pushing Ottawa to take a leadership role in completing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. The organization has also been working the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to resolve issues in regard to CETA, the trade deal with Europe.

Canadian pork producers export about 70 per cent of their production, about $3.8 billion worth in 2016.

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“We are concerned that to date very few producers are enrolling their cattle in the EU program,” the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association said in a recent edition of its e-newsletter.

“We believe that most are taking a wait-and-see approach to whether the access to the EU market will be genuine and whether the prices for EU-eligible cattle will justify the expense of raising them.”

There are a few reasons for the slow uptake, said Doug Sawyer, a Pine Lake-area cow-calf operator and backgrounder who is vice-chair of foreign trade with the CCA.

“One is that we haven’t got the technical trade barriers with the EU worked out yet to actually move the volume that we’re allowed to,” he said.

One of those barriers has to do with processing, as Canadian plants use a citrus wash and an acid wash that is not approved by Europe.

“We’ve got to get some of those types of things worked out in order to be able to take advantage of that market,” said Sawyer.

Another reason is a lack of Canadian Food Inspection Agency veterinarians certified to handle the program and get producers on board.

“You have to have your farm certified prior to your calves being born to get them into that marketplace,” said Sawyer, adding the cost of verification comes out of the producer’s pocketbook. “It does cost us more money to be under their requirements than what it does in our normal production system.”

Still, the EU is an extremely valuable market, estimated to be worth as much as $600 million annually to Canadian beef producers.

Sawyer isn’t selling into the European Union yet, but his cattle are EU verified.

“I’m optimistic that by next year’s cow crop, we’ll be eligible and there will be a growing market for them there,” he said.

The European Union also has strict guidelines about hormones and implants, but Sawyer says that’s not a major concern to Canadian cattle producers because most don’t use these products.

“Producers who don’t, like myself, can be on the system and it doesn’t cost us anything but the certification process,” he said.

If the market sends a strong price signal, more producers will come on board, he added.

“If the money is there, we’ll be standing right there.”

The Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), which came into effect Sept. 21, has an initial duty-free quota of 9,300 tonnes of fresh beef and 2,500 tonnes of frozen beef. That will increase to 14,440 tonnes of fresh and 5,000 tonnes of frozen beef next year and will continue to rise until the annual duty-free amount hits 35,000 tonnes and 15,000 tonnes respectively in 2022.

If exports to Europe hit those levels it would help grow the Canadian cow herd, said Sawyer.

Officials from the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association have met with International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay to push for a resolution of the trade barriers and put more CFIA vets in place for the certification process.

“I think the signal will be to producers, as we’re making progress on those technical trade barriers, or if we have them resolved, now we can take advantage of that very valuable market. I think you’ll see a huge lift at that time,” Sawyer said.

The EU along with China are two critical pieces in boosting beef exports, he said.

“If we can achieve a premium in them, that makes carcass utilization much bigger,” he said. “We’ll be able to utilize full carcasses between those two markets at a premium price and it makes them much more viable for the producers to add that extra input cost to get them there,” he said.

CCA officials will also be meeting EU officials in Brussels next month.

“I think it is vital from an industry perspective that we be there to outline what these trade barriers mean,” said Sawyer.

Because so many producers are confused by the EU certification process, the CCA has created a series of videos and posted them on its website.

Although late enrolment is possible, most beef heading to Europe will come from cattle enrolled at birth in a program that certifies they haven’t received any “growth-enhancing products.”

“Producers who enrol their operations in the program this fall will be calving EU-eligible cattle in winter/spring 2018,” the cattlemen’s association said. “Those cattle, raised without growth promotants, will take longer to raise and so would not be market ready until late 2019 or early 2020.

“This anticipated time frame coincides with the period in which CCA believes the conditions could be established to encourage the larger Canadian packers to enter the market.”

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The “weak” positive sample was found in a trailer during routine monitoring several weeks ago.

“What it means for us is that we are still being exposed to the PED virus through animal transport,” said Dr. Egan Brockhoff, a swine veterinarian with Prairie Swine Health Services in Red Deer.

“Just like we’ve said all along, we think animal transport and contaminated transport are our greatest risk in the province of Alberta. This just underscores that.”

Porcine epidemic diarrhea is a viral disease that causes vomiting, diarrhea, and high death loss in pigs. While reasonably controlled in Canada, it is endemic in the United States, and half of the entire American sow herd is infected. The disease has been in Canada for three years and while Alberta found a positive sample for the disease at a pig-handling facility in 2014, has never reported an infected herd.

• Read more: University of Saskatchewan develops vaccine for PED

The recent positive sample was discovered in a trailer that hauled sows from Manitoba to the U.S. The trailer was washed and disinfected in the States; loaded with commercial equipment; and hauled back to Manitoba before entering Alberta, where the positive sample was found during a routine weekly monitoring check.

“We notified the industry; we washed and disinfected the trailer again; and resampled it and it has since tested negative,” said Brockhoff, who developed the swine industry’s weekly PEDv monitoring network.

The sows hauled from Manitoba to the United States were all from negative herds, but the contamination could have occurred at any one of several spots along the way, including the Manitoba assembly yard (which had previously been exposed to PEDv) and the processing plant that accepted the sows.

However, the incident will further heighten fears the culprit was the American truck wash.

Many U.S. truck washes use recycled water, which can harbour the virus. During the height of the U.S. epidemic, pig transport trailers coming from the U.S. had to be washed and disinfected at Canadian truck washes. But over the strenuous objections of the Canadian pork industry, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has since lifted that requirement. Last month, Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay refused requests to overrule the CFIA, leading the head of the Manitoba Pork Council to describe the situation as a “time bomb.”

It’s a reminder to Alberta producers that maintaining proper biosecurity is critical, said Brockhoff.

“This instance underscores that the pork industry is a North American pork industry, and we’ve got animal movement north and south and east and west,” he said. “There’s no such thing as zero risk — as long as PEDv exists somewhere in the pork industry in North America, we are always at risk of bringing this virus into Canada and into Alberta.”

To reduce the possibility of the disease, swine producers need to properly wash, disinfect and dry their trailers with a thermal assist, before the trailers visit or return to their farms. Swine producers need to follow proper biosecurity protocols when entering or exiting their farms and pig barns. Any transport entering a swine farm should obey correct biosecurity protocols, which include the use of boot covers and proper disposal of potential contaminants.

“We can’t think we’ve got this beat,” said Brockhoff. “Manitoba had new cases this spring. This trailer found positive in Alberta is just a reminder to us that the virus is out there and we have to be very conscious with our biosecurity at all times.”

The virus has been found in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and P.E.I.

“With the exception of Ontario, every other region has been able to control it, and Ontario is doing a great job and continues to work towards complete eradication,” said Brockhoff.

Although the virus is widespread in the U.S., the American industry has done a lot to control the spread of the virus.

“The spread is still continuing to occur, but it’s one step forward, one step back, instead of the virus spreading like wildfire,” said Brockhoff. “They’re holding their own now.”

The post Another close call for Alberta’s hog sector appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“This is just from my perspective, but we have always had early adopters — the people who believe in it — but there have never been clear market signals,” said Cecilie Fleming, chair of the committee that revamped the original VBP program.

“People did it just because it was the right thing to do. Now we’re getting market signals that the end-users are looking for those attributes. No longer can we say what we’re doing — they are asking us to demonstrate what we’re doing.”

VBP Plus builds off the original Verified Beef Production, which focused on on-farm food safety. The new, voluntary program — open to cow-calf producers, backgrounders and feedlots owners — contains modules that address animal care, biosecurity, and environmental sustainability. It is part of the Canadian Cattlemen’s programming, approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and meets the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef’s recently drafted indicators for sustainable beef.

The rollout of VBP Plus also seems timely, since retailers such as Earls Restaurants and McDonald’s have recently put an emphasis on sourcing sustainable beef. But the timing is coincidental as VBP Plus has been in development since 2013.

“This is part of the push to define sustainable beef and our program is one of the programs that can make that happen,” said Fleming, who raises Angus seedstock near Granum. “My phone, and the provincial co-ordinator’s phone, has been ringing off the hook. Before this was coming, people knew it was coming and they wanted it, especially after a lot of discussion and social media came to light with Earls.

“There was evidence that we didn’t really have a full robust program and now we do. It’s not in reaction to Earls — it’s just our timing.”

Consumers’ growing interest in how cattle are raised means food retailers and the food-service sector are also interested in sustainable beef, said the national manager of VBP Plus.

“This gives us the opportunity to tell them what we’re doing,” said Terry Grajczyk, a producer from Zihner, Sask. “We hope producers understand that this is not a make-work project. This is the customer saying they want to know.”

VBP Plus will “mirror” the standards being developed by the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, added Fleming.

“We are working in tandem and following the indicators are in all of our processes,” she said. “If we find gaps, we’ll address the gaps. We want to be there and be a program that meets the needs of the CRSB.”

How it works

VBP Plus is a national program administered by each province and was built off the National Beef Code of Practice, national biosecurity standards, and components of each province’s Environmental Farm Plan. Any producer who has taken VBP will have to sign up to take the additional modules.

“What we tell producers is, ‘Take a look at what it is and make sure you understand what it isn’t,’” said Grajczyk. “If you want to pick up the voluntary audit, you can.”

Some beef programs require an audit, and that option is available to anyone in the program. Many producers find that they need to make some adjustments to their operation once they have gone through the audit.

“It’s a voluntary program, but some retailers and wholesalers are saying that they would like producers on this (audited) program,” said Grajczyk. “If producers get themselves educated on the implementation and the outcome, they will be able to meet the needs of some buyers down the road.”

Producers, industry professionals, scientists, and members of the sustainable beef roundtable were involved in the development of VBP Plus.

There are two types of ways that producers can be involved with the program — the first level is classed as “trained” and the second as “registered.”

Nearly 20,000 operations across the country are trained in the original VBP, and between 1,300 and 1,400 are already fully registered in VBP Plus (which means that they have gone through an audit). Producers on the program have to maintain a certain level of record-keeping, complete self-assessments, and be open to voluntary audits, but they are not subjected to third-party audits every year.

The fee for VBP Plus ranges from $400 to $750, depending on the complexity of the operation audited. The fees pay for the cost of the audits.

Producers who want to participate need to get a copy of the producer manual and follow the summary checklist, which defines the outcome of the program. Any producer who has gone through the McDonald’s pilot program will already meet many of the VBP Plus requirements.

“There’s no question that in the last four to five years, if you listen to a market expert, that the market has become increasingly interested in what we do at the farm level,” said Grajczyk. “This will sort of demonstrate what gets done.”

For more information and details on how the program works, go to verifiedbeefproductionplus.com and click on the Registration or the Forms and Manuals tabs.

The post New verified beef program makes a timely debut appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Devil’s trumpet — also called jimsonweed — has been confirmed in Barrhead, Leduc, and Westlock counties, but how it got there and how widespread the problem is remains a mystery.

“It would only be complete speculation on my part,” said Curtis Rempel, vice-president of crop production and innovation for the Canola Council of Canada.

“I have no idea what the distribution is like in other fields in the area. The best thing I can say right now is that we’re studying it and trying to figure out how we got to where we are at right now.”

The common denominator seems to be fields seeded to canola this year and last, but that has yet to be confirmed.

“Where we’re finding it right now is in canola. They’re trying to verify where the seed has come from, but nothing is confirmed yet,” said Barrhead County’s agriculture fieldman Marilyn Flock, adding devil’s trumpet has been found in two fields in the county as of Sept. 8.

“Producers should check fields from last year that had canola in them. Even if it’s not into canola this year, still keep a lookout if the field’s in wheat or another crop.”

It’s the same story in Leduc County, where the weed was found in one field, and Westlock County, where four fields have been affected.

“It has been found in canola fields, but it has also been found where canola was grown in 2014,” said Jacolyn Tigert, manager of agricultural services for Westlock County.

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are investigating how the weed seeds got into the fields, said Rempel. Neither Alberta Agriculture nor the CFIA were available for comment at press time.

Producers should “look for the distribution” of weeds if they find devil’s trumpet in their fields, said Rempel.

“Are you finding it in one pocket in a low spot? Are you seeing it fairly infrequently but in an even distribution across the field? Does it look like it was blown at an angle across parts of the field? Does it look like it moved in with a rainfall event or corner flooding? Are there lots of plants clumped in an area or is it very sporadic?” he said.

“That would give us a good indication (of where it came from.)”

Easy to spot

Devil’s trumpet is “a very easy plant to identify” because of its height, said Tigert.

“The plant is very tall. It’s typically around four to six feet, so right now, it’s above the canopy of the crop,” she said. “Producers are picking it out very easily.”

The plants have thick red or purple stems, with large pointed leaves and white and purple trumpet-shaped flowers. The seed pods are egg shaped and spiny, and each plant has between 20 and 40 pods.

Each pod contains up to 700 seeds, which could cause serious problems if the weeds reach maturity.

“The main concern right now is the maturity of the plants. The seed pod could mature, explode, and spread the seeds,” said Tigert.

Producers need to “catch it right now to nip it in the bud,” said Flock.

“It may be only a few plants, but if the seed pods mature and explode, now you’ve got 600 or 700 seeds per pod, so you want to try to get it before you have that seed source,” she said.

“Sometimes if you bury that seed, it can last in the ground for up to 20 years. Hopefully, you can get them out before you have more plants that produce mature seeds.”

Highly poisonous

Devil’s trumpet is highly poisonous to both livestock and humans if ingested or inhaled.

“It’s very dangerous because low levels of it can result in death for livestock and humans,” said Tigert.

But it poses “very, very low risk” when processed with canola, said Rempel.

“The views of the Canola Council at this point in time are that there wouldn’t be concerns, just based on dilution factors,” he said. “We don’t know how much of the weed seed would actually be in a canola shipment if it’s been lying in a swath for three weeks, but based on the fact that the pod likes to explode fairly quickly, I would think that the risk would be reduced.”

As well, the heating process in canola oil and meal processing denatures toxic alkaloids, so there isn’t a health concern in processed canola products, he said.

Because all parts of the plant are poisonous, producers should exercise extreme caution when handling it.

“Go out in gloves and a long-sleeved shirt, hand pull it, and bag it right away. That’s the best line of defence right now,” said Tigert.

“From there, it should be taken to the landfill, and it can be buried.”

The plants can also be incinerated, but do so carefully, cautioned Flock.

“You want to make sure you’re not breathing in the smoke.”

Producers should report any suspected sightings of devil’s trumpet or any other unidentified weed to their agriculture services board or municipal fieldman.

“As with any plant that they don’t recognize, they should have somebody either come out and look at it, or pull it up with gloves on, put it in a bag, and bring it in so people can identify it for them,” said Flock.

“If you don’t recognize it, it’s better to find out what that stuff is before it becomes a major problem for you. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

But at this point, producers shouldn’t panic, said Rempel.

“We don’t want to overreact. We don’t want to underreact,” he said.

“We want to keep everything in perspective and contain the weed in the fields that we find it in. We’re looking at containment and control and careful management going forward.”

The post Poisonous weed found in Alberta canola fields appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We are extremely concerned about this because essentially we’re going to be sending trailers to be firehose washed at some point in the U.S. where they will probably pick up some PED virus and will be adding to the viral load that our producers currently have to deal with in this province,” Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council, said during a recent Alberta Pork telephone town hall.

As of Oct. 1, trucks returning to Canada after dropping swine off in the U.S. will be required to be disinfected and cleaned at American facilities before entering Canada. Previously, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency allowed these trucks to be sealed in the U.S. and disinfected once in Manitoba. Most of the swine carriers pass through Manitoba, but with no wash required when trucks pass between provinces, the threat applies to all three Prairie provinces.

“If no further washing or disinfecting of trucks is done in Canada before the truck is being brought to an Albertan farm, there will be significantly higher risk for Alberta producers,” said Dickson.

Manitoba has had five cases of PEDv — with none in the rest of Western Canada — but it’s endemic in the U.S., with about half of its sow herd infected.

The problem is that there are few truck washes along the major U.S. highways used by livestock truckers. And they have poor water quality, and lower standards for cleaning and disinfection.

“Many of them couldn’t handle the types of trailers that we were sending down to the U.S. because they had bedding material in them and a lot of U.S. transporters don’t use bedding material,” said Dickson.

A recent study found few American truck washes on major transportation routes were able to meet the wash, disinfect and dry standards recommended by the Canadian Swine Health Board. Since February of 2014, Canadian Border Services has been tagging empty livestock trailers and submitting the tag numbers to the CFIA.

“Then the trailers would proceed to a certified wash station in Canada and be washed and disinfected according to rules laid out by the Canadian Swine Health Board,” said Dickson.

“This had worked relatively well for the last 18 months. You can see from the number of cases that we got in Manitoba, that we had relatively few cases compared to other parts of Canada and compared to the United States.”

But in early 2015, the CFIA said it had a legal obligation to maintain the old regulations and was going to discontinue the tag system. Transports returning from American farms will now have to be washed and disinfected in the U.S., while transports returning from American processing facilities will only have to be scraped out. The province of Manitoba tried to negotiate a deal to administer the program, but the negotiations were fruitless.

“Essentially CFIA demanded that the province accept full liability for introduction of all farm animal diseases into Canada,” said Dickson. “The province is not financially in a position to do that.”

The Manitoba Pork Council has proposed detailed, amended regulations on truck washing to reduce the risk of PEDv catching a ride north on transport trailers. Pork organizations, including Alberta Pork, are urging producers to speak to their MP about the threat.

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