As in Thailand, the bad-idea virus means agricultural officials are willing to risk severe economic consequences in their desperation to push forward this technology.

As Darrin Qualman of the National Farmers Union says, "Our customers have been very clear that there will be tremendous market loss."
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Feds secretly working on GM wheat: Greenpeace
CBC, Sep 15 2004
http://winnipeg.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=mb_wheat20040915

WINNIPEG - It appears Agriculture Canada is still working on genetically modified wheat.

Greenpeace officials say documents obtained through the Access to Information Act reveal an agreement with the biotechnology company, Syngenta.

The agreement has federal researchers conducting field trials of genetically modified wheat at three secret locations in Western Canada this year.

The wheat in question is resistant to a fungus called fusarium, which makes infected crops inedible.

Darrin Qualman of the National Farmers Union says Ottawa should stop the trials immediately. "Our customers have been very clear that there will be tremendous market loss," he said.

"And the irony would be a fusarium resistant wheat might give us some slight increase in supply, but it would also bring out [ie take out] a huge increase in demand. In the face of that, the price effects are very predictable."

Qualman says rather than conducting field trials into genetically modified wheat, federal reserachers should look at developing a fusarium-resistant wheat through more conventional breeding methods.

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