Margaret Munro, National Post via Agnet Dec 29/05

Saskatchewan farmer Michael Kirk has, according to this story, a virtually invincible variety of wheat stashed in his bins ready for planting next spring.

The wheat, known by the name CDC Imagine, stands straight even in high winds and unlike many varieties is not prone to losing its seeds in bad weather.

The story says that CDC Imagine has been genetically altered so it keeps growing when sprayed with herbicides that normally make wheat shrivel up and die, the first herbicide-tolerant wheat in Canada.

Perhaps even more remarkable, the story says, this high-tech wheat has avoided the wrath of farmers, environmentalists, consumers and marketers who drove Monsanto's herbicide-tolerant wheat out of Canada in 2004. The opposition was based on fears about possible human health hazards, increased weed resistance and fears of corporate control over important crops.

CDC Imagine has taken root on the Prairies with little protest. More than 200,000 acres of the wheat were grown in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 2005. And BASF Canada, which produces CDC Imagine, has now applied to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for permission to grow three more types of herbicide tolerant wheat.

Stephen Yarrow, director of CFIA's plant biosafety office, was cited as saying they all have the same "novel trait," but protests are "not even on the radar scree."

The reason is that BASF -- the world's largest chemical company, based in Germany -- created its wheat using a gene-altering process called mutagenesis, which is much more palatable to foreign markets and the Canadian Wheat Board than Monsanto's genetically modified creation.

The story explains that mutagenesis entails blasting seeds or cells with radiation or bathing them in chemicals to cause mutations in a plant's existing genes. Plant breeders have used the process for decades to create new flower colours or better barley for beer making. BASF used chemicals to create the mutation that protects CDC Imagine from herbicides.

Some say it doesn't really matter whether the plants are created through genetic engineering and mutagenesis.
Mr. Yarrow was quoted as saying, "The risks to the environment are exactly the same."

But the distinction has given BASF free rein to market CDC Imagine as "the first and only non-genetically modified" herbicide-tolerant wheat in Canada.

The wheat has been embraced by the Canadian Wheat Board, which led the protests against Monsanto wheat out of a fear the GM wheat might end up co-mingling or contaminating regular wheat, and prompt offshore customers to boycott all Canadian wheat.

Maureen Fitzhenry, media relations manager at the Canadian Wheat Board, was quoted as saying, "We have no concern with the BASF wheat, because it's not GM," (yes it is -- dp) adding that the board's job is to market wheat and it must respond to consumers in many parts of Asia and Europe who are anti-GM food products.

Kent Jennings, manager of biotechnology and toxicology at BASF Canada, was cited as saying that to create herbicide tolerant wheat, BASF scientists bathe seeds in a chemical that induces change in gene sequences, and they then grow the wheat and spray it with herbicide. The survivors have the desired mutation.

A single genetic change or mutation is all it takes to create imidazolinone tolerance.

CFIA has ruled that the gene change poses "no significant" risk to the environment or to animal or human health and approved its use in spring wheat, such as CDC-Imagine, which is used to make bread.