Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz, has declared at the House of Commons on December 5th that “There is a global movement to move toward 1% (low level presence of non authorized GMO), which of course will not hurt organics. It is actually there to protect organics to make sure we all ship in the same containers and we all ship on the same ocean-going freight. It is a matter of making sure that organics are protected when there is a crossover like that. We are doing the right thing. We are consulting with everybody who is involved and we will gazette the answers in due course.”

The OFC has issued a news release (below) urging the Canadian government to consult the whole population, not only the biotechnology lobby, to establish practices that will assure that organic agriculture and organic foods are not affected by any level of GMOs.

In the meantime, any Canadian organic stakeholder can be part of the AAFC consultation by signing in on the CBAN website http://cban.ca/content/view/full/1133 and sending a letter (a template is offered) to the Hon. Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health, and to the Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz, to convince them about the damages that LLP can cause to the organic sector.