The proportion of corn and soybean fields seeded with genetically modified varieties to resist pesticides has reached an all-time high in Quebec.
Posted at 5:00 am
In 2022, 81% of the province’s 747,900 hectares of grain corn and soybeans were grown using genetically modified organisms (GMOs), according to the latest figures released by the Institut de la statistique du Québec.
This is a slight increase from the shares recorded over the past five years, but a spectacular jump from 2007 when the rate was closer to 51%. Since their introduction into Quebec’s agricultural system in the 1990s, the use of GMOs has followed a trend that continues to grow.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESS ARCHIVE
Thibault Rehn, coordinator of the environmental group Vigilance OGM
“We find it worrying to see more and more GMOs being grown in Quebec, because when we talk about GMOs, we’re also talking about pesticides,” said Thibault Rehn, coordinator of the Environmental Vigilance GMO group.
The latter points out that the 196 countries gathered at the World Summit on Biodiversity in Montreal are currently discussing the idea of setting a global target for the reduction of pesticides, which are particularly highlighted because of their harmful impact on ecosystems.
“At COP15, one of the proposed targets is to reduce at least half or two-thirds of the use of pesticides […]. All of these plants are designed to tolerate one or more herbicides, which will increase herbicide use in the long term, as we can see from Quebec sales statistics. »
Two types of GMOs
There are two main categories of GMO seeds. The first includes crops resistant to herbicides such as glyphosate, often referred to as Roundup-ready seeds (Roundup is one of the brands that glyphosate is sold under).
Herbicides are pesticides used to control weeds in fields. They can be used alongside genetically engineered seeds to survive spraying with the chemical that kills all other plants.
The second category includes BT corn seeds, related to Bacillus thuringiensis, a natural bacterium from which a gene has been extracted that allows the control of several insect pests.
The President of the Producteurs de grains du Québec, Christian Overbeek, claims that BT corn makes it possible to reduce the use of certain insecticides. Insecticides are pesticides that aim to kill, repel, or paralyze insects.
In doing so, we continue to improve our productivity while responding to calls to slightly reduce the use of certain pesticides, including ones we know to be more dangerous than others: insecticides. It is the genetics of plants that allow us to do this.
Christian Overbeek, President of Grain Producers of Quebec
According to the Canadian Corn Pest Coalition, which brings together industry stakeholders and researchers, 23 types of BT corn were available in the country as of April 2022. These GMO strains can be used to control European corn borer, leaf beetle, cutworm, earworm or armyworm.
” That, [la tendance], this is called stacking. We sell new corn hybrids with eight traits: meaning you can have resistance to two herbicides and then six different traits of BT, all of which are a little bit different,” explains agronomist Mathieu Leduc of McGill University’s MacDonald Campus. “What is certain is that there is a surcharge for the seed. The producer, on the other hand, buys simplicity and a certain guarantee of success,” he explains.
Soy responsible for the increase in 2022
Most notably, the cultivation of GM soybeans has seen a notable surge in 2022: 74% of the 386,800 hectares of soybeans grown in Quebec in 2022 were planted with GM seeds. A record. In 2021 it was more like 67% of the areas.
“The proportion has increased somewhat due to market conditions,” explains Christian Overbeek. “There are growers who have given up or reduced acreage for non-GM soybeans because the GM soybeans find buyers at prices that end up giving a better bottom line for the grower,” he adds.
Grain corn — the second most important crop in Quebec after hay — was on 88% of GM-planted acreage in 2022, slightly below the 2019 and 2020 peaks recorded at 92%, but up significantly since 2007, when the proportion stood at 52%. Grain corn is used to feed livestock and to make ethanol.
There is also genetically modified canola, but Quebec has not collected data on GMO areas since 2003.
From an ecological point of view, these monocultures mean not only GMOs, but also a reduction in biodiversity in our landscape. And of course, the massive use of pesticides means the destruction of pollinators and [la possibilité] that it enters our waters.
Thibault Rehn, coordinator of the environmental group Vigilance OGM
herbicide tolerance
Glyphosate is the world’s best-selling herbicide. Agronomist Mathieu Leduc points out that this product, which gets bad press, also has good sides.
It made farmers’ work easier. It is also a less toxic herbicide than certain products that were used prior to its emergence, such as B. Atrazine. It also allows the use of the semi-direct technique, which is beneficial for soil health. This method makes it possible to avoid plowing, a process that uses a lot of fossil fuels. It also encourages winter cover crop build-up that counteracts erosion and over-fertilization.
People are often obsessed with glyphosate, but when you look at the sales numbers, they are [de pesticides] In 2020, when we had COVID, he ran out of glyphosate. People used other substitutes that were more toxic to the environment.
Mathieu Leduc, agronomist
On the other hand, according to the agronomist, more and more weeds have developed resistance to this herbicide.
According to the Sage Pesticides inventory developed by the Quebec government, there were at least five weeds resistant to glyphosate as of October 2022.
” [L’ennui]is that we use so much Roundup that these plants are only gaining ground,” says Mathieu Leduc.
As a result, farmers are now sometimes advised to mix two herbicides in the tank of their spreaders. “It’s like antibiotics. It’s a race forward to always try to outrun the resistance. It’s not sustainable in the long run,” he says.
The solution ? “It would be really good if people could go back to other methods, have a toolbox with multiple methods, and chemical tools and genetically modified organisms were just one tool instead of the only one,” he replies.