The Ram's Horn #175, December 1999
Clean Spuds
by Brewster Kneen
McCain Foods, the world's largest French fry maker, announced at the end of November that it will not buy genetically engineered (Bt) potatoes starting next year.
Based in Florenceville, New Brunswick, McCain's also has processing facilities in Manitoba and Alberta. McCain's chairman, Harrison McCain, said the decision was made after months of pressure from consumers. "We think genetically modified material is very good science (but) at the moment, very bad public relations," McCain said. "We've got too many people worried about eating the product and we're in the business of giving our customers what they want, not what we think they should have."
This decision is not a surprise to the National Farmers Union in New Brunswick, who are on record opposing the use of GE potatoes and have been trying (unsuccessfully) since last summer to get a speaker from Monsanto to discuss the issue. McCain's have been segregating the GE potatoes allalong, they say. Still, the move is a windfall for local potato seed producers, who have seen the price for GE-free seed jump to 15c per pound, as farmers who have been growing a little of the GE varieties (often at the edges of their fields, to provide some 'protection' to the main crop) fear that their farm-saved seed may be contaminated. Harry Fraser's potato newsletter, the local authority, reports that McCain's are going to be very strict about testing at every point.
McCain's may also have wanted to distance itself from the deal-making between Monsanto and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Using the Access to Information Act, Ottawa information sleuth Ken Rubin obtained a memo written by George Patterson, former director of Health Canada's Food Directorate, and addressed to John Dosseter, a senior aide for Health Minister Allan Rock. The memo outlined a deal made last spring whereby two new varieties of GE potatoes would be speedily approved by the CFIA in exchange for information that Monsanto was supposed to have provided, but refused to, in the first place. Publication of the memo coincided with McCain's announcement.
Farmers are now wondering if McCain's will go all the way and insist on GE-free canola oil in the manufacture of their french fries too.
Less than one per cent of the crops, or about 110 hectares, produced for consumption in New Brunswick in 1999 were genetically modified, according to the provincial Agriculture Department. McCain's Manitoba plant at Portage la Prairie has not accepted any GE potatoes, while Midwest Food Products in Carberry (Nestlâ Canada) has accepted GE potatoes, taking about 90% of the 1348 acresgrown in the province in 1999, or 4% of the total volume (70,000 acres) of potatoes grown. Now Midwest has announced that it will no longer accept Bt potatoes either.
In Alberta, the 150 growers of commercial and seed potatoes in the province grew about 10,000 acres of seed potatoes and 25,000 acres of commercial potatoes in 1999. Less than 100 acres of Bt potatoes were planted by one commercial grower and that was only because there was a shortage of conventional seed available at the time.
(GM, 29/11/99; Edm. Journal, 30/11/99; MC, 2/12/99)
By 1996 McCain Foods Ltd was the world's largest french fry maker. It had sales of $4.1 billion and 22% of the global market, with 50 plants in 10 countries. The largest french fry maker in the US, and its biggest competitor, was Lamb-Weston, a unit of ConAgra. In 1997 McCain Foods Ltd bought the food service division of Ore-Ida Foods Inc from H.J.Heinz Co for $500 million. This purchase put McCain's into second place behind Lamb-Weston. McCain already had three french fry plants in the US along with four plants that make juice and pizza. In 1998 McCain Foods announced that it would build a $93.9 million french-fry plant in the Taber area of Alberta with a capacity of 200 million pounds of fries a year. Global consolidated sales for the McCain Group of Companies that year were $5.1 billion, reflecting the integration of Ore-Ida.
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