The Rape of Canola

Bruce Grainger is head of the Public Services Department, Macdonald
Library, McGill University.

Canola is an increasingly popular edible oil crop that was developed in
Canada through the selective breeding of the rapeseed plant so as to
reduce the level of toxic substances in the oil. This book is based in
part on extensive interviews with many of the individuals who
participated in this Canadian success story.

The initial work was done by scientists employed in the public sector,
but in recent years research in canola has been dominated by
trans-national corporations. This trend has been accentuated by
declining public-sector expenditures on breeding new plant varieties.
Kneen is concerned with how corporate canola breeding programs are often
narrowly focused; for example, nearly half of the current research
undertaken by individual companies is simply to develop varieties
tolerant to a specific herbicide that the corporation or an associated
company sells.

Domination of canola seed breeding and production by large
(transnational) corporations has been assisted in Canada, the United
States, and Europe by the enactment of plant breeders’ legislation
that allows them to patent new seed varieties. Kneen is doubtful that
the regulatory processes are adequate to protect the environment and to
insure public safety given the extensive genetic manipulation of plant
life now being undertaken.

The book is repetitious in places and would have benefited from more
rigorous editing. Nevertheless, the author provides much useful
information on the development of canola and raises several issues of
public policy concerning the increasing corporate domination of plant
breeding research, agriculture, and the formation of public policy in
Canada.