Screener, organic agriculture has been around for 50 years, hardly “just getting going”.
Organic Farming in Canada
I would suggest that if canola was a major part of any organic farmer’s rotation, that farmer would be in serious trouble in the rest of the rotation. I was talking about organic canola as a fraction of the organic sector. Organic canola prior to 1996 was about 3000 ha. This has about halved, but has never been more than 15% of all organic oilseeds and no more than 2% of all organic grains. Organic flax has always dominated organic oilseed production in Canada and still does.
http://www.ota.com/pics/documents/Or...May%202004.pdf
There is still more than 1000 ha of organic canola grown in Canada and a further 1000 ha of organic mustard.
Growers of GM crops have never really had to worry too much about co-existence issues because organic rules only prohibit the growing of crops from GM seed. There is no specific prohibition in the rules from most certifying agencies against adventitious presence and in the US and Canada there is still no requirement for nil tolerance and no testing regime to support such a claim.
I have spoken with the major certifying agency here, who stated that they will amend their certification requirements if a GM crop is introduced to allow some very low level of adventitious presence. A quite pragmatic approach to the issue, but a long way removed from the rhetoric.