PEI Farmers are taking the lead on GMO-free foods. With the demand for GMO-Free canola in Japan, the number of farmers growing GMO-free canola is increasing. Our provincial government would be wise to take heed of this and see the potential of PEI foodstuffs in Japanese markets. They should be encouraging more farmers to go GMO-free and market our products more to Japan. They are big population and with the Anne connection, we could really do well there I believe.

P.E.I. is growing more canola than ever before, fulfilling a demand for oilseed that is not contaminated with genetically modified crops.

There is so much interest in the product in Japan, a Japanese buyer now calls P.E.I. home for part of the year.

It's difficult to find places in the world where buyers can be confident the seed is free from contamination from genetically modified crops. Genetically modified canola is not grown on P.E.I., and this attracted Kosaku Morita of the Japanese company Marumo to the Island, where he has been living for several months.

Japan eager for P.E.I.'s non-GMO canola
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2010/11/08/pei-japan...

January 28, 2008
CBC News

GMOs on P.E.I. still under review: minister

With government attention focused on the crisis in the livestock industry, Agriculture Minister Neil LeClair says there has been no time to look at the planting of genetically modified crops on P.E.I.

Hundreds more hectares of genetically modified corn and sugarbeets will be planted on the Island this spring. Last week, Danny Hendricken, district director for the National Farmers Union, said the window of opportunity for making the Island GMO-free was closing.

GMO crop use expanding on P.E.I.
January 24, 2008
CBC News

Hundreds more hectares of genetically modified crops will be grown on P.E.I. this year, a trend that could soon end any plan to make the province a GMO-free zone.

Daniel Martens of Lyndale in eastern P.E.I. is growing sugar beets: not for people to eat, but to create ethanol to replace gasoline in vehicles. Sugar beets are one of the fastest growing areas of GMO crop production on the Island.