Abstract
Common flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) was one of the first crops cultivated by man used in food and linen cloth production in Europe and Asia, dating back to 5000–8000 BC (Berglund 2002). Today, there are two types of flax produced, seed flax for oil and fiber flax for the stem fiber. Fiber flax has an average annual global production of 500,000 hectares and is predominantly grown in China, the Russian Federation, and in Western Europe. Approximately 3.5 million hectares of oilseed cultivars (also referred to as linseed) are grown in Canada, India, China, the United States (US), and Argentina. Flax is used in the production of various industrial products including linen, fiber composites, paints, inks, and linoleum. Flax has grown in popularity as a nutritional supplement for its value as an essential omega-3 fatty acid for both human and animal consumption with the introduction of low linolenic acid flax varieties over the past several years (Galushko and Ryan 2012). It is often consumed raw or is used in whole-grain products such as cereals and breads. In 2014, Health Canada approved a health claim that linked consumption of ground whole flaxseed with lowered blood cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease (Health Canada 2014).
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Notes
- 1.
The PBO was the forerunner to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which was the independent regulatory agency created when the PBO was removed from being an office within the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in 1997.
- 2.
Many crop varieties are deregistered as they are replaced by new varieties. The new varieties have superior yield and disease resistance, and the old varieties become obsolete and are deregistered. In an industry where bin run seed is common and variety comingling can occur, making it illegal to grow a deregistered variety would be a logistical nightmare, so it is only illegal to sell and/or market a deregistered variety as that particular variety. It is not illegal to unintentionally grow a small percentage of a deregistered variety as part of another crop. When this happens, the shipment is downgraded to animal feed and enters that market (at a lower price) rather than the human food market.
- 3.
Please refer to the initial (full) notification recorded as RASFF 2009.1171 at: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/portal/index.cfm?event=notificationDetail&NOTIF_REFERENCE=2009.1171.
- 4.
One hundred and eleven (111) notifications were filed with the RASFF between September 8, 2009, and January 18, 2011. A notification dated July 28, 2010, was qualified as a “border rejection” by Finland.
- 5.
No detection at a 0.01% level, 19 times out of 20.
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Ryan, C.D., Smyth, S.J. (2019). Transgenic Flax and the Triffid Affair. In: Cullis, C. (eds) Genetics and Genomics of Linum. Plant Genetics and Genomics: Crops and Models, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23964-0_16
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