Israel Huygen, Michele Veeman, and Mel Lerohl
University of Alberta

Modern agricultural biotechnology is leading to the creation of supply chains involving identity preservation of genetically mod- ified (GM) and non-GM crops. Cost differences are estimated for three selected supply chain systems for Canadian non-GM wheat at different levels of tolerance for GM material. The selected systems extend from the farm to export port and include use of both mixed and dedicated country and export ele- vators as well as farm-level containerization of wheat. There is an appreciable increase in the costs of identity preserved mar- keting of non-GM wheat within each system as threshold levels tighten from 5% to 0.1%.

Key words: Genetically modified (GM) wheat, GM thresholds, identity preservation, supply chain systems, tolerance-sensitive costs.