AUSTRALIA: Federal Gov’t Okays GE Canola, But States Block It

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bob Burton

CANBERRA, Jul 25 2003 (IPS) - Despite the go-ahead given by the Australian government for the commercial release of genetically engineered canola, intense opposition from farming and environmental groups has prompted most state governments to impose a moratorium on its planting.

On Friday morning, the director of the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), Dr Sue Meek, announced that the application by Bayer Crop Science for the commercial release of its genetically modified (GM) canola Invigor had been approved.

Announcing the decision, Meek said that her ”vigorous independent assessment of health safety and environmental impacts found Invigor as safe to humans and the environment as conventional (non-GM) canola”.

However, the absence of peer-reviewed studies on the health and environmental impacts of GM canola should have been sufficient to cause Meeks to reject the application, argues Jeremy Tager, a campaigner for Greenpeace Australia on genetic engineering. ”It is hard to say there is enough evidence to provide the basis for any decision,” he said.

Under the provisions of the gene technology bill 2001, the Commonwealth Gene Technology Regulator has the responsibility for determining the environmental and health risks of applications. If this is approved, the states then have control over the whether and where genetically engineered organisms can be used.

In the last six months, governments in South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales have all announced moratoria – albeit with varying degrees of strictness – on the commercial release of canola.

Queensland is the only state not to have announced a moratorium, but Bayer’s GM canola is not appropriate for its climate. All the other states are demanding answers on critical issues such as the segregation of GM crops from non-GM crops and liability for any contamination of non-GM crops that happens.

Driving the state governments’ change in policy is opposition to GM canola by farming interests including the Australian Wheat Board, the Australian Barley Board, Pulse Australia and even the grower of genetically engineered cotton, the Tynams Agricultural Group.

Their opposition reflects the insistence by customers that their grain meet strict standards. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest importer of barley, has indicated that it may refuse to trade barley with Australia if it produces any commercial genetically engineered grain crop.

In May, the executive manager for corporate relations of the Australian Bulk Handling Association, David Thomas, told the South Australian parliamentary select committee on genetically modified organisms that it was impossible to meet the Australian Wheat Board’s request for zero tolerance of GM contamination.

The Australian Wheat Board (AWB), a commercial marketing agency, sells approximately 3.3 billion U.S. dollars of wheat in a good year.

”There is no way that we could guarantee absolutely a nil tolerance if GM crops are widely grown and we create separate supply chains within our system, no matter how good our systems are,” Thomas told the committee.

Marcus Kennedy, the group general manager, financial and rural services of the AWB, told the South Australian inquiry that there was little market demand for genetically engineered products.

”Broadly, our customers at this stage do not want GM. One-third, and an increasing number, of international customers require GM-free certification. It is one-third in number but over 50 percent in volume of our exports at the moment,” he said.

While the OGTR is optimistic about the compatibility of GM and non-GM, two state parliamentary inquiry reports released in the last two weeks have challenged the practicality of this co-existence.

The South Australian parliamentary committee report released in mid-July recommended that GM crops only be approved when co-existence between GM free, non-GM and GM, ”can be guaranteed by industry through the establishment of rigorous and cost effective segregation and identity preservation systems throughout the total production and supply chain”.

The Western Australian Parliament’s Environment and Public Affairs Committee released an even more damning report into the prospects of GM crops just a few days after their South Australian counterpart.

Based on the information presented repeatedly during its meetings in Canada and the United States, that contamination of non-GM crops by GM crops is inevitable, the committee stated in its final report that ”segregation is not practical and that identity preservation can be achieved, but at significant cost”.

The committee recommended that the current moratorium on GM crops in the state should continue until at least 2006 and warned that GM crops could damage the standing of all agriculture in the state.

”The commercialisation of a single GM grain crop may tarnish Western Australia’s overall reputation of being a clean and green non-GM producer and thus have implications for the marketability of other (Western Australian) agricultural products,” they wrote.

Tager argues that where state governments previously viewed support for GM crops as being compatible with maintaining access to non-GM markets, they are now realising that they may have to choose between the two. ”It is now absolutely clear to state governments that the option of ‘we can have the best of both worlds’ is not to be,” he said.

Tager remains optimistic that even the staunchly pro-GM Commonwealth Government will be forced by the growing nervousness among the traditionally conservative farming community to change its stand.

”They must be realising now that they are not going to get the best of both worlds anytime soon, and certainly not simply. I suspect you might begin to hear a slightly different tune from them soon,” Tager said.