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Thursday 28 February 2008 (Updated Fri 29 Feb at 1pm AEDT)

RAPID ROUNDUP: GM Canola - Moratoria to be lifted in NSW & Victoria - experts comment

On Friday 29 February, the moratorium on the planting of GM canola effectively ends in NSW and Victoria. Yet debate continues about what the impact of planting GM canola will be. While genetically modified cotton has been grown in Australia for the past ten years, the planting of GM canola brings new questions about the role of GM in Australian farming.

Below are comments from a range of experts on the commercial release of GM canola. . Feel free to use these quotes for your stories. If you wish to speak to one of these or other experts, contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415. Any further quotes received will be posted here.

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: The chair of the Victorian review joined three GM scientists to discuss the risks and benefits of GM canola at a background briefing on Friday 29 Feb at 10.30am AEDT in Melbourne. For further details or audio files click here.

Professor Mark Tester, Federation Fellow, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and The University of Adelaide

“I welcome the lifting of the moratorium on GM canola by the Victorian government. It provides farmers with more choices, including the option of using a much safer herbicide. The safety and marketability of these crops have been carefully evaluated by numerous independent, refereed studies, and the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports this technology. Careful use of new technologies such as GM provides options for cheaper and more sustainable farming, and the Australian farmer needs and deserves all the help they can get.”



Dr Maarten Stapper is a farming systems agronomist from BioLogic AgFood and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science & Technology. He spent 24 years working for the CSIRO.

"GM is not the solution to problems in agriculture. GM Moratoria need to be extended until long-term, generational studies become part of the OGTR regulations for approval. GM is a commercial venture needing markets in shortest possible time. Federal regulators and research organisations seem willing partners. GM is a short-term solution with long-term costs. Who benefits? Who pays? Consumers need to be aware.

Nature is cyclical. GM science is linear thinking at the cutting edge of new understanding. Each day we discover gene functions we didn’t know we didn’t know. In the mean time we make assumptions about the unknown. Hazardous for the future as it is always more expensive or impossible to solve problems arising from technologies released too early.

A major concern with GM developments is the loss of independence in food production as a few multinationals will control the seed-chemical-fertiliser supply chain and its regulation. There is no independent science possible on GM crops as companies don’t supply seed for such studies unless they see results first to prevent negatives becoming public. Hence experiments are designed to get the answers wanted."



Professor Snow Barlow, School of Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Melbourne

“This argument has unfortunately become very polarised and politicised, where rational scientific debate and analysis may have been a more productive and expeditious route. There are some lessons to be learnt from this.

There is no doubt that this is a critical time for Australian agriculture as it strives to recover from the worst drought since federation and simultaneously seeks to adapt to impending climate change. New technology will be critical to this recovery and for many farmers the release of GM canola will allow them to compete on a level playing field with other international producers of canola, by having access to similar technology. This technology will give them an opportunity to improve yields and economic returns and if used correctly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions and improve soil health by reduced cultivation.

The challenges and risks of GM canola will be its successful integration into farming landscapes in the face of lingering concerns of gene flow to native populations. I believe these concerns have been satisfactorily answered scientifically but after this acrimonious debate they will linger. Therefore it is essential that the proposed monitoring is carried out diligently and reported regularly. This was done very successfully with GM cotton and should be repeated. I believe that gene flow to native and non GM populations will always be the risk with GM crops rather than the human health risks which have not been demonstrated. In the case of GM canola they have been satisfactorily addressed. Of course these risks will have to be evaluated with each new release but the current regulatory arrangements adequately cover these requirements.”

Adrian Gibbs is a virologist, retired ANU Professor and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

"It is a great shame that the new Federal Minister for Agriculture seems to have accepted the status quo of the ‘GM debate’ inherited from the previous government, rather than taking a step back and reviewing the situation, and examining whether a more positive outcome can be achieved.

There are scientific questions asked by those against GM that remain unanswered by the pro-GM lobby. Questions that are not just faith-based, but for which experimental answers can be obtained. Why should the public accept the intellectual dishonesty of the statement that ‘No one has been shown to have been harmed by eating GM food’, when in fact there is no evidence one way or the other, as none has been looked for? Why, if an ANU/CSIRO team has found that GM peas resistant to weevils are so dangerous that they stopped their project, is the same test not applied to all GM foods? (NB The identified danger has been repeatedly predicted by anti-GMers). Unfortunately, satisfactory answers to such questions have not been given, yet the best way to go forward is to face such issues. The new Federal Minister should require questions to be answered sensibly before committing the country to go ahead with growing GM canola, as the advice that that decision was based on was from people with clear ‘conflicts of interest’."

Professor Ray Rose is Leader of the University of Newcastle Node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (CILR) at the University of Newcastle’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences.

“It is pleasing to see that the two State Governments have agreed with the scientific consensus and agreed to use contemporary gene technology to enhance crop production. This decision is in concert with the strong national regulatory system that exists in Australia.

It is now 25 years since the first functional genes were introduced into plants and in regulated lab-based research it has lead to a much greater understanding of plant function and how plants interact with their environment and the systems they use against insect pests and pathogens. Together with traditional plant breeding strategies, new gene technologies such as genetic modification offer great opportunities for a sustainable agriculture, particularly in Australia where we have wide ranging climate extremes and often fragile soils.”

Adjunct Professor Julian Cribb is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and Adjunct Professor, University of Technology, Sydney. Julian is also Editor of the website ScienceAlert.

“Whether the Australian public is willing to eat GM foods will depend on the benefit to themselves as consumers which they see in those foods - this is what all public opinion research tells us. Therefore, the success of future GM crops in Australia depends on making genetic changes which provide benefits to consumers, as well as to farmers and agri-business. The major challenge facing the transgenic sector is to understand clearly what it is that consumers want, and to keep their products in line with where the market demand is. There are tools available that will enable scientists to listen more closely to what society and consumers want and to develop technologies that are more acceptable to the market.”

Professor Stephen Powles, School of Plant Biology at the University of Western Australia. Prof. Powles was Chairman of the Gene Technology Technical Advisory Committee(GTTAC) until Dec 2007. The GTTAC is the technical committee advising the Federal Gene Technology Regulator on genetically modified (GM) organisms.

“It is pleasing to see that, finally, NSW and Victorian canola growers will have available to them the GM canola technology that their North and South American counterparts have had available for up to a decade. For example, when given a choice between non GM and GM canola, Canadian canola growers devote 95% of their canola production to GM canola. Canadian GM canola growers have enjoyed a clear competitive advantage over Australian canola growers with Canadian GM canola comprising 60% of ALL globally traded canola.

Canola growers in WA and SA will be asking themselves why their state governments continue to maintain a moratorium on GM canola. As a WA-based scientist very conversant with GM crop technology and as a commercial WA canola grower I believe that I should have access to the technology available to Canadian, American, Brazilian, Argentinean, NSW and Victorian growers.”