Bayer pulls plug on GM canola trial in NSW

At the last minute, agbiotech giant Bayer CropScience has pulled the plug on its plan to conduct a 40-hectare demonstration trial of its genetically modified hybrid canolas in NSW.

Bayer’s decision came just one day after NSW primary industries minister Ian Macdonald finally approved the company’s application to conduct a greatly downsized trial of its Invigor hybrid GM canolas.

The company cited the drought in southern NSW, where the trial plots were to be planted, and the late planting date resulting from the delayed approval, as reasons for its decision not to proceed with the trial.

Bayer CropScience general manager of science, Susie O’Neill, said the company was not prepared to proceed because of the risk that the trial would not demonstrate the full potential of the new GM cultivars.

But O’Neill says Bayer will proceed with similar trials in Victoria and South Australia this year. Bayer also has approval to conduct a similar trial in Western Australia, but O’Neill says it will not proceed because it would have to apply for special exemption from new legislation that made the state a GM-free zone.

WA stands to benefit most from high-yielding GM cultivars. It is Australia’s largest canola producing state, with annual plantings around 460,000 hectares, ahead of NSW with 380,000 hectares.

Despite its smaller acreage, NSW’s annual harvest is actually 28 per cent higher than WA’s (589,000 vs 460,000 tonnes) because some 80 per cent of WA’s plantings are atrazine-tolerant cultivars – the atrazine-tolerance trait comes with a 20 per cent yield penalty.

The three trial plots, totaling 40 hectares, would have compared the performance of Bayer’s InVigor canolas, which are engineered for tolerance to the herbicide glufosinate ammonium, with that of non-GM varieties, including the triazine-tolerant varieties that have been the mainstay the Australian canola industry for more than a decade.

NSW government agronomists would have independently evaluated the trial and reported to the NSW Gene Technology Advisory Committee, which advises MacDonald on applications for GM crop trials.

Bayer CropScience originally made a joint application with rival agbiotech giant Monsanto Australia to conduct a 4000-hectare coexistence and segregation trial in NSW, that would have allowed growers to sell the GM grain for Australia’s first trial export shipment.

Bayer’s O’Neill said the company would have liked to make its Invigor varieties available for a demonstration trial for NSW farmers, but was taking a step back from commercialisation until the state governments provided “clear and consistent” guidelines for introduction of GM canolas.

“We hope it sends a clear message to the grains industry that it must lobby governments to deliver a clear path forward,” O’Neill said.

In a press release yesterday, Macdonald said approval had been given in time for Bayer to sow the trials, and said the company’s decision would disappoint farmers “who wanted to see what benefits, if any, GM canola brings compared to traditional varieties”.