Bracks bans GMHT canola until 2008

The Victorian Government has announced a four-year, legislated moratorium on commercial cropping of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) canola.

Premier Steve Bracks announced at a midday press conference today that his government had decided to impose a legislated moratorium because of “deep divisions and uncertainty within industry, the farming sector, and regional communities, about the impact of GM crops on markets”.

With the one-year voluntary moratorium on commercial cropping of GM canola due to expire in May, the government’s decision to impose a four year legislated moratorium has stunned many canola farmers, and the state’s agricultural biotechnology sector, which had expected the moratorium would at least be lifted to the extent of permitting the first farm-scale trials of GMHT canola in Victoria this year.

The two multinational agbiotech companies seeking to introduce GMHT canola varieties into Australia – Monsanto Australia and Bayer CropScience – reluctantly agreed last year to the voluntary moratorium, pending a Government-commissioned review by Melbourne University economist Professor Peter Lloyd of the economic consequences of allowing commercial cropping of GM canola.

Monsanto Australia’s communications manager Mark Buckingham, said today the Bracks Government had submitted to the “green voodoo” of anti-GM organizations like Greenpeace and the Australian GeneEthics Network.

He accused Victorian politicians of “pandering to baseless public perceptions” instead of supporting a vital rural industry, and a product that had already been grown safely in Canda for nine years

Buckingham said GMHT canola was actually cleaner and greener than the non-GM triazine tolerant (TT) varieties currently grown by some 50 per cent of Victorian and Australian canola farmers, given that Britain and the European Union had recently banned triazine-type herbicides.

He said Monsanto Australia would be reviewing its operation in Victoria – “We’ll have to look at the details of the announcement, but we’ve been spending around $4.5 million a year on our canola business, most of it in Victoria.

“Roundup Ready™ canola has a decade-long history of safe use in Canada. We can’t sustain that level of investment if we’re not able to sell a product that has been approved by the OGTR as safe.

“The clear message is that Victoria is effectively telling us to close our business.”

Bayer CropScience’s General Manager of BioScience, Susie O’Neill, said the company was “dumbfounded” by the decision.

O’Neill said that, while she had not yet seen the recommendations of the report by Melbourne University economist Dr Peter Lloyd on segregation and marketing issues, she had been told that report had recommended that coexistence trials proceed in Victoria.

If this was the case, the Bracks Government’s decision flew in the face of the recommendations of the report it had commissioned to resolve the issue of coexistence.

“We also believe the Australian Barley Board and the Australian Wheat Board are supportive of the supply-chain issues being tested.

“This decision sends a very bad message, not just to the agbiotech industry, but to the wider biotech industry,” O’Neill said.

“This product (Bayer CropScience’s Liberty Link™ GMHT canolas) has been researched, tested and then approved by every regulatory authority in Australia, and has been proven safe.

“The industry has worked for 2 1/2 years to design systems to manage GMHT canola on farm, and beyond the farm gate. Now they’re not going to be tested - nothing will happen.

“We are more than disappointed with the decision.”