Cracks appearing in GM moratoria

The first cracks have appeared in the Australia-wide moratoria on genetically modified crops, with the decision of the Primary Industries Ministerial Council (PIMC) to adopt a threshold level of 0.9 per cent for adventitious presence of GM grain in conventional canola.

The PIMC, composing federal, state and territory primary industry ministers, adopted the European Union standard for adventitious presence.

The council was forced to review the issue to resolve weeks of controversy and legal uncertainty for growers after traces of an experimental GM herbicide-tolerant canola variety were detected in a non-GM shipment to Japan. The presence of the GM canola could have seen 'contaminated' consignments banned from local and overseas market, and made some farmers liable to criminal prosecution under zero-tolerance legislation passed when the moratoria were imposed.

Even though the 0.9 per cent threshold matches the EU figure, the strictest of any of Australia's main canola export customers, the council's decision has outraged anti-GM activists, who have long demanded compliance with the zero-tolerance policy.

The decision means the anti-GM movement's repeated claims that the presence of GM grain in non-GM canola shipments will adversely affect exports will now be tested in the marketplace.

Expert reports commissioned by both the WA and Victorian governments before they imposed moratoria found that there was no premium for non-GM canola in international markets, and a shift to GM herbicide-tolerant canola would have little impact on Australian export sales.

Announcing the decision, the federal agriculture minister, Senator Peter McGauran, said the council had also agreed that the threshold level for commercial seed sales would be 0.5 per cent in 2006 and 2007, reducing to 0.1 per cent in 2008 and beyond. In 2008, all the southern states and the ACT are due to review their moratoria.

EU standard

The council adopted the European standard of 0.9 per cent adventitious presence of GM grain, even though the EU is a relatively small buyer of Australian non-GM canola in years when there is a shortfall in its own production. Japan, Australia's biggest customer, applies a 5 per threshold, but freely imports GM canola from Canada.

The decision is a major setback to anti-GM NGOs, including Greenpeace Australia-Pacific, the Australian GeneEthics Network, and the Network of Concerned Farmers, which have demanded the states' zero-tolerance legislation be enforced.

Yesterday, Greenpeace condemned the PIMC's decision, saying it virtually guaranteed that widespread, low-level GE contamination would continue indefinitely.

Anti-GM campaign director John Hepburn described the decision as "historic" and said seed companies would be able to sell contaminated seed to farmers without having to tell them -- a recipe for further contamination.

GeneEthics director Bob Phelps said the council had legalised GE canola contamination, and forgiven gene technology and seed companies, and the quarantine service, for their failure to obey the law and keep Australian canola GM-free.

'No guarantees'

He said the council could have opted for a strategy to clean up GE "pollution" by seed testing, GE-free seed certification, and zero detectable GE contamination from next year.

"Farmers may harvest their crop this year, no GE contamination questions asked, but there are no guarantees the crop will sell on all world markets as it did when GM-free," Phelps said.

Scott Kinnear, spokesman for the organic farming cooperative Biological Farmers of Australia, also deplored the council's decision. "We will have no option but to recommend to our farmers that they do not grow organic canola in Australia from now on," he said.

But a former senior biotechnology adviser with Agriculture Victoria, Dr Roger Kalla, said the survey conducted before the Victorian moratorium had been unable to find any farmers growing canola organically.

Kalla, who left the department in April to found his own agbiotech company, Korn Technologies, said zero tolerance was unattainable and it would be almost impossible to reduce the adventitious presence of GM canola in commercial seed from 0.5 to 0.1 per cent by 2008.

Kalla said the anti-GM movement's insistence on zero tolerance had backfired, by forcing the ministerial council to set a realistic figure for adventitious presence of GM seed that would protect farmers' livelihoods.

WA pressure

WA agriculture minister Kim Chance, reportedly the only dissenting voice in the PMIC's decision to relax the zero-tolerance policy, faces mounting pressure from canola growers in his own state to lift the moratorium.

The industry group WAFarmers yesterday called on Chance to immediately establish a high-level advisory group to help him review the moratorium. WAF president Trevor de Landgrafft said the moratorium was "standing in the way of progress".

Maintenance of the state's zero-tolerance policy would mean farmers with adventitious GM canola in their harvest would be unable to market their crops.

De Landgrafft said WAFarmers believed it was time Chance "ceased working in isolation within the comfort zone provided by the moratorium on the GM issue, and embraced the wealth of knowledge available through industry expertise."

He said with the harvest already under way in the state's northern canola-growing region, timing was critical. The advisory group should be convened "urgently" to negotiate GM tolerance levels that would ensure the harvest could be processed through to market.

Undermined confidence

Dr Ian Edwards, chairman of the agricultural biotechnology advisory group at AusBiotech, Australia's peak biotechnology industry body, said that until Australian farmers had a clearly defined path to market, Australian agriculture was "truly in jeopardy".

He said that by introducing the moratoria, and second-guessing the federal Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, which had given a thumbs-up to GM canola, the states had undermined confidence in the country's regulatory system, and only added to consumer and grower concerns.

"We are totally opposed to strict liability provisions that normally apply to dangerous products, and when products have been declared safe by the regulator, common law provides more than adequate safeguards to the industry," Edwards said.