Florigene gets the Tasmanian blues

Blue carnations won't be appearing in Tasmanian gardens, after a Melbourne molecular breeder vowed it "would not waste its time" trying to have a GMO ban in the state overturned.

A Tasmanian government report last year recommended the state outlaw all genetically modified organisms pending review in 2003.

But Florigene product development manager Steve Chandler said the decision did not bode well for the company's international reputation.

"It's a very destructive decision with international implications, because we're an Australian company and it doesn't help us to have our product banned in our own backyard," Chandler said.

While he declined to estimate revenue damage caused by the ban, Chandler said Florigene's international market was worth several million dollars, all of which was returned to Australia in profits.

The Collingwood company's mission statement says it uses genetic modification technology to improve flower species with its first product, a mauve carnation released in 1996, created by implanting a blue gene that had been isolated from the petunia flower.

It has also used gene technology to create a long vase life carnation (not yet on the market) and is still developing its much-anticipated blue rose.

Chandler said he was surprised by the Tasmanian decision, especially since the Federal government had already cleared Florigene's flowers.

"We never assumed for one second that our products pose any sort of health risk," he said. "We mounted a scientific argument that has been accepted elsewhere, but this has been an irrational decision that has been very damaging to us."

Chandler said the company had originally held discussions with the Tasmanian government but they stalled once the report was released, as there was no course for review.

"We are not going to waste our time on chasing a small market where the government has a political agenda."

The goal of Tasmania's Gene Technology Policy, released in July last year, was to "ensure that Tasmania can maintain its international reputation for producing quality food and beverages in a clean, healthy environment without the use of gene technology". "Until consumer acceptance of transgenic food increases, Tasmania cannot risk its international reputation as a producer of high quality, pure food and beverage products," it says.

Florigene products, which are grown on farms in Ecuador and Columbia, are sold within Australia through its licensing partner Tesselaar and by Florigene directly to US and Japanese markets.

Director of the Australian GenEthics Network, Bob Phelps, described the Tasmanian bans as highly appropriate.

Phelps said the Florigene carnation was approved as a cut flower to be grown in hothouses, not as a home garden specimen.

"We know that most of the weeds that now cost over $3 billion a year to control originated in home gardens," he said.

"I think it is a legitimate question to ask whether these carnations should be grown anywhere outside hothouses, and whether their new characteristics might give these flowers a competitive advantage to survive as weeds."

Meanwhile, the Tasmanian Green Party alleged that the State government did not have a long-term policy commitment to a GE-free Tasmania, and would give some GE crops the go-ahead after the June election.

More information:

Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment: Gene Technology Policy