Greenpeace dust claims 'a cheap shot': GM expert

An expert on genetically modified crops has dismissed claims by Greenpeace that last week's massive dust storm over eastern Australia disproved claims that GE canola pollen would not travel very far.

Assoc Prof Rick Roush, director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Weed Management, dismissed the claim by Greenpeace anti-GE campaigner John Hepburn as "an incredibly cheap shot that attempts to ride on farmers' misery in the current drought".

Greenpeace opposes the planned release of new herbicide-tolerant canola varieties in Australia early next year. On Friday, Hepburn, Greenpeace's anti-GE campaign leader in Australia, issued a press release titled "Dust storm blows away Gene Regulator's credibility".

Hepburn said the dust storms showed the absurdity of claims by the Gene Technology Regulator that GE canola could be contained.

"The OGTR [Office of the Gene Technology Regulator] insists that pollen flow and seed movement from these crops will be minimal and will not cause contamination of non-GE farms," Hepburn said.

"However, the fact that a wind storm has just picked up over 10 million tonnes of topsoil and deposited it over 30 kilometres out to sea poses a major problem for the theory that GE canola pollen won't travel very far.

"The OGTR seems to insist that nature doesn't exist, that wind storms don't happen, and that bees don't travel. A single canola plant can contain up to 10,000 seeds and its pollen is extremely fine -- so it's not hard to imagine how easily GE contamination will spread across Australia."

But Roush countered that soil particles were much smaller and more mobile than either canola pollen or seeds, and that even in strong winds, very little wind-blown pollen was detectable more than a few metres above or beyond the crop.

"It's mostly insect pollinators moving it," he said. "Even if wind-blown pollen lands on another canola flower, and there's overwhelming evidence that it doesn't, the pollen produced by the plant itself is much more competitive.

"Our research has shown that, overwhelmingly, flowers are pollinated by pollen from flowers on the mother plant, or from immediately adjacent plants."

Roush said Greenpeace had used the classic straw man tactic of falsely attributing a claim to the OGTR, and then criticising that false claim.

"The OGTR has never claimed that GE pollen can be contained and separated from non-GE canola crops, it has only said that it will be minimal," he said. "It has never said that it won't contaminate non-GE canola farms. That's not an issue for the OGTR, it's a trade issue.

"The Greenpeace press release says the OGTR has previously indicated there are no health or safety risks involved [in GE pollen flow]. I believe that's true.

"You would think that they would then use the opportunity then go on to raise some of these health and safety issues they keep talking about, but they don't. It's a cheap political stunt, driving your press release on someone else's misery. Greenpeace should be focusing on serious environmental issues affecting the Australian environment.

"The World Wide Fund for Nature is trying to get an initiative going on invasive species, particularly weed. Greenpeace is apparently not interested -- they're into sideshows."

Roush said that in Canada, GE canola cropping had led to a major change to conservation tillage, because farmers growing Roundup Ready canola no longer needed to cultivate their soil frequently to control weeds.

Conservation tillage led to improvements in soil structure and stability, and with Australia's erosion-prone soils, a similar move to GE canola and conservation tillage here would significantly reduce the risk and severity of dust storms.