Melbourne Uni report positive on GM canola varieties

A new report from the University of Melbourne has found that genetically modified (GM), herbicide-tolerant canola varieties could be worth up to $AUD135 million a year to Australia's canola and wheat industries.

The report outlines a scenario that its author, Dr Rob Norton, of the university's School of Agriculture and Food Systems, said "suggests significant economic and environmental advantages from the introduction of new GM herbicide-tolerant canola varieties."

Norton's scenario involves GM canola replacing 50 per cent of the non-transgenic, triazine-tolerant (TT) canola, 40 per cent of conventional canola and allowing 160,000 hectares of additional canola plantings (all GM canola).

Norton said adoption of the new varieties would give farmers additional options including the ability to control problem weeds in canola crops, earlier sowing, and replacement of triazine-tolerant (TT) canola, which are widely grown in Australia.

The report's key findings were:

• An extra 200,000 hectares of canola could be grown under conservation farming practices. That is, maintenance of soil resources through minimal tillage and stubble retention.
• 640 tonnes less triazine herbicide would be used each year because of changes to weed management systems.
• Average Australian canola yields would increase from 1.27t/ha to 1.38t/ha, with an increase in canola production estimated at 295,000 tonnes annually.
• Canola plantings would expand by 160,000 hectares in dryer cropping areas.
• In rotation with GM canola, wheat production would increase by 64,000 tonnes on this additional canola area.

Norton said some of the extra 200,000 hectares of crops would be in areas where drier soils and severe weed problems have caused former canola growers to turn to other crops.

Findings at odds

The report's findings of environmental and economic benefits are sharply at odds with the anti-GM warnings of environmental damage and economic losses to farmers, including organic farmers.

Anti-GM activist groups in Australia, including the Australian GeneEthics Network, Greenpeace Australia-Pacific, the Organic Federation of Australia, and the Network of Concerned Farmers, have campaigned vigorously since last year to prevent herbicide-tolerant canola varieties being introduced into Australia.

GeneEthics executive director Bob Phelps has characterised genetically modified canola, maize and soybean varieties as "cane toad crops" that are unwanted by Australian farmers or consumers.

Recently, in response to political pressure from the Greens, NSW's Labor government included in its re-election platform a policy for a three-year moratorium on the introduction of all new GM crops in NSW, including canola.

The moratorium took effect when the Carr government was re-elected last weekend, so even if the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator approves current applications to release several new herbicide-tolerant canolas in around three months' time, NSW farmers will not see any of the potential economic or environmental benefits from the new technology.

The anti-GM movement has not sought a moratorium on TT varieties because they are selected, natural mutants of canola, not products of genetic engineering.

But the herbicide to which they are tolerant -- atrazine -- is a recognised environmental pollutant that can contaminate groundwater beneath crops and leach into rivers and waterways. Atrazine has also been implicated in reports of deformities in frogs in the US.

Around 3000 tonnes each of two triazine herbicides -- atrazine and simazine -- are used in Australia annually, on field and horticultural crops, and in forestry plantations.

GeneEthics and Greenpeace have claimed that GM canolas would contaminate organic canola crops, and compromise Australia's exports of conventional canola to Europe or Japan.

However, GeneEthics nor Greenpeace has been able to identify any growers of organic canola in Australia. Europe is a net exporter of canola, and Australia sells most of its current, non-GM canola production to Japan -- which mixes it with GM canola from Canada before processing it into vegetable oil.

Commenting on the report, Laureate Professor Adrienne Clarke, one of Australia's leading plant molecular geneticists, said the report suggested GM canola would make the industry more sustainable through better integrated weed-management and soil-conservation practices.

Norton's report, and its scenarios, were based on an extensive review of published Australian research.

The report was prepared with the assistance of industry group Avcare, the National Association for Crop Production and Animal Health.