Never the twain? GM and organic farming go head to head

The co-existence of genetically modified (GM) and organic farming was hotly debated at a meeting hosted by the Life Sciences Network last week.

The meeting featured a panel discussion by the presenters, who included Prof Doug Powell, from the University of Guelph in Canada; Biotechnology Australia's Craig Cormick, Clay Manners from the Victorian Farmers Federation and Scott Kinnear from Biological Farmers Australia.

"Scientifically, organic foods are neither healthier nor safer than conventionally farmed or GM products," said Powell. He pointed out that consumers needed information to allow them to make their own choice about the food they buy.

Powell is also the Scientific Director of the Food Safety Network, an organisation that he set up to provide research, commentary, policy evaluation and public information on food safety issues.

One of Powell's projects is a comparison of GM foods with conventionally produced foods, with examination of environmental, economic and consumer considerations. He said that he plans to expand the project to include organics in the near future.

Both Powell and Cormick agreed that consumers were often not well informed about GM foods.

Cormick pointed out that many consumers were convinced that they were already eating GM fruit and vegetables, when in reality only GM cotton and GM carnations are currently licensed for commercial production in Australia.

Kinnear, who represent organic farmers, said that he did not believe organic farming practices could co-exist with GM farming at this point.

He said that organic farming was gaining in popularity, although it was still a very minor proportion of farming in Australia. His organisation is critical of the control of GM field trials and believes that more research is required to fully examine the long-term risks of GM crops.

He also pointed out the disparity in R&D funding going to GM crop development versus organic farming.

Kinnear said that Australia could always adopt GM farming practices later but that it would be hard to go back to GM-free farming.

But Manners, the General Manager for Policy for the Victorian Farmers Federation, said that Australian agriculture only exists because farmers were willing to use new technology.

"The introduction of new biotechnology is essential to Australian agriculture," he said.

Manners said that while there were legitimate concerns about GM products that needed to be addressed in a scientific manner, there was no doubt that biotech would have a huge impact on agriculture.

"In my opinion we are on the cusp of a farming revolution," he said.

Manners also said that the biotech industry had a strong obligation to abide by the rules, and suggested that appropriate penalties should be put into place for breaches of the rules.

He said there was an obligation for farmer's organisations and scientists to respond to misinformation.

Dr Marilyn Anderson, who chaired the panel discussion following the presentations, said that she felt that the difference was more ideological than scientific.

She said that there needed to be rational limits set for GM contamination of conventional and organic products in order for co-existence of the two approaches to be possible.