OGTR gives thumbs-up to GM canola varieties

Australia has taken the penultimate step towards growing its second transgenic crop -- the oilseed canola with yesterday's decision by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) to release a risk-assessment and risk-management plan for Bayer CropScience's InVigor varieties, which contain three genes, two for hybrid vigour system, one for glufosinate resistance.

InVigor varieties are engineered with a novel hybrid vigour system, as well as carrying a gene that confers tolerance to a BASF herbicide, OnGuard.

The plan will available for public scrutiny and comment for the next eight weeks, after which the OGTR must decide whether or not to issue the licence that would allow Bayer to release seed to commercial growers.

The canola-planting season in southern Australia begins around Anzac Day, April 25, and continues until late June, so even if the OGTR does license the commercial release of Bayer's new canola varieties, as is expected, very little GM wall be planted this year.

But the plantings will probably be limited to a few thousand hectares in Victoria's Western District, because NSW, SA and WA have not yet decided whether, or if, they will allow GM canola to be planted.

Last month the Carr Government in NSW, in a pre-election deal with the Greens, promised a three-year moratorium on all new GM crops, except cotton. The South Australian and Western Australian governments are both awaiting reports from expert committees on whether to allow GM canola plantings, or to stay GM-free. Both committees are headed by individuals opposed to GM crops.

Tasmania, which grows little canola, has imposed a moratorium on all GM crops -- except GM opium poppies for morphine production -- until 2008, and has actually legislated to declare GM canola a pest.

That leaves Victoria as the only state likely to permit GM canola plantings, but because of the time constraints, plantings are likely to be small.

Investigation

The OGTR has spent nine months investigating the potential impacts of seven Bayer GM canola varieties on the environment and human health.

The Gene Technology Regulator, Dr Sue Meek, sad yesterday, "The conclusion I have reached from these exhaustive assessments is that this GM canola poses no higher risk to human health and safety or the environment than is currently posed by the farming of conventional, non-genetically modified canola.

"As with the non-GM product, the genetically modified crop is of minimal risk. Therefore, only ongoing oversight requirements are included in the proposed licence conditions that I have set down in the draft risk assessment and risk management plan."

Bayer (formerly Aventis) and Monsanto made the first trial plantings of GM canola in Australia seven years ago. Monsanto has an application before the OGTR for permission to release its proprietary Roundup Ready canola varieties, which are tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate, or Roundup.

Australia was the first country in the world to release a genetically modified organism into the environment -- a modified strain of the crown gall virus, which protects fruit trees against infection by virulent strains of the same virus, was released in 1988.

Since then, the only other field-released GMO has been cotton, first planted in 1996. Cotton varieties carrying Monsanto's Bt insecticide gene currently account for around 30 per cent of Australia's cotton acreage; some also carry the Roundup Ready gene.

Despite the claim that canola will be Australia's first GM food crop, that distinction belongs to cotton -- cottonseed oil from the seed of Bt varieties is not segregated from non-GM cottonseed during processing for margarine or cooking oil, and is also fed to livestock.

The hiccup in the lengthy testing and approval process for GM canola came last November when the OGTR issued a 'stop-the-clock' order on both the Bayer and Monsanto applications until more information became available. The licenses had originally been due for issue in February or March, so the decision set back the release date by at least two months.

The controversy that has surrounded the likely introduction of GM canola into the Australian industry is in sharp contrast to the lack of interest evinced by the anti-GM movement in existing canola varieties that also contain herbicide-tolerance genes -- but which are the products of natural mutation and/or hybridisation.

Currently, triazine-tolerant (TT) canola accounts for around 60 per cent of the total acreage of canola in Australia, and there smaller plantings of Clearfield canola, a natural mutant that is tolerant to Bayer's glufosinate herbicide Liberty Link.

TT varieties are tolerant to atrazine, a class 2 herbicide that is much more persistent in the environment than either glufosinate or glyphosate, which both degrade quite rapidly on contact with the soil. Atrazine accumulates in groundwater and in waterways, and has been implicated in deformities seen in frogs and toads in North America.

Reduced costs

Remarkably, farmers have been growing TT canolas even though they concede a yield penalty of around 20 per cent relative to the best non-GM canolas. Farmers prefer them because they afford superior weed control, and reduce production costs.

Most of the growers who have already had favourable experiences with non-GM canolas are likely to be even more enthusiastic about the new GM varieties -- particularly if they deliver on their potential for higher yields even than conventional canolas.

The question now is whether the hold-out states will allow their farmers to grow such varieties, or, like NSW, will opt for moratoriums on the basis of community concerns about possible health and environmental impacts.

Those concerns have now been dismissed, on the basis of expert reviews, both by the Australian New Zealand Food Authority and the OGTR.

Last week a Melbourne University agronomist, Dr Rob Norton, delivered the results of modelling exercise which suggested that the new GM canolas could boost the productivity of Australia's canola and wheat industries by as much as $AUD135 million a year.