WA forum looks to the future of agbiotech

The Western Australian branch of industry association AusBiotech has held a forum to examine the issues facing agricultural biotechnology in the state, and the challenges that must be faced if it is to move forward.

Hot on the heels of a canola contamination controversy in the state, representatives from across WA's biotech industry gathered to discuss the future of agricultural biotechnology in Western Australia.

On the panel was Ian Edwards, chairman of AusBiotech's AgBio Advisory Group, who stressed that with 15 million farmers tipped to have biotech crops worldwide by 2010, Australia's farmers risked falling behind unless they adopted the technology.

"Agricultural biotechnology is in reality a cottage industry in Australia," said Edwards. "We have some way to go. Our science is very competitive internationally, and in research publications we hold our own against any of our competitor countries. However, we need to have better models for moving our science from the bench into commercial reality."

Rob Delane of the WA Department of Agriculture agreed. "The great advances in genetic technology aren't being translated into the paddock and into farmers' businesses... It's fine to talk about the great prospects of biotechnology or some other technology for our children or grandchildren, but they might not live to apply it on the farm if we can't deliver something much sooner than that."

Delane said a crucial step in streamlining the supply of new technologies will be the creation of Agricultural Research Western Australia, a research alliance set to combine the might of WA's universities and the Department of Agriculture. "It's about the major players in agriculture and related research in Western Australia coming together to deliver faster access to better solutions. It's about picking up the technology, integrating it, and working to apply it in business earlier and more broadly."

Prof Mike Jones, director of WA's State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, said the collaboration would capitalise on the individual strengths of Curtin University of Technology, Murdoch University and The University of Western Australia, providing a more efficient pathway to the consumer interface.

Attracting early international investment was also identified as crucial to commercialisation. "Australian companies work with a tenth of the R&D budget of companies in the US," said Edwards. "We need to think of global partnering at the earliest opportunity, because we do not have the ongoing capital to sustain a lot of our start-up companies."

Delane emphasised that new technologies must also be correctly targeted. "The most important challenge in agricultural circles is accurately defining the need, the critical impact point where we're going to add the most value fastest. Biotechnology must be able to add value to businesses."

The panel agreed the tools of biotechnology have already become indispensable to successful agriculture, and that their continued and more widespread application has tremendous potential to improve the bottom line for farmers, and for Australia.

But the big bee in the biotech bonnet is still GM crops. And as this week some -- including the state's agriculture minister, Kim Chance -- called for increased regulation of "an already over-regulated industry", Edwards said it was time to move on.

"Moratoria [on GM crops] have not only undermined Australia's competitive position in agriculture, they have also undermined public faith in [Commonwealth government agency] the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. When public officials start questioning decisions made by the OGTR and FSANZ [Food Science Australia and New Zealand], they are undermining public trust in our regulatory system... We have a very big challenge to reach out to the community and build public trust"

"If we dropped the moratorium tomorrow we'd still only be 10 to 15 years behind the Canadians. That's the bottom line. I believe its time to move forward."

-- Cristy Burne is a Perth-based freelance writer