Commercial Cultivation of Genetically Modified Crops in NSW

Background

The moratorium on growing Genetically Engineered crops in NSW expired in March 2008. The lifting of the moratorium will have dire consequences for our clean, green, GE free image and will have detrimental effects on export markets. The introduction of GE food crops threatens the rapidly growing organics markets, as organics are incompatible with GE.
The ban on commercial GE crops was extended in 2005, partly because the government said there had not been adequate trials, due to the drought. This remains the case. Proponents of GE have not participated in independent comparative field trials, so there is no reason to lift the ban in 2008.
At the end of 2007, the NSW Labor Government introduced the Gene Technology (GM Crop Moratorium) Bill 2007. The Bill paved the way for the Minister for Primary Industry under Section 7A of the Gene Technology (GM Crop Moratorium) Act 2003(“GM Act”) to approve Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (“OGTR”) cleared Genetically Modified Organisms (“GMO”) for commercial cultivation in NSW.
In other words, GMO varieties given the tick of approval by the Federal OGTR as complying with health and safety impacts, then also need the NSW Government’s tick of approval for commercial cultivation, which ensures trade and market consideration are taken into account.

 

Canola

Canola is commonly used in margarine, cooking oil, dips, sauces and many other foods, as well as stock feed for farm animals.
Australian farmers are enjoying a price premium for GE-free canola, compared with GE-growers like Canada and the US. With Japan and the EU being the main export markets, there is a demand for GE-free canola. The end of the moratorium would threaten this market and see a decrease in prices paid to farmers.
Canola is crop-rotated with wheat. This means that if GE canola plants germinate among a wheat crop, it threatens the GE-free status of the wheat. Australia has a strong reputation for its wheat, which could be tarnished with GE contamination and threaten export markets. There is also an increasing market for organic wheat, which is not compatible with GE.
On 12 March 2008, the Minister approved two licenced GMOs, Nufarm Ltd licensed Roundup Ready Canola and Bayer's Invigor Hybrid Canola for commercial cultivation in NSW.

 

The Approval Process

This approval process whereby an Expert Committee, consisiting of 12 appointees provides guidance, feedback and advice on applications for commercial cultivation from agri-business GM representatives has highlighted two key concerns.
The first issue is a disproportionate representation of individuals with significant histories of pro-GM advocacy sit on the Committee. The Minister was less than forthcoming with the details of the Expert Committee and whether any appointees had disclosed a pecuniary or non-pecuniary interest.
An application was made pursuant to Section 13(3) of the GM Act for access to the disclosures book - a document produced by the Committee and maintained by the Department of Primary Industry - in order to establish who was on the Expert Committee and what pecuniary interests members may have declared.
The disclosures book revealed that the Expert Committee consists of:

• Professor Timothy Reeves - Chair  

Director and Principal of Timothy G. Reeves and Assoc. Pty Ltd, specialising in national and international consulting in agricultural research and development.
Board Director – The Grains Research Development Corporation
Board Director – the Future Farm Industries CRC
Professional fellow at Melbourne University. Adjunct professor at Deakin University. In the process of becoming an adjunct professor at Qld Uni of Technology

• Dr Geoffrey Annison

Director, Health, Nutrition and Scientific Affairs of the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC)
Formerly of Australian Pork Ltd and AWB Ltd.
Dr Annison has a Bachelor of Science in Food Technology and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of New South Wales.
Dr Annison declared a "small share holding AWB Pty Ltd"

• Mr Phillip Clamp

Quality Assurance Manager of Graincorp Ltd (GrainCorp Limited is a publicly listed Australian agribusiness and the dominant bulk handling company on the east coast of Australia. We are committed to servicing the needs of the domestic and international grain markets from producers to buyers.)
Mr Clamp declared a "minor shareholding (about 1,500 securities) in Graincorp"

• Mr Brett Drysdale

President of Australian Grain Harvesters Association Inc.

• Dr T J Higgins

Chief Research Scientist and Deputy Chief of CSIRO Plant Industry Division

• Ms Jo Immig

Environmental Scientist, National Toxics Network

• Dr Zottan Lukas

Grains Research and Development Corporation, Corporate Strategist Evaluation & Reporting

• Mrs Juliet McFarlane

 Canola grower and Eastern Spokesperson for Network of Concerned Farmers

• Ms Cindy Mills

Australian Wheat Board, Wheat Product Development Manager
Ms Mills declared a "small share holding in AWB Ltd"

• Mr Hugh Roberts

Grains Committee Member of NSW Farmers Association
Mr Roberts declared "shareholding in AWB Ltd and Graincorp" and is a Life Member of NSW seed growers association

• Dr Stephen Thomas

Director of Rural Innovation, New South Wales Department of Primary Industry

• Mr Nicholas Woods

General Manager (Biotechnology) of Croplife Australia Ltd

The other perinent issue in relation to the approval process was the lack of transparency. In answering a question without notice on the advice of the Expert Committee, Minister MacDonald described the approval process as:
"The committee made recommendations to me. After looking at those recommendations I determined that certain areas should be strengthened and I forwarded suggestions back to the committee. The expert committee considered those suggestions and incorporated them."
The Hon. Duncan Gay summerised the process in an interjection:
The Hon. Duncan Gay: You just tell them what you want and they give them to you.
The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I do not tell the committee to do anything.
The Hon. Duncan Gay: You tell them to do what you want.
The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: They do not do what I want.
The Hon. Duncan Gay: You just said that they did.
The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I did not say that. I said that I put a couple of proposals to them.
The Hon. Duncan Gay: And they did what you wanted.
The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: The committee carefully considered what I had to say and incorporated a couple of changes. That is fair enough; there is nothing wrong with that. The basic decision was still there—that is, to permit the growing of GM canola.
The Hon. Duncan Gay: That is a good committee!
The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: There is no doubt about that. It is an independent committee that considered the matters and a couple of suggestions from me. I did not tell it to do anything. The committee supported my view and strengthened the proposition with a couple of my suggestions. There is nothing wrong with that.
The Hon. Catherine Cusack: Have you finished their report yet?
These issues provided a sufficient impetus for all Committee deliberations and industry applications to be made public. The call for documents to be released was defeated in the Upper House with the Government, the Shooters and CDP voting against the motion.
Part 1 of the Debate
Part 2 of the Debate
What is clear is that GM approval and management protocols will be undertaken under the cover of darkness. The community is being starved of information and are not being given a chance to appropriate make informed decisions about the proliferation of GM crops.

So, how are GM Crops and Food Products regulated in NSW?

Under the GM Act there are no regulatory prescriptions for how segregation and co-existence of GM and Non-GM crops is to be managed. The lack of legislative control and regulation is in stark contrast to the raft of regulatory measures the organics industry is subjected to.
The GM Act is unprecedented, in that the legislature so rarely defers regulatory power to commercial stakeholders who have a vested interest in the the subject matter they are regulating.  In GRDC Ground Cover Issue No. 74, David Strong, Business Manager for Pacific Seeds, is quotes as saying ‘industry has been directed to manage and self regulate the cultivation and segregation of GM canola. At this point, the Government has handed over control to industry to self regulate.’
Regulation of GM cultivation is farmed out to the private sector to manage and control GM cultivation. The Single Vision Grains Australia document 'Delivering market choice with GM canola'. In outlining the key protocols for managing and handling GM Canola the most utilised approach of the industry stakeholders is to rely upon contractual arrangements between the GM Canola grower and the patent licensee.
Joe Lederman in a recent article titled "Overcoming difficulties for co-existence between GM and non-GM crops: Laws required for improving supply chain segregation" commented on the problems of delegating GM cultivation regulation to private contracts by stating;
"The GM technology providers also have scope to regulate farming of GM varieties. Often purchase contracts for GM seeds contain Technical User Agreements that the farmers must adhere to. As the GM technology providers are using such Agreements primarily in order to protect their patent, these User Agreements could help ensure at this critical control point that GM crops do not contaminate non-GM crops.
However, in reality, since the purpose is not to protect the non-GM crop grower from contamination, the non-GM crops grower is rarely protected through these Agreements. Furthermore, there are international legal precedents by which GM technology providers have obtained a royalty entitlement even from a non-GM crop grower where GM contamination has occurred. Moreover, these Technical User Agreements are not subject to further laws that could compel proper segregation such as through penalties for lack of consciencious compliance with proper segregation practice."
The pro-GM stakeholders are clearly creating a form of self-regulation which places all the cost burden of segregation or co-existence on Non-GM farmers. Executive Director of the Australian Oilseeds Federation Rosemary Richards delivered the news that:
“growers wanting to market their grain as non-GM must ensure the status of their seed prior to planting. Also, the grower will need to demonstrate traceability through the supply chain. This could involve procedures such as vendor declarations, monitoring contractors and deliver to storage in compliance with customer requirements.”
For consumers, making informed choices on whether they want to consume GM food products is not currently possible. The Food Standards Australia and New Zealand do not have adequate food labelling laws in place requiring food products derived from GM Canola, on the basis that DNA material is stripped from high processed GM Canola product.

Moving Forward 

Moving forward we must ensure;
i) Non-GM Farmers can effectively protect their crops from GM contamination and are not unfairly burdened with Non-GM Certification costs.
ii) Consumers will have the ability to make a choice about consuming food products with GM content through the adoption of adequate food labelling laws.

 

Myths

• GM is safe

Nobody knows the long-terms consequences of consuming GE foods and there has not been adequate testing. Some preliminary testing on rats has shown worrying results in a number of GE varieties, including corn and peas.
GE canola varieties approved by the federal Gene Technology Regulator include Monsanto's GT73 Roundup Ready canola. Monsanto's own studies reveal increased liver weights in rats fed the canola. The Public Health Association of Australia has also raised safety concerns about eating the canola.

• Isn’t GE just an artificial form of selective breeding, which farmers have done for centuries?

GE is the manipulation of the DNA structure of organisms in an attempt to produce desirable characteristics, but it allows genes to move between species in ways that could never occur in nature. For example, cattle genes have been inserted into soybeans and rat genes into lettuces. Even scientists have no idea what effects this could have in the long-term on the organisms, on humans or on the environment.
GE drought resistant varieties will help farmers in these drought-stricken times.
There are no commercially available drought resistant varieties of GE plants. However, plants that are more drought-tolerant have been developed through selective breeding without the use of GE.

• It is easy to keep GE and non-GE crops separate

Supporters of GE claim that protocols can be used to ensure that GE and non-GE grain can be adequately separated. However, even small-scale field trials led to contamination of non-GE canola with GE plants across several states in late 2005. Once GE crops are released, there is no going back.

• GE crops use less chemicals

Most GE crops that are grown commercially are designed to be used together with strong herbicides, mostly made by the same companies that hold the patents to the GE seed. Often, more herbicide or stronger applications are needed, especially as other weeds become herbicide tolerant. In the US, farmers of GE soybeans use far more herbicides than farmers of non-GE soybeans.
Another concern is that herbicide resistant GE plants such as canola can cross-breed with other weeds, creating herbicide resistant ‘super-weeds’.

The following is an excerpt of the film The Future of Food, which illustrates the impact GMO has had on Mexican corn cultivation and US farmers' ability to save non-GMO seed.