Sydney Morning Herald | By Stephanie Peatling | June 4, 2003
Environmentalists spurn genetically modified crops on the principle of erring on the side of caution. Not so the Carr Government. Stephanie Peatling reports.
IN THE thick of the state election campaign in March, the Premier, Bob Carr, took on board NSW farmers' fears about genetically modified food and announced a three-year ban on the commercial release of altered crops such as canola, clover, mustard and field pea.
"Cross pollination is a real problem and it's appropriate for us to legislate to say we will pause on this issue for at least three years," he said.
Carr was only locking onto worldwide concerns about GM foods: the campaign in Britain and Europe has been fought against a backdrop of consumer fears about food safety; debate in Australia has been led by traditional and organic farmers worried their crops might become contaminated by genetically modified strains.
Australian farmers have called for a complete moratorium on GM crops saying extreme caution must be exercised. An Australian study last year found pollen could travel up to three kilometres from the original plant. Farmers fear contamination of their crops after reports that new hybrids had jumped the fence and landed among untainted harvests in the United States and Canada.
Last week the Carr Government rushed through legislation banning GM food crops grown for commercial release but allowing research trials to take place. It seems the rush to legislate was prompted by the Government's desire to beat an upcoming ruling by the f ederal Gene Technology Regulator on two applications to grow GM canola commercially.
But the anti-GM lobby, including the Greens, Democrats and Opposition, say the ban is not really a ban. The legislation provides for research trials on unlimited acreage, but only with the approval of the agriculture minister, at present Ian Macdonald, on advice from a consultative committee. But there is no requirement for notification to be given of any trials.
The NSW Farmers' Association has been lobbying for field trials on the grounds that it needs to understand the impacts of the wider introduction of GM canola. It has also raised the possibility of selling the trials' results. In notes prepared for Macdonald, it argues trial conditions should "include the sale of GM canola to overseas markets to ensure export is possible".
The Government argues trials are necessary to ensure NSW does not lag behind in researching the effects of GM crops. "I do not know how one keeps abreast of latest developments without some form of research," says Macdonald.
He promises that the legislation will "protect farmers while allowing the public to further investigate the marketing issues surrounding GM crops. I hope the future conduct of this debate is free from hysteria so that the public can properly make an informed decision on this issue."
But the Greens MLC Ian Cohen accuses the Government of betraying the spirit of its election commitment, which helped secure his party's preferences. "GM canola will be able to be grown in NSW [because] the definition of a food crop in the legislation opens the way for biotech companies to successfully argue canola is not a food crop for human consumption," he says.
Sam Statham, an organic farmer and member of the Biological Farmers A ssociation and Organic Federation of Australia , says the NSW legislation does not protect farmers whose crops become contaminated.
Among his concerns are buffer zones between GM and non-GM crops that would be no wider than five metres, a distance set down by the Federal Government's Gene Technology Grains Committee. Should any contamination occur, the responsibility for investigating and addressing it lies with the people who believe their crops have been contaminated. They would also bear the cost of proving contamination.
"Farmers need to do something about this situation if they want to preserve their rights to keep GM plants off their farms and avoid the costs that would result from contamination," Statham says. "Under this legislation these rights will be lost."
For its part, the Government maintains that research should not be stopped just because the moratorium on commercial application has begun.
But the moratorium faces a possible threat from another front. Last month the Federal Government announced that it would back an appeal by the US to the World Trade Organisation against the European Community's demand that all GM food be labelled. Europe, with its strict anti-GM requirements, also insists on tracing the origins of ingredients in imported food.
The US, supported by Australia, says such labels and tracing mechanisms are costly and impractical. This puts Australia in a paradoxical position because it also has GM labelling requirements and the US would like these dropped as part of free trade negotiations.
The Democrats senator John Cherry has raised the possibility that not only are Australia's labelling laws under threat but the various states' moratoriums are open to question as a result of the appeal to the WTO. "The American biotechnology industry is not happy with Europe's labelling of GM crops and could challenge Australia's labelling laws as well. The moratoriums by the states prevent the import of US biotechnology products into those states and could also be challenged," says Cherry.
The NSW Government, and the other state governments with GM moratoriums such as Victoria, are resolute their bans will remain in place.Sydney Morning Herald:
