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March 16, 2000
Report, ABC TV
Transcript
Frankenstein food being developed in Tasmania
KERRY O'BRIEN: It's been called 'Frankenstein food' -- genetically modified
plants touted as the super crops of the future.
Here in Australia, legislation is still being formulated to set formal
guidelines for genetically modified crops.
But hundreds of trials are already under way, many of them in secret
locations.
In Tasmania, where primary producers have long traded on the State's clean,
green image, there are growing concerns that their crops may inadvertently
be cross-pollinated with genetically modified test crops.
Judy Tierney reports.
ALAN RIGNEY, CANOLA FARMER: This is lovely stuff -- canola oil.
JUDY TIERNEY: In northern Tasmania, Alan Rigney is part of a consortium
which aims to produce Australia's, and possibly the world's, first
chemically-free canola oil.
Farmers are contracted to grow crops of canola to produce the oil and
a
by-product of meal for cattle.
But there's a problem.
Genetically manipulated crops of canola are being planted at dozens of
secret sites around Tasmania.
LUKE ANDERSON, AUTHOR: Canola produces millions and billions of pollen
grains.
Every time it pollinates, those pollen grains can cross with conventional
varieties of canola.
JUDY TIERNEY: The GMC crops are modified to be resistant to chemicals
and
the plots are sprayed to kill off weeds.
It's an issue that's been researched by Luke Anderson for his book 'Genetic
Engineering, Food, and our Environment.' LUKE ANDERSON: We've got farmers
complaining already in Canada that their varieties are being
cross-pollinated and so they're getting herbicide-resistant weeds in amongst
their own crops.
JUDY TIERNEY: It's a warning repeated by geneticist and environmentalist
David Suzuki.
DAVID SUZUKI, GENETICIST AND ENVIRONMENTALIST: Right now, there's already
enough evidence to say that these organisms, once grown out in fields,
are
changing, exchanging genes in ways we hadn't predicted -- corn plants
exchanging DNA with milkweed plants, canola exchanging plants with weeds,
making superweeds.
JUDY TIERNEY: But like most of the GM debate, there are radically opposing
views.
Multinational company Monsanto has planted trial crops of genetically
modified canola in Tasmania.
BRIAN ARNST, MONSANTO AUSTRALIA LTD: It's known that canola pollen can
travel, can travel some distance.
However, trials in Australia have shown that the canola pollen is very
heavy
and, if you go beyond 50m of a canola field, it's been measured that less
than 1 per cent of the pollen is viable.
SCOTT KINNEAR, ORGANIC INDUSTRY AUSTRALIA: They picked the wrong crop
to
start off with.
Canola, it transfers, the bees love it.
They take it 3km or 4km.
The wind takes the pollen up to 10km.
It's by far the wrong crop to start with and we should stop it immediately.
JUDY TIERNEY: Well, that's what the State Government is thinking about,
but
it can't do anything just yet.
DAVID LLEWELLYN, TASMANIAN PRIMARY INDUSTRIES MINISTER: We're looking
at,
you know, trying to come to terms with this whole issue and having the
public debate that's needed with regard to this issue.
And I'd prefer that, you know, things didn't move along quite so quickly
as
far as private industry is concerned -- an area that I don't, at this
stage,
have any control over.
JUDY TIERNEY: But any suggestion the State Government move to shut out
GM
crops brings an angry response.
BUZZ GREEN, AGRICULTURAL ADVISER: The Government would want to be very
sure
that it can milk significant advantage from that position because it will
certainly isolate us from significant growth potential in this technology
and it does have the danger of leaving us behind.
JUDY TIERNEY: The State Government wants full disclosure of the crops'
whereabouts, but those involved in the growing of them say that wouldn't
be
right.
BRIAN ARNST: When we do any sort of trial, whether it be with genetically
modified crop or even with some of our pesticides, the data that we're
gathering is confidential and of competitive value to our company up until
time of commercialisation.
So, therefore, we have always kept these sites out of the public mind.
SCOTT KINNEAR: We were shocked, absolutely shocked, that we had not been
consulted in any way by the Government or by the industry.
It's OUR approaches to Monsanto and to Agrevo talking about contamination,
talking about controls, trying to urge them to give us the locations so
that
we can put risk analysis.
JUDY TIERNEY: At the moment, regulation of these crops in secret locations
comes from the Federal Government-convened Genetic Manipulation Advisory
Committee, or GMAC.
But GMAC doesn't oversee the crops or the personnel involved.
That's the duty of institutional biosafety committees, which are appointed
by the very companies growing the crops.
BRIAN ARNST: The IBC committee is -- yes, it's set up by Monsanto, but
it
contains a group of people who are all independent.
We've got scientists from Monash University, from Melbourne University,
and
we've also got lay people from the community.
JUDY TIERNEY: But right now that doesn't appease many of Tasmania's
producers, including the apple industry.
They've fought long and hard to establish the reputation for clean, green
products.
As an island State, its isolation has afforded it a kind of mystique.
Now many farmers feel consumer confidence will not be heightened, but
severely shaken.
STEVEN SHIELD, APPLE INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN: And it's more than an image,
it's a
reality.
We're using very minimal amounts of chemicals now because of good orcharding
practices, so we have a lot of concerns over genetically engineered food
products being grown around ours as well.
JUDY TIERNEY: For Alan Rigney if the perception of Tasmania's clean, green
image is tarnished, his sale of pure oil could face an uphill battle.
ALAN RIGNEY: If it jeopardises that image, well, we have lost a marketing
tool.
BUZZ GREEN: Science can demonstrate there's a high margin of safety with
this technology and I think that as consumers become more aware of the
facts, their confidence in it will increase.
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