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March 29, 2000
The Age
Export Trade in Secret Canola
Government documents reveal that up to half of the genetically engineered
canola being grown secretly in Australia is being produced for commercial
sale, not scientific experiments.
Documents from the regulatory body set up to oversee genetic modification
trials show that significant amounts GM canola are being grown for export.
A spokesman for the federal Agriculture Minister, Mr Warren Truss, said
he
was unaware of the commercial production and that it was a matter for
the
industry regulator.
Opponents of genetic engineering are describing it as commercialisation
by
stealth.
In other developments yesterday:
The Tasmanian Government has called on the Federal Government to allow
it to
opt out of permitting genetically modified crops in the state, but Canberra
has so far refused.
AWB Ltd, formerly the Australian Wheat Board, said yesterday that its
main
overseas customers, particularly countries in the Middle East and Asia,
had
been adamant that they did not want GM wheat. But the company was keeping
its options open so it would have access to future genetic technology
should
tastes change.
The Australian Consumers Association's chief executive, Ms Louise Sylvan,
has warned the Federal Government not to take sides on GM foods and to
require complete openness by the industry. "There is a perception
that the
Government is taking the side of the companies," she said.
The president of the Victorian Farmers Federation, Mr Peter Walsh, scoffed
at concerns by the Federal Government's own scientists that
herbicide-resistant super weeds could result from widespread use of GM
canola. He said that new forms of chemical herbicides would be easily
developed to take care of such weeds.
The Government's own Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee and a
spokeswoman for the French/German crop science company Aventis have admitted
to widespread production of genetically modified canola for export.
At least 2000 hectares of the crop are likely to be in open fields with
no
covered protection against cross-pollination to other crops or weeds.
But
under the guidelines, buffer zones for such crops must be of 50 metres
from
related weeds and 400 metres from a commercial canola crop.
According to GMAC documents, most of the exported GM crops are grown in
spring and summer so they can be ready for release in the northern
hemisphere summer, particularly in Canada and the US.
It is known as "contra-season" planting and produces what some
operators
refer to as "mother seed". In Australia it is mainly being undertaken
by
Aventis and its US rival, Monsanto.
None of this seed can be sold legally in Australia, but reports have been
received of Australian farmers being offered black-market GM canola.
Two weeks ago The Age was directed to a mother seed field that had just
been
harvested near the South Australian town of Allendale, south of MtGambier.
It was in an open field next to a main road and the landowner was subject
to
a secrecy agreement with the seed company.
On Saturday The Age revealed that bags of plants from another GM canola
crop
near Mt Gambier were dumped on an open commercial tip. But Ms Naomi Stevens,
for Aventis, which ran the trials, has claimed the company buried the
material under a metre of soil.
The director of the GeneEthics Network, Mr Bob Phelps, said the regulators
were letting Australia down by putting the clean image of our agricultural
export industries at risk. He called for an immediate freeze on GM crop
releases and a disclosure of the location of production and trial sites.
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