Cost of GM ban high says Australia's Agriculture Minister

CANBERRA - Individual Australian states have a right to ban growing genetically modified crops, says Australia's Agriculture Minister Warren Truss.

"But if each and every state effectively bans genetically modified crops, it's going to have a major impact on the capacity of Australia to achieve its potential and to keep up to date," Truss said yesterday.

Premier Bob Carr, of New South Wales, one of Australia's main canola-growing areas, on Monday said he would ban the production of GM food crops such as canola, clover, mustard and field peas until 2006 if his government was re-elected on March 22. It is expected to win easily.

Canola is the first commercial GM food crop likely to be introduced to Australia, with world farm chemical giants gearing up for a commercial release for planting this year.

Australia is the world's second-biggest exporter of canola, widely used as a cooking oil, in competition with world leader Canada, which already grows some GM crops.

A group of farmers has commended the NSW decision. But they joined the Australian Greens in expressing concern at ongoing trials of GM food crops, and their potential for contaminating non-GM crops.

Queensland farmer Julie Newman questioned whether the farming industry was ready for GM crops, and said farmers were being misled when they were told they would make more money from them.

Monsanto applied for a general or commercial release of GM canola crops in Australia last June, after pulling out of its original plans to grow hundreds of hectares of GM canola in New Zealand.

Monsanto asked permission in 1999 to grow GM canola on land between North Canterbury and Southland to produce seeds for the Canadian market.

But it withdrew the application when the then National Government's Independent Biotechnology Advisory Council recommended a moratorium, which was extended by the subsequent Labour Government.

New Zealand's moratorium on planting "commercial" GM crops is due to be lifted in October.

Questions have been raised in both countries about the extent to which brassicas such as canola which have been engineered to be resistant to herbicides should be grown where brassica weeds, such as wild turnip, are common.

Scientists have said the herbicide resistance genes could outcross to weedy brassicas and spread.

But such risks need commonsense assessment - developing herbicide resistance in oats in NZ might be considered unwise, given existing problems with wild oats.

In Europe, herbicide resistance in brassicas might not be sensible, given that continent's bigger range of weedy brassicas.

A sub-species of brassica campestris, rapifera, is widely grown in NZ as a turnip fodder for livestock.

Crop and Food Research Institute scientist Dr Tony Conner, an advocate for GM crops, has previously said that because NZ had few species in the native or naturalised flora that were closely related to the common crop plants grown, natural gene transfer to other species was not such a significant issue.

Australian research has shown that canola pollen can spread to nearby fields, but may fertilise only a small percentage of plants there.

But Truss said at yesterday's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (Abare) Outlook 2003 conference that farmers in other parts of the world were choosing to grow GM crops because it was to their economic advantage.

"They give high yields, they have lower costs," he said, adding that Australia would step back from the pace if it denied itself access to the latest technology.

Niche markets were available for non-GM and organic crops. "But we should not also deny ourselves access to the best available technology."

Australia's canola production and exports for fiscal 2004 are forecast at 2 million and 1.6 million tonnes respectively, with exports worth around A$800 million ($875.3 million) a year.

Its present GM crops are confined to the non-food products of cotton and carnations.

- REUTERS