Victoria stops GM canola for 4 years

By MICHAEL BYRNES in Sydney

The Australian state of Victoria has introduced a new four-year moratorium on the commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) canola.

Premier Steve Bracks said there were still deep divisions and uncertainty in industry, farming and regional communities about market access for GM crops.

This week, the Western Australian state Government placed an indefinite ban on growing GM crops.

But the New South Wales Government is considering whether to let a large-scale commercial trial crop of GM canola go ahead, possibly this year.

Last year, the federal Government's gene technology regulator approved commercial canola crops.

But state Governments also have powers over the production and marketing of GM crops.

Australia now grows only two GM crops, a large cotton crop in New South Wales and Queensland, and a smaller carnation crop.

Victoria is Australia's largest dairy exporter, with products worth about A$2.5 billion ($2.86 billion) a year. It also exports more than A$1 billion of grain a year.

Bracks said the Murray Goulburn Co-operative dairy group, barley exporter ABB Grain, wheat exporter AWB and Tatura Milk Industries shared concerns about market access for GM produce.

Victoria intends to prohibit the commercial planting of GM canola until 2008.

Bracks said tightly controlled non-commercial, low-level trials would be allowed.

Australia is the world's second-largest canola exporter after Canada, where the crop is mostly genetically modified.

Europe, the main market for non-GM canola, takes only small amounts of Australian canola because of shipping costs and competition from other vegetable oils.

Of a national canola crop of 1.6 million tonnes to the end of this month, Victoria is forecast to produce 420,000 tonnes and Western Australia 610,000 tonnes.

Federal Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said states that banned GM crops could be disadvantaging their farmers and Australian agriculture.

There was no scientific reason for states to ban GM crops, and there were doubts over claims of market advantages in bans.

- REUTERS