Canola Crunch Time
"Like a paddock full of Paterson's curse, the genetically modified food debate has again raised its ugly head," said Ian Parmenter 1 following the pre-Christmas announcement that the NSW and Victorian state governments were giving genetically modified (GM) canola the thumbs up, ending the four-year moratorium on planting. Philippa Sandall has compiled a number of reactions from those in the front line.The lifting of the moratoria means that in 2008, herbicide-tolerant canolas can be planted - Bayer CropScience's InVigor (gluphosinate ammonium tolerant) and Monsanto Australia's Roundup Ready (glyphosate tolerant). The benefit? Farmers can spray weeds without damaging their canola crops. So what's the big deal about canola?
More than 90% of Australia's cotton currently comes from GM crops. And we don't just wear it. Cottonseed oil is used in spreads and cooking oils, particularly in the food service industry. What makes the GM canola different from GM cotton? Why did the thumbs up produce headlines such as "Frankenstein food beats starvation", "Genie genie what are they doing to our food ? " , " Land warfare warning over GM canola", "No winners from GM canola, cane toad of the 21st century", "The biggest losers from anti-GM antics are the poor", and "Scare tactics fail in anti-GM battle"?
For many people it seems to be the tip of the GM food supply iceberg. Give in to canola and the shopping trolley will never be the same. It's also clear that no-one can incontrovertibly say, "The evidence is in: GM crops are good for us and good for the planet." There are a lot of 'probables' and 'possibles' and 'mights' on the Pros and Cons list.
"The question is one of evidence," says retired Australian National University professor Adrian Gibbs. "We have been given a lot of opinions by the chemical companies but science is based on evidence. The licenses to grow GM canola were issued in 2002 but the science has moved on since then and there's been no major testing. We need an active research program and the OGTR and FSANZ need to be funded to look hard and ask for various experiments done by independent Australian researchers."
Professor Mark Tester, a Federation Fellow at the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, has this view: ". . . GM is a technology, a tool. It is not 'the answer' to our problems. Equally it is not an evil to be avoided at all costs . . . The simplistic, fundamentalist approach taken by the extremists on both sides of the G M debate is causing untold damage to Australian farmers and the Australian economy . . . The applications of GM are varied. Although present commercial uses of the technology introduce herbicide tolerance and insecticide synthesis, which raise questions in people's minds, the technology can be used in myriad other ways, such as to increase drought and salinity tolerance or to increase the quality of our food.
"To demand 'GM-free' food is, I am afraid, irrational. To maintain moratoria might make short-term parochial political sense, but they are scientific nonsense and are damaging our farmers' competitiveness and potential to maintain productivity in the face of climate change . . . Each application of GM technology should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The risks depend on the crops and the genes and where the genes are 'switched on'. Likewise for the benefits.
"So let's ask good questions about this technology and rationally assess the risks and benefits as Sir Gustav Nossal, the gene regulator, and numerous committees have done for the present applications."
But consumer opinion in Australia (and Europe) seems to be hardening against GM foods. A great deal of the debate comes down to a question of choice. Whose?
"In my personal position," said canola grower Michael Mathews, from Young in NSW, having the choice means that we can rotate with a larger range of chemicals in our crops, and I think Australia will benefit more from this technology than a lot of other countries , due to the fact that frost tolerance, drought tolerance, salt tolerance and soil acidity are all tolerances which can be now bred into our crops."
On the other hand, in WA, Grasmere potato farmer Laurie Eldridge - whose farm is surrounded by canola - and his fellow growers believe that WA's environmentally friendly horticultural industries will be at risk. "Once it gets into NSW and Victoria there will be leaks of it into SA and up into Queensland and it will trickle into WA because one or two growers will want it here," he said. "How the hell do you keep GM and non-GM separated? Are you going to build separate silos and carriers and cart it around in different trucks? It has never been put to the people if they want GM technology in their food."
And Dr Bob Phelps, director of the Australian GeneEthics Network, sums it up thus: "The farmers are being given the right to choose to grow GM food but the problem with that is it gives everybody else less choice."
Most of us have had no hand-on experience planting GM crops. American investigative journalist and author Michael Pollan has. He planted Monsanto's New Leaf Superior Colorado beetle-resistant potatoes in his veggie garden and harvested (as he says) "a gorgeous-looking pile of white spuds including some lunkers" (great word, meaning something that is large for its kind). "I kept my New Leafs in a bag on the porch," he continued."Then I took the bag with me on vacation, thinking maybe I'd sample them there, but the bag came home untouched. "The bag sat on my porch till the other day, when I was invited to an end-of-summer potluck supper at the town beach. Perfect, I signed up to make a potato salad. I brought the bag into the kitchen and set a pot of water on the stove. But before it boiled I was stricken by this thought: I'd have to tell people at the picnic what they were eating.
"I'm sure (well, almost sure) the potatoes are safe, but if the idea of eating biotech food without knowing it bothered me, how could I possibly ask my neighbours to? So I'd tell them about the New Leafs - and then, no doubt, lug home a big bowl of untouched potato salad. For surely there would be other potato salads at the potluck and who, given the choice, was ever going to opt for the bowl with the biotech spuds? "So there they sit, a bag of biotech spuds on my porch. I'm sure they're absolutely fine. I pass the bag every day, thinking I really should try one, but I'm beginning to think that what I like best about these particular biotech potatoes - what makes them different- is that I have this choice. And until I know more, I choose not."
- (SMH, 30 Nov 2007)
- (Herald-Sun, 1 Dec 2007)
- (The Advertiser, 30 Nov 2007)
- (ABC News, 28 Nov 2007)
- (ABC News, 6 Dec 2007)
- (Herald-Sun, 1 Dec 2007)
