Genetically modified wheat trials should be banned

Submitted by Louise Sales on Fri, 08/07/2011 - 08:09

Hon Lynn MacLaren MLC, the WA Greens spokesperson on GMOs, is calling for a ban on genetically modified (GM) wheat trials in Western Australia because of the risks posed to Western Australia’s wheat market. The call follows the release yesterday of a Greenpeace report Australia’s wheat scandal: The biotech takeover of our daily bread  which highlights the contamination risk posed by the trials.

“There have been numerous contamination incidents associated with GM crop trials, such as the ‘low-risk’ GM rice trial that Bayer conducted in the US which resulted in widespread contamination and cost the US rice industry $1.2 billion, ” said Ms MacLaren.

“Monsanto abandoned plans to commercialise GM wheat in 2004 because of fears of market rejection and Colin Barnett has promised Japanese buyers that GM wheat will not be grown here. By allowing field trials of GM wheat, the WA Government is potentially jeopardising our $1.7 billion wheat export market,” added Ms MacLaren.

“Questions also need to be asked about the WA Government’s New genes for new environments program. Why is the Government wasting $9 million of taxpayers money developing GM crops when there is no market for them, and traits such as drought and frost tolerance can be more easily developed using other means?” concluded Ms MacLaren.

Julie Newman, Spokesperson for the Network of Concerned Farmers, said “The introduction of GM wheat would amount to industry sabotage. Overnight the market perception would be that Australia’s wheat was GM unless proven otherwise, which would be too expensive and difficult to do.”

Ms MacLaren is supporting calls for an investigation into the process behind the recent sale to Monsanto of a 19.9 per cent stake in the Government owned crop breeding company InterGrain. Intergrain produces around 90 per cent of the wheat grown in Western Australia, and around 80 per cent of the wheat grown across Australia (1).

(1) Quote from Mr Terry Redman, Extract from Hansard, Assembly - Wednesday, 2 June 2010,p376b-396a