Carr backflips on GM crops

Last year the NSW Premier Bob Carr promised a moratorium on 
the commercial release of genetically modified crops, a 
calculated move to calm down fears of the unknown consequences of 
using GM food. Now there is to be the planting of canola as early 
as April this year that involves thousands of hectares of 
genetically modified plants.

Monsanto and Bayer are the corporations that will run what are 
being called "joint tests" of genetically modified canola. They 
also want the participating farmers to sell their crops. The NSW 
Agricultural Advisory Council on Gene Technology has stated 
bluntly that the proposal is a done deal.

The way was opened for wider cultivation of GM crops by the 
Federal Office of the Gene Technology Regulator — where Monsanto 
and Bayer have had licence applications for more than a year to 
grow GM canola — when it announced that GM crops "pose no risks 
to humans or the environment".

In March 2003, Carr vowed to impose a three-year ban if his 
Government was re-elected later that same month. "It is an 
emotive issue requiring further analysis before commercial crops 
are released in NSW", said Carr at the time. He promised his 
Labor Government would pass laws to suspend the production of GM 
food crops until at least 2006.

 "They [NSW Agricultural Advisory Council] have already made up 
their minds that genetically engineered canola is inevitable", 
said Jo Immig of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW. This was 
despite widespread and significant concerns expressed by farmers 
and the community.

"The majority of [Advisory Council] members would approve 
anything Monsanto and Bayer placed before them."

Concerns

Field trials and general releases of GM crops are a concern 
because of the contamination risk to non-GM crops.

Contamination of non-GM canola has already occurred in GM canola 
trials. 

There have been no independent investigations of GM food and its 
production to determine its safety. Food safety testing so far in 
Australia has been based on assessment of data supplied by the 
biotechnology corporations.

There is also the question of control of Australian agriculture: 
just four transnational biotechnology corporations have been 
responsible for the development of GM technology and products — 
Syngenta, Monsanto, Aventis and Dupont.