We need to take five and consider the future of our GE-free reputation

On July 25, Australia's Office of Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) granted a licence for the national release of seven varieties of genetically engineered (GE) canola to corporate giant Bayer, without conditions. Despite the licence being issued, no commercial GE canola can be planted until next March as this season's sowing-time has passed. This provides the community with a small window of opportunity to say "no" to the crop.

The OGTR claims to have found no environmental, public health or safety reasons not to grant the licence. The herbicide-tolerant crops are engineered to survive being over-sprayed with Bayer's "Liberty" poison, more often and at higher doses to kill weeds quicker. Monsanto also wants a licence to sell Roundup-tolerant canola. Direct environmental impacts include more chemical residues in soil and food, and weeds that are more difficult and expensive to manage as canola is already a weed.

GE canola will also contaminate grain-supply chains, imposing costs for testing and segregation on GE-free grain growers and marketers. At risk is Australia's reputation for clean, green GE-free foods that ensures access to most markets. Food buyers everywhere prefer GE-free foods, giving Australia a marketing edge that should not be sacrificed to the false promises of GE crops or foods. The organic industry, with a zero threshold for GE contamination, risks losing its certification.

Bayer and Monsanto have offered no evidence that their GE canola varieties can deliver benefits to anyone except themselves. Yet the Australian government sides with our main competitors in world markets - the corporate owners of patented GE technologies and the US government that backs them. Australia's acceptance of GE products is on the agenda of the Australia/US Free Trade negotiations. The US wants Australia to:

• dismantle its GE food labelling laws, even though they are weak;
• compromise strong quarantine standards which may hamper trade;
• refuse to sign or ratify the international Biosafety Protocol; and
• back a US challenge in the WTO to the EU's GE crop, food and label laws.

GE-free food for markets

Since 1996, US and Canadian grain exports to Europe have fallen, from lack of confidence in gene technology products. Thus, Australia's GE-free produce gained new markets. About 15 per cent of Australian canola production (362,000 tonnes) went to Europe last year. US corn sales in Europe also plunged from 3 million tonnes in '96/97 to near zero last year, after GE crops were introduced.

Australia's multi-billion dollar grain and oilseed industries are also at risk if GE canola is grown here:

• Europe and Japan could refuse Australian Wheat Board shipments;
• Saudi Arabia warned the Barley Board that purchases may end;
• Japan says farmed tuna fed on GE grain could wipe out our sushi market;
• Australian food processors go GE-free, in response to shopper demand;
• the Grain Harvesters Association wants Bayer and Monsanto to indemnify them against liability; and
• the organic industry seeks compensation for losses from GE contamination.

Aware of these threats, on July 31 Australia's eight state and territory (all ALP) governments confirmed their powers to establish local and state-wide GE-Free Zones. Under the law, the OGTR is banned from licensing GE releases in GE-free Zones. All canola-growing states decided to ban GE food crops, at least this year:

• Tas: until 2008;
• NSW: until 2006, but with Ministerial discretion to vary the ban;
• WA: is debating a Bill for a five-year ban, backed by an inquiry report;
• SA: this year only, but an inquiry recommends some GE-free Zones;
• Vic: this year only, with an inquiry into markets; and
• ACT: the Health Committee backs a five year freeze.

At present most of Australia is still GE-free. Just 30 per cent of the cotton crop in Northern NSW and Southern Queensland is GE, and some carnations also contain foreign genes that make the flowers blue or last longer in the vase.

GeneEthics and other public interest groups now seek a new consensus among all parties, that a national five-year freeze on all commercial GE crop releases is necessary. However, both Queensland and the Northern Territory are eager to set up a cotton industry across Australia's North. It would be based on Monsanto's two-gene Bt cotton, which produces its own insecticide. This crop makes the false promise of "chemical-free" farming. Instead, this GE crop may allow the most destructive and polluting rural industry into the continent's most fragile and valuable environments.

A national five-year freeze on commercial GE crop releases is necessary and possible. A process is needed by which the disparate views can be reconciled.

Voluntary Guidelines

The OGTR licenses GE releases under federal law. But Agriculture Ministers decided earlier this year to allow all aspects of GE canola release, from the seed to your spoon, to be managed under voluntary supply-chain protocols. AVCARE, the peak council of the agrochemical industry, set up the Gene Technology Grains Committee (GTGC) to develop the protocols. The GTGC is stacked with industry backers including Bayer and Monsanto and its draft protocols are weak and unenforceable.

Despite widespread dissent, the GTGC claims that all sections of the grain and food industries have now agreed to its protocols. But many constituencies - eg: local government, retailers, and food buyers - were not even consulted at all. The protocols are to be administered by the grains industry itself, especially the technology owners Bayer and Monsanto. They are not required to report compliance or breeches to the OGTR or any other authorities. The GE canola protocols mandate:

• five metre buffer zones (though canola pollen can go 3km);
• a one per cent threshold of "accidental" contamination in GE-free products (though markets will not accept the routine contamination envisaged);
• farmers to save seed for one year only (though many have always saved seed); and
• sole responsibility on farmers and supply chain managers for GE seed or pollen contamination of GE-free grains (though the GTGC admits contamination is inevitable).

The GE industry has been allowed to exonerate itself from any responsibility or liability for the inevitable failings of its flawed technology.

False promises

GE researchers and companies make many wild promises - eg: drought and salt-tolerant crops; more nutritious, healthier and longer shelf-life foods; designer animals - but there is scant evidence that they can deliver in the foreseeable future. Hence, the companies are determined to commercialise their existing herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant products now, before the global tide of rejection turns entirely against them.

GE crops are not the global success that is often claimed. GE companies want to stampede Australian growers into accepting their canola even though data from a reliable industry source shows acceptance by farmers overseas has stalled. Commercial GE crops:

• grow on less than 4 per cent of the world's broadacre farmlands,
• grow mostly in just four countries - USA 66 per cent, Argentina 23 per cent, Canada 6 per cent and China 4 per cent. Twelve other countries (including Australia) grow just 1 per cent of the total;
• are herbicide tolerant (70 per cent), or make their own insect toxins (~30 per cent);
• include only soy, corn, canola and cotton;
• acreages have not increased since 1999 (except for GE soy).

This mediocre performance can be explained. North American GE crop growers are plagued by a spectrum of problems: lower yields; crop failures; higher input costs; poorer quality products; the failure of GE/GE-free segregation; lower profits; and lost markets. Nearly a thousand Canadian growers are now jointly suing Monsanto because they cannot farm GE-free varieties and are seeking recompense for their losses. GE crops in the USA are kept afloat by:

• direct subsidies from the US Farm Bill, worth $33 billion annually;
• US government purchases of unsaleable GE foods, for foreign aid programs;
• sales for animal feed and use in ethanol production.

Conclusion

Australia needs at least another five years of research, assessment and genuine public participation to resolve all outstanding GE issues. Meanwhile, the unrestricted commercial release of genetically engineered organisms, particularly canola, should be banned.