FEDERAL minister for agriculture Tony Burke gave proponents of GM technology a strong leg-up with a ringing endorsement of genetically modified crops at his address yesterday at the Australian Grains Industry Conference.
There was also an assurance to the pro-GM lobby in South Australia, the grain-producing state with the strongest State Government opposition to GM and where a moratorium against GM production is still in place, that he had made his views known to the SA government.
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"It's a decision that is totally up to them, but they know what I think on this one," Mr Burke said.
"I see GM as a positive. It's obviously not going to be the be all and end all of providing world food security, but it is a piece of the jigsaw.
"Biotech is a massive field and the synergies between researchers is likely to be a boost for the world production."
Mr Burke said that he believed there was growing grower approval of GM lines and, while acknowledging some market resistance, he said he did not believe this was an absolute.
"You can see that markets that will not buy GM grain have no issue with livestock fed on GM grain," he said.
However, the news on GM was not so good from representatives of south-east Asian wheat buyers at the conference.
While GM wheat lines were a long way off hitting commercial pathways, the conference was told consumer acceptance was still far from sealed.
Joe Chan, involved in purchasing wheat for the Indonesian market, said flour millers had no intrinsic opposition to GM, but the lead would be taken from government and there was still a general consumer unease towards the technology.
Along with his upbeat view on GM, Mr Burke was also positive about the Australian grains industry, in spite of the spectre of climate change and the global economic slowdown.
Mr Burke told the 700 grain traders, growers and industry representatives at the Melbourne conference that the fundamentals for the industry were sound.
"The fundamental demand for food has not changed," he said.
"The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates the world needs to double food production in the next 20 years."
He spoke positively about the deregulation experience.
"For me, the decision was crystallised by a discussion with a grower from Western Australia, who simply asked me 'it's my grain, why can't I market it as I please'," Mr Burke said.
Meanwhile, in other GM news, Bayer CropScience and CSIRO have announced a research and development deal to include a focus on cereals.
A long time deal has been struck between Bayer and the Australian government research arm, which is a leader in world wheat varieties.
The agreement establishes a far-reaching joint research and development program between CSIRO and Bayer CropScience, aimed at improving the productivity and sustainability of cereal production utilizing modern techniques.
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