WESTERN Australia has become the third Australian state to allow commercial plantings of GM canola, two years after Victorian and New South Wales farmers were given the green light to grow GM varieties.
The decision by the WA Government comes after a 2009 trial in which 17 WA growers produced 1400 t of Roundup Ready canola to test the capacity of the state’s supply chains to segregate it from traditional varieties.
It also comes almost seven years after Australia’s Gene Technology Regulator approved two types of GM canola as safe for the environment and human health. Despite that ruling, the states and territories imposed regulatory controls to stall commercial GM plantings in response to community concerns and anti-GM campaigns by environmental groups.
Tasmania, South Australia still bans the growing of GM food crops, as does Queensland where the climate is unsuitable for canola cultivation.
Australia’s annual production of canola has averaged a little over 1m t in recent years, with at least half grown in WA. A 2007 study by the University of Melbourne estimated that replacing 50% of triazine-tolerant canola and 40% of conventional canola in WA with GM canola would increase yields by 8% and make it possible to increase the state’s canola plantings by 100,000 hectares.
The WA Farmers Federation’s Director of Policy, Alan Hill, welcomes the decision. “WA farmers have had to stand by while growers in the eastern states and around the world have had the choice to use this technology,” Hill says. However Greenpeace Australia slammed the decision, saying it threatens WA’s major canola export markets in the Netherlands, France, Pakistan, Japan and Belgium.
GM cotton varieties have been grown in New South Wales and Queensland since 1996 and now account for over 90% of all cotton plantings. Trials are also underway of GM cotton varieties in the tropical north of WA.
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