The Western Australian government said on Friday it will not follow the two main eastern states of New South Wales and Victoria in lifting bans on commercial genetically modified canola crops. ”The WA government’s attitude to GMOs is clear -- we will remain clean, green and GMO-free unless our consumers tell us otherwise,” Western Australia’s Agriculture Minister Kim Chance said in a statement.

The New South Wales Parliament has passed legislation about the planting of genetically modified canola. The legislation approves a new committee, which will oversee the approvals process for growers wanting to plant the crop. Paula Fitzgerald from Agrifood Awareness, which represents bio-tech companies and grain groups, says there is now some certainty for the industry.

Western Australian farmers are reaping financial benefits and trade advantages by maintaining its moratorium on growing genetically modified crops, WA Agriculture Minister Kim Chance says. Mr Chance said the Consumers Union of Japan announced it would cease buying canola from Victoria and NSW during a recent Australian visit. It would instead buy WA’s GM free canola.

SIR Gustav Nossal, the former Australian of the Year chosen to head the Victorian Government’s panel that recommended lifting bans on some genetically modified crops, is the founder of a business designed to reap commercial gain from biotechnology. [...] Sir Gustav’s role as a founder and director of Foursight, a consultancy that links bioscience research with commerce, has provided ammunition for his critics in the war of words over GM food. ”It should have been on the public record,” said a spokesman for the Biological Farmers of Australia, Scott Kinnear. ”He’s the director of a commercial company which could stand to benefit from the lifting of the ban. He’s not independent.”

Adelaide scientists have identified the major gene responsible for boron toxicity tolerance in barley, allowing breeders to select with 100% accuracy barley varieties that are tolerant to boron. [...] Scientists can now work towards transferring this gene into commercially important barley varieties using either conventional breeding or transformation techniques.

The major grain bulk handlers in Victoria and NSW have indicated they will be ready to handle genetically modified (GM) canola as soon as the market wants the new segregations. ”As one, the industry has supported the lifting of the bans on growing GM canola,” GrainCorp managing director, Tom Keene, said. ”We congratulate the governments of Victoria and NSW for taking these steps,”

Outspoken state Labor MP Tammy Lobato has questioned the independence of Victoria’s chief scientist, Sir Gustav Nossal, branding as ”seriously compromised” his government-appointed panel that recommended the lifting of a ban on genetically modified crops. The Government last week accepted the panel’s recommendation to remove the four-year ban on growing GM canola, despite facing a backlash from within Labor caucus.

AN EXEMPTION-PROOF moratorium on genetically modified food crops would continue until 2011 in NSW under amendments the Greens want made to a State Government bill that will allow farmers to start growing GM canola next year. [...] the Greens want amendments to ensure that the approval process for any more GM crops involves a three-month public consultation and peer review by a committee featuring ecologists, ethicists and economists. The Greens are unhappy that the system of approving new GM crops will involve an ”expert panel” making recommendations to the minister without public input.

Renewed enthusiasm for GM hasn’t pleased Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT, the respective governments of which oppose GM crops because of fears that GM will harm GM-free exports. Along with canola, at risk are more than $820million in clean canola exports. Most vocal about protecting its farmers, the West Australian Government is yet to be convinced that GM will not harm Australia’s clean and green export markets.

[GRDC] has rejected Mr Chance’s claim that the lifting of eastern states moratoriums creates a risk of WA crops being contaminated. ”There’s been GM products in Australia for many years now,” he said. ”We’ve got cotton which has been growing in northern New South Wales and Queensland, central and western New South Wales for many years now. ”We don’t seem to have a problem there.