ORGANISERS went to great lengths to maintain an agronomic focus on last week’s Genetically Modified (GM) canola field days and steer clear of industry politics.

However, political lobbying is destined to play a critical role in the overall process and can’t be ignored. The effectiveness of the lobbying could prove just as telling in the final wash-up on the technology’s future, as the GM crop’s actual yield and performance. The man at the centre of the decision-making is Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman.

With two days left for public submissions to the review of legislation controlling the release of genetically engineered (GE) crops in Western Australia, Greenpeace is calling for the submission period to be extended, saying it has been barely publicised. [...] ”The introduction of GE crops would dramatically change the face of agriculture in Western Australia, yet the Government has barely publicised its current review of its Genetically Modified Crops Free Areas Act and has given the public just four weeks to lodge submissions.”

GENETICALLY modified canola has become Canada’s most valuable crop, is poised for more growth and is testimony to the country’s innovation policy, according to a visiting Canadian grains executive. Dennis Stephens, of the Canada Grains Council, said GM canola was introduced into Canada in 1995 as part of a government innovation policy. [...] ”We all recognise some potential [GM] yield benefits, but there are significant hurdles in the international marketplace, which makes it hard to be enthusiastic when huge markets have a zero threshold.”

A Canadian researcher has given Australia’s chief food regulator a tick of approval for its assessments of genetically modified foods. Dr William Yan, from the Pest Management Regulatory Agency in Ontario, was invited by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to compare its GM food safety assessment process with international counterparts. Mr Yan says the food regulator’s assessments are ”scientifically rigorous” and are one of the most, if not the most, transparent in the world.

LOCAL doctors have waded into the GM debate, presenting their own petition against the introduction of genetically modified crops to the Augusta-Margaret River Shire. At last week’s shire meeting councillors were expecting a public petition, containing almost 1500 individual signatures and those of 134 business people in the shire, but the doctors petition, handed over by Eddie Donato, came as a suprise to some. [...] All are concerned about the as yet unidentified risks GM food may have on human and animal health, and the contamination of locally produced food.

Biotechnology company Monsanto says it’s lobbying the South Australian Government to drop its ban on genetically modified canola. South Australia extended its ban on GM early last year. Monsanto Australia’s Tony May says South Australia is a big market, and last year many SA farmers came to see Victorian GM crops. ”We’re keeping them informed on what we do in the eastern states,” he says. ”But essentially we’ve been focused on our farmers producing in Victoria and NSW, and also focused on the trials in WA at this stage.”

RESEARCHERS expect to have genetically modified salt tolerant cereal lines in the paddock for trials next year, in a big boost for the 70pc of Australian farmers affected by salinity. A project into salt tolerance, conducted jointly by the University of Adelaide and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) has had some promising results. ”I’m excited by what is happening – the preliminary results are looking good, we are confident we will be able to reduce the amount of salt that gets into the plant, which then limits the yield,” project leader Mark Tester said.

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.

Scientists have found a way of genetically modifying cereal crops to grow in salty water in a move that could help alleviate hunger in some of the world’s poorest nations. [...] Professor Mark Tester, from the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide, said preliminary tests on rice plants were ”very promising”. [...] ”The research has been undertaken in a model plant and it is important to show that this also works in crops,” [Dr Giles Oldroyd, of the John Innes Centre] said.

Australia’s Gene Technology Regulator has granted a licence to Florigene for commercial release of a genetically modified Hybrid Tea rose which expresses genes for the colour blue. [...] Six years after it was founded in Melbourne in 1986, Florigene gained patents over use of a petunia gene which imparts blue flower colour. In 1994 it successfully implanted the gene into carnations to create a GM range which has been commercially available worldwide for some years. In 2003 the company was acquired by the Suntory group of companies but its research is still conducted in Melbourne.