Fear of the unknown no longer justifies GM crop bans in Australia

Genetic engineering is one of the great scientific innovations, one that still seems new and mysterious for many people. GM foods are regarded with deep suspicion in Australia, as well as Europe and Japan. It may come as a surprise, then, that 18 years have passed since the world's first release of a GM organism - a bacterium released in Australia to control crown gall disease in stone fruit and other crops - and to realise how pervasive imported GM food is, particularly as public resistance has prevented further local releases since GM cotton was introduced 10 years ago. GM cotton comprises about 90 per cent of the national crop and is the source of about a third of the vegetable oil consumed in Australia. Yet cotton is the exception to GM policy. GM canola won federal approval but commercial use has been blocked until 2008 by all states except Queensland. Why are cotton and canola treated differently? A report by a federal taskforce that reviewed farming policies has recommended an end to the moratoriums. Two years ago, The Age made the same call. The fact is, arguments that we do not have enough information to assess the risks grow weaker by the year. Tens of billions of meals with GM foods have been eaten. This real-world experiment, Australian Academy of Science president Jim Peacock observes, has had no documented ill effects on human health. Critics of GM crops seized on the abandonment last year of a CSIRO trial of peas that were made weevil-proof, and thus 30 per cent more productive, by the insertion of bean DNA, because of ill-health in mice that were fed the peas. But researchers know what went wrong. The gene is safe to eat in beans, but insertion altered its shape, which triggered an immune response. What this illustrates is that every GM crop must be rigorously assessed. Despite the need to monitor identified concerns such as genetic drift and impacts on wild populations, the worst fears for the environment have also not been borne out, while proven benefits include lower water and pesticide use (the latest cotton varieties cut spraying by more than 80 per cent). It is the economic benefits that have driven the adoption of GM crops such as canola, corn and soy in the US, Brazil, Canada, Argentina and China (which is releasing the first GM cultivars of rice, the world's most important food crop). US agriculture authorities say this increased farmers' annual revenue by $2.3 billion; the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics warns Australia's failure to grow GM crops will cost it $3 billion by 2015. This estimate has been legitimately criticised for discounting consumer resistance in Australia and its export markets in Japan and Europe (although the European Union has lifted a moratorium on GM foods). One lesson from overseas experience is the need to ensure GM crops are not allowed to contaminate the crops of "clean and green" producers who serve a growing, albeit niche, market. Consumers have a right to choose for themselves, which requires full disclosure of GM products. The same opinion polls that find resistance to GM crops find greater acceptance when the result is better drugs or foods offering health benefits - such as "golden rice" that stops blindness linked to vitamin A deficiency, or oilseed crops rich in omega-3 fatty acids that reduce cardiovascular disease and improve eye and brain function. That shifts the balance of need and concern closer to that of the developing world. We have enough to meet our needs; they don't. Eleven of 17 countries with commercial GM crops are developing nations that account for a third of the GM crop area. The numbers and crop areas are likely to double by 2010, because there is little more arable land and few countries have the luxury of being able to reject high-yield, pest-resistant crops. Feeding their people and alleviating poverty depends on the GM crops already being grown by more than 8 million farmers - 90 per cent of whom are resource-poor. This is not a reason to abandon all caution, but Australians do need to be aware of the broader global picture. With a population set to increase from 6 billion to 8 billion by 2050, how else does the world feed itself? More immediately, how are Australian farmers to compete with overseas growers of more productive GM crops? These are not questions Australia can continue to ignore. "Source":[ http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&doc_id=12283&start=1&control=203&page_start=1&page_nr=101&pg=1].

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