Australia’s muddled GM canola rules are ‘an embarrassment,” according to the country’s leading pro-biotechnology spokesman. Soon, he predicts, the ban will collapse.

 

In fact, Australia’s federal government gave the green light in 2003 for farmers to start planting herbicide tolerant canola varieties from Bayer and Monsanto, Ian Edwards, professor at the University of Western Australia told the ABIC conference in Calgary on Wednesday.

 

However, the country’s state governments stepped in with a moratorium on GMO canola. Said Edwards: “It’s basically put Australian canola producers at a 20 per cent competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis Canadian producers.”

 

Now, the bans are being reviewed by state governments in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, as well as in Tasmania, and Edwards says most states will soon reverse policy and allow GM canola.

 

That’s because farmers launched an aggressive political campaign, and they took the biotech message to consumers as well, with the result that new surveys show 70 per cent public acceptance of the technology. 

“If there’s a lesson, it might be that we should have worked harder at building a solid constituency at the grassroots level when we were testing,” Edwards said. It’s also good to face the realities of politics, he said. “We have a very healthy cynicism toward politicians, whatever political party they belong to.”