In the overall scheme of things, the most significant event for Australian agriculture this week was probably not the newest drought aid installment or the drought-breaking rains in south western Queensland. It was probably the decision by hamburger giant McDonald to change the cooking oil it uses in Australian outlets away from standard Australian canola, to healthier new oil blends with much less trans fat.
One way of creating a low trans fat crop variety is through biotechnology. But our farmers have rejected GM food crops. Indeed while Greenpeace championed the bans on new GM food crops in Australia, the NSW Farmers Association supported the legislation in that state. In Victoria it was the milk processors who came to the support of that state govenment as it gave in to the luddites.
Australian farmers, once trail blazers when it came to innovation and new technologies, are now dealing themselves out of the future. Indeed they still arguing about GM canola, a crop grown in Canada for 10 years now, while farmers in the US look forward to the next generation of GM crop varieties that will not only give superior yields and better weed control but also improved nutrition.
Indeed, and quoting Roger Kalla:
“In USA the labelling of the trans fat content in foods is already mandated by law. The low trans fat oils used in North America are derived from Duponts NUTRIUM™ Low Lin Soybean Oil , Monsantos VISTIVE Soybean oil and Dow Agrosciences Natreon Canola oil. We will see where McDonald’s will be sourcing their low transfat oils from in the future.
The Australian canola crop this year is predicted to be barley enough for domestic use of vegetable oil and the fraction of the crop that is of a suitable quality like Monola , marketed by Nutrihealth, will probably not be enough to meet the new demand. Australian farmers seem to be doubly disadvantaged this year with a major drought affecting yields and not having access to the quality oil seed that large end users of canola oil such as McDonald’s increasingly requires.“
I will be talking about Robert Malthus and banning food crops in my next Counterpoint column. If you live in Australia you will be able to hear it by tunning into ABC Radio National at 4pm on Monday, repeated 9pm on Tuesdays.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.