Biotechnology

Greenpeace have been running a campaign against the planting of new crop varieties in Australia since about 2001 as part of their global campaign against genetically modified (GM) food. The Australian campaign has been phenomenally successful with bans to prevent the planting of GM canola introduced in 2004 by most state governments.

The bans are due to be lifted this year in NSW and Victoria, though the South Australian government, despite expectations and the recommendations of its own committee, have decided to keep them in place.

As part of its continuing campaign against GM, and noting that 2008 is a critical year because many of the bans are due to expire, Greenpeace has sponsored a visit to Australia by Canadian canola grower Percy Schmeiser.

Mr Schmeiser is famous for taking on Monsanto and losing his ‘David versus Goliath’ battle through the Canadian court system but in the process becoming a martyr for the cause – the campaign against the growing of new GM crop varieties.

In June 2000 Mr Schmeiser was found guilty by the Federal Court of Canada of growing GM canola without a licence thereby infringing patent law.

According to popular mythology Mr Schmeiser was a victim of both contamination of his conventional canola crop with unwanted GM pollen and then a victim of a ‘reign of terror’ by Monsanto who sued him for growing the GM canola which was a consequence of the unwanted contamination.

But the court found that none of the contamination sources suggested by Mr Schmeiser could reasonably explain the extent or quality of his GM canola crop. The Judge ruled that Mr Schmeiser saved seed from a 1997 crop and knowingly reproduced the patented plants by using seed from this crop to plant his entire 1998 crop.

Mr Schmeiser lodged and lost two appeals against the decision.

During the period 2002-2004 Professor Rick Roush compiled the following facts concerning Percy Schmeiser’s public comments:

1. Schmeiser was the innocent victim of Monsanto

PERCY SCHEMEISER: “I lost it all to a contamination because a judge ruled in my case it doesn’t matter how Monsanto’s genetically modified canola gets on my land or any farmers land. You violate the pattern and you infringe on the pattern and your seed becomes Monsanto’s property.” (Source: Australian ABC 7.30 Report TV Transcript, 4 July 2002, from http://abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s599662.htm)

FACTS: The Canadian court’s record indicates that the judge found that Schmeiser deliberately selected for and multiplied GM seed. In 1997 (for example), Mr. Schmeiser sprayed Roundup herbicide over “a good three acres” from which approximately 60% of the plants survived and continued to grow. At harvest, Schmeiser saved surviving canola seed from these plants and then used them in planting his 1998 canola crop ( see especially paragraphs 39, 40, 102, 103, 104, 119, and 125 of the judge’s decision at http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/en/2001/2001fct256/2001fct256.html). Schmeiser could have saved seed from any part of his farm, but he took the unusual steps of spraying just part of the crop with Roundup (which should have killed three acres of crop, so Schmeiser must have suspected it would do otherwise) and then saved seed from the survivors, which any reasonable person would expect to have a high frequency of GM Roundup resistance. No one tried to establish how Schmeiser got the seed in the first place, but the judge said that was not relevant to the facts that he was intentionally growing it. A three judge Canadian court rejected Schmeiser’s appeal unanimously on all counts, but in January 2004, he took his case the Canadian Supreme Court claiming that Monsanto’s patent was invalid, nor longer trying to argue that he was an innocent victim.

2. Canada’s export markets have been damaged

PERCY SCHEMEISER, CANADIAN CANOLA FARMER: “That means 30 per cent of our exports have been lost just to Europe alone.” (Source: ABC 7.30 Report TV Transcript, 4 July 2002).
–Mr Schmeiser said the fact that Canada could no longer ship canola to the EU had left Canada “sitting on a mountain of GM canola that nobody wants” (source: The Land, 11 July 2002, p. 28).

FACTS: Canadian exports increased during the adoption of GM canola over the first 5 years, the time period over which Schmeiser’s claims applied. In 2000-2001, exports were 25% higher than ever before (according to the Canadian canola website, http://www.canola-council.org/seedexports.html), mainly to Japan, Mexico and China. After drought conditions in 2001-03, Canada exported a record amount of canola in 2005-06. Europe was also a net canola exporter anyway prior to at least 2001, and never purchased more than about 14% of Canada’s canola throughout the period in which Canada was non-GM from the early 1980’s except for 1993-1995.

3. GM will cause financial losses to conventional growers

Schmeiser warned that conventional growers could be fined for an infestation of GM canola on their property, which could also cost them premiums from export destinations that demanded GM-free produce. (source: The Stock Journal 11 July 2002, page 3, reporting on a meeting held in Clare, South Australia)

RESPONSE AND FACTS: Who would issue these fines? On the subject of premiums, neither the Victorian government review of GM free zones nor ABARE has found any significant premiums. “GrainCorp oilseeeds trader Cameron Pratt said that Australia had not been able to identify a consistent premium for GM-free canola, despite it being mandatory for the EU market and desirable for Japan.” (4 July 2002 issue of “The Land”, page 27). Japan takes our canola and mixes it with GM Canadian canola.

Peter Toole, Parkes was cited in the The Land as noting that prices for non-GM Australian canola are in fact slightly below the Winnipeg quoted Canadian price – the world price yardstick. He was supported by Ian Donges, recently retired National Farmers Federation president and a local grain grower, who said that the EU was largely self-sufficient in canola and only “occasionally” had to import. ” I don’t know of any other markets that pay a premium for GM-free canola”, he said, “Japan certainly doesn’t” (source: The Land, 11 July 2002, p. 28, from a meeting at Cowra, NSW)

4. 1800 other (Canadian?) farmers are also being sued.

Schmeiser: (When asked about the host about whether he was the only farmer sued): “We estimated that there is (sic) at least 1800 lawsuits”. (Source: Australian ABC TV’s Landline on 14 July 2002)

FACTS: Landline noted on air in the same program that they could find no support for this claim. I then wrote to 5 Canadian weed and agricultural scientists from across Canada, and they replied that they didn’t know of any. I then wrote to Monsanto in August 2002, who said there were 2 in Canada and 14 in the US, and that was all worldwide. In December 2003, Peter T. Jenkins, Attorney/Policy Analyst at the anti-GM International Center for Technology Assessment, claimed that there are 88 cases, and the anti-GM Center for Food Safety claimed in 2005 that there were 90 lawsuits. Where are the other at least 1700 cases that Percy claimed? On February 21 2004 in Davis California, I personally heard Schmeiser claim that it was 550 lawsuits.

5. Schmeiser denied that GM canola crops improved profits.
(source: The Stock Journal 11 July 2002, page 3, reporting on a meeting held in Clare, South Australia)

FACTS: In 2002 I wrote: “In summary, the total economic impact of transgenic canola production systems has been estimated to be up to $464.0 million over the period 1997 to 2000, inclusive of direct and indirect impacts.” “Transgenic canola yields higher than conventional varieties. Survey results showed that transgenic canola yielded approximately three bushels per acre (>10%) more than conventional canola in 2000. … The yield advantage for transgenic systems resulted from the varieties and a slight increased use of fertilizer, but less summer fallow. Dockage was significantly lower in the transgenic system, largely attributed to more effective weed control….. Transgenic canola growers reported having made fewer tillage passes over their fields than growers of conventional varieties. The majority of the transgenic sample in both the survey and the case studies indicated they practice minimum or zero till on their operations.” (Source in 2002: http://www.canola-council.org/production/gmo_toc.html; this website no longer seems functional). A December 2006 report from European Commission, Economic Impact
of Dominant GM Crops Worldwide: a Review (http://ftp.jrc.es/pub/EURdoc/eur22547en.pdf pages 26-27) supports estimates that the per hectare increase in profits is at least $12.

6. GM canola had become a “superweed”

Schmeiser said that GM canola had become a “superweed” that was virtually impossible to eradicate. (source: The Stock Journal 11 July 2002, page 3, reporting on a meeting held in Clare, South Australia)

…..canola itself had developed into a “superweed” that no chemical would control and was becoming a menace to farmers and municipal authorities alike (source: The Land, 11 July 2002, p. 28)

FACTS: “Canola volunteers are not generally found to be harder to manage in Canada. For example, a study prepared for the Canola Council of Canada (Winnipeg) surveyed 650 western Canadian canola growers on numerous issues, one of which was management of volunteer canola. Half of the producers surveyed grew transgenic herbicide-tolerant canola and half grew non-GM canola. Of the producers planting transgenic herbicide-tolerant canola in 2000, 61% said that the difficulty of managing volunteer transgenic herbicide-tolerant canola was about the same as that of volunteer conventional canola. Interestingly, 16% said that managing volunteer transgenic herbicide-tolerant canola was easier than managing conventional canola varieties. The remaining 23% said that it was more difficult to manage volunteer transgenic herbicide-tolerant canola…. for example, spraying with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) controls this problem. This chemical application means an additional cost to the producer of 1.50–2.00 Canadian dollars (C$) per acre” (source: Stuart Smyth, George G. Khachatourians & Peter W.B. Phillips, Liabilities and economics of transgenic crops. Nature Bio/Technology (June) 2002 Volume 20 (Number 6) pp 537 – 541)

7. Monsanto covertly dropped herbicide bombs to test a crop it suspected illegally contained its genetically-modified canola

“Percy Schmeiser made the claim in Perth yesterday during a Greenpeace-sponsored speaking tour”
(source: The West Australian, 11 July 2002, p. 33). This claim was also madeby Schmeiser at the Wagga meeting (S. Sutherland, unsolicited email, 24 July 2002).

RESPONSE: This is so crazy that it doesn’t really justify a response, but just what would a Roundup bomb look like, and wouldn’t be easier, cheaper (and more stealthy) just to collect some plants from the road to take them back to the lab for a test, or even just spray some with a hand sprayer? In Davis on February 21 2004, Schmeiser claimed that that the details were all at his website, that the CBC in Canada had covered the story. Schmeiser claimed that Monsanto never even denied it. I found http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/canola/ at Schmeiser’s website, and this is what it showed:

“The Kram family in Raymore say planes and a helicopter have buzzed their fields. The couple says agents dropped weedkiller on their canola field, to see if the crops had the Monsanto’s gene. Monsanto says they had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Contrary to Schmeiser’s claims, Monsanto did in fact deny this story. One could find more evidence on the web for alien abductions than that Monsanto is using Roundup bombs.

8. “(Schmeiser) said yesterday that a reign of terror had followed the release of GM canola in Canada” (source: The West Australian, 11 July 2002, p. 33)

RESPONSE: No “terror” is evident in any reports I have seen or replies from Canadian weed scientists. To the contrary, “Social concerns expressed by case study participants centered around the lack of knowledge about transgenic production by those outside industry…. In summary, the transgenic canola systems had a positive economic and agronomic impact when compared to the conventional canola systems in western Canada for the four year period, 1997 to 2000.” Concerns yes, but not “terror” (http://www.canola-council.org/production/gmo_toc.html)

9. “Schmeiser: I have been breeding canola for 50 years and Monsanto took it all away from me. Claims made in Davis in Feb 2004 and at (http://www.percyschmeiser.com/profile.htm).

RESPONSE: Setting aside the issue of Schmeiser’s own responsibility for whatever legal action Monsanto took against him, the very first canola ever, Tower, was released by the Canadian government in 1974, so Schmeiser could not have been breeding canola for 50 years. According to the court record, Schmeiser bought new seed in 1993 for sowing on his farm, a claim with which he agreed in an email to me on 8 March 2004 (“The next point you state that I purchased seed in 1993 which is correct.”), so he has not always relied on his own breeding for 50 years.

Further, canola is a largely self-pollinating plant and professional breeding efforts for it require specialized pollination practices. Professional breeders in Canada have challenged Schmeiser’s claims on this. I have asked Schmeiser what breeding practices he used, but he did not answer this in his email to me of 8 March 2004. I also asked Schmeiser “In addition, a common practice among savers and breeders of traditional varieties is to share and swap seed with neighbors. Did you ever provide access to your seed to any other farmer?” Schmeiser did not answer this question either.

Over 114 million hectares of land was planted to GM crops in 23 countries in 2007. Poland and Chile were new additions with Chile producing GM for seed export and Poland grew Bt maize for the first time. The USA, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and China top the list in order of hectares planted according to a new report from the ISAA by Clive Hamilton.

For the third consecutive year India reported the largest year-on-year proportional increase of GM crop plantings, with an increase of 63 percent. The area of Bt cotton grown in India increased from 50,000 hectares in 2002, to 6.2 million hectares in 2007 and is grown by 3.8 million farmers.

Australian farmers grew just 0.1 million hectares of cotton in 2007 and the 2008 Australian cotton crop is set to be the smallest in 30 years with just 65,000 hectares of cotton planted late last year because of the drought.

Cotton is the only GM crop that can be grown commercially in Australia. There are bans on the growing of all GM crops in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and the South Australian government has just decided to continue its bans beyond April this year. The moratoriums in NSW and Victoria should be lifted this year.

The NSW government has exempted GM cotton from its bans on GM crops which were introduced in 2004 to prevent the planting of new varieties of canola.

Canadian farmers grew 7 million hectares of GM canola, maize and soybean in 2007.

from the ‘Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2007’, by Clive James

On February 8, 2008, South Australian Premier Mike Rann and the Minister for Agriculture Rory McEwen announced a continuation of the ban on genetically modified plants. They can not be grown in South Australia.

In a media release Mr Rann said Cabinet has decided to maintain the current moratorium from growing GM canola in South Australia beyond the end of April this year when the current regulations lapse.

“We made this decision – which we believe is the right one – because we are yet to be convinced allowing GM crops will have a positive impact on the marketing of our food and wine to our important export destinations around the world.”

The State Government will today release the findings of the GM Crops Advisory Committee, which was formed last year to review the current legislation, the Genetically Modified Crops Management Act 2004.

“The committee received more than 230 submissions and 480 letters both for and against growing GM crops from a wide range of industry, farmers, farming groups, companies, individuals and national organisations.

“The Committee recommended the lifting of the current moratorium in SA, except on Kangaroo Island, after April 28 this year when the current regulations lapse.

“However we have also considered a number of significant market signals that have occurred since then that has led us to believe that maintaining the status quo is more responsible.

“For example:

* Foodland issued a statement saying it would be ensuring all of its home brand products were GM-free,

* Japanese meat importers reaffirmed they wanted a guarantee that none of the meat products they purchased had come from cattle that had eaten GM grains, and

* ABARE indicated that in some of this season’s markets there were significant premiums for GM-free canola.

“It makes sense for us to maintain our current position until there’s more certainty regarding the impact of exporting GM grains.”

Agriculture Minister Rory McEwen says South Australia produces the second highest volume of grain crops in Australia with the greatest volume being grown in Western Australia.

“Significantly, Western Australia has decided, with I am told the overwhelming support of its farming community, to stay GM-free. So has Tasmania.

“At this stage, we believe the benefits of maintaining the current moratorium far outweigh any benefits of overturning it.

“I’m particularly concerned about the future impact on our marketing of SA food products.

“I’m well aware there’s a divergence of opinion within the states with New South Wales and Victoria recently deciding to allow GM canola to be grown this year, while Western Australia and Tasmania continue to maintain bans.

“But we must be mindful that there’s simply no turning back once the moratorium has been lifted. Maintaining the moratorium now will enable us to monitor developments elsewhere.”

Minister McEwen says that in South Australia there is no immediate need to give the go-ahead for what would have been only a small number of growers wanting to grow crops from the two GM canola seeds developed by companies, Monsanto and Bayer.

“We will be watching to see how NSW and Victoria address the key issues of segregation and regulation in their States, as well as monitoring the benefits of keeping a moratorium in WA and Tasmania,” Mr McEwen said.

“The GM Crops Advisory committee’s report revealed a wide range of views and while lifting the current moratorium was supported by a majority of farmers who made submissions, the Government has decided it makes more sense to maintain the status quo for the time being.”

Mr McEwen said there would now be a six-week public consultation period where interested parties would have the opportunity for further comment on the changes to the regulations in the Act that will continue the current moratorium in SA.

Reports in Australian Cotton Outlook that India is on the cusp of a “White Gold Revolution” have prompted renewed calls from for all Australian farmers to be given the right to participate in the biotech revolution.

India has progressed from an importer of cotton to become the world’s second largest exporter, and in just four years production has risen from 17.9 million bales to 31 million bales in 2007-08 with the help of GM cotton.

NSW Convener of the Australian bioadvocacy group Producers Forum Maree McKay is pleased with the easing of NSW and Victorian moratoria, saying Australian growers will now be able to choose to use the technology.

“Canadian GM canola growers have been benefiting at our expense for over a decade. At last we now have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field,” Mrs McKay said.

“Maybe in a few years time the headlines will be: Australian Farmers Experience Yellow Gold Revolution.”

However South Australian Convener, Heather Baldock, is looking forward to the South Australian government announcing the decision of its moratorium review and enabling South Australian growers to take advantage of the economic gains.

“It is farcical that in an attempt to coerce the state government into keeping the GM moratorium, the anti-GM groups are still publicly stating that GM cotton has been a disaster for Indian farmers. If that’s a disaster, I’ll have it any day,” Ms Baldock.

“In fact the reports from India support the Australian experience where cotton growers have reduced pesticide usage by 85 percent, and increased production of food and fibre with less water, less acreage, and a lower greenhouse footprint.”

A recent report in the New Scientist magazine stated that a new generation of GM crops could reduce greenhouse emissions by more than grounding all the aircraft in the world.

National Convener Jeff Bidstrup, himself a GM cotton grower, said the debate from the opponents of GM canola is at odds with the reality. “We have all been eating GM foods for over a decade with nothing but positive benefits for human health,” Mr Bidstrup said.

Jen,

NSW and Victoria have just lifted the ban on genetically modified (GM) crops!

It wont take them long to see the benifits either… won’t take long before South Australia and Western Australia freak out because the yeilds back in the eastern states blow them away!

It’s about time Aussies embraced farming of the future.

Regards,
Mick

Information on the review of the moratorium on GM canola in Victoria can be found at the Victorian Department of Primary Industries website including the Review Panel report.

The Indepedent Review GM Crop Moratorium Final Report can be found at the NSW Department of Primary Industries website.