State bans on genetically modified crops are putting the future of Australia’s agriculture sector at risk, Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran says. Victoria and Tasmania are reviewing their GM policies, but NSW has a moratorium on GM cultivation until at least March 3 next year. Last week, Mr McGauran said the effects of biotechnology were immense. ”As the world’s population increases, there is demand for more, and healthier, types of food,” Mr McGauran said.

An application to conduct the first Australian field trial of genetically modified (GM) wheat has been given the green light by the federal gene technology regulator. The trial of the new GM wheat lines, which have been modified for drought tolerance, will take place at two sites in the shires of Horsham and Mildura in Victoria.

THE first genetically modified wine yeast is now available to winemakers in North America, creating consequent implications for the industry in Australia, including public and political debate on the issue of GM food and beverages.

The first GM wine yeast, known as ML01, has been produced by Springer Oenologie, a division of Lesaffre Yeast Corporation, with the claim that it can complete alcoholic and malolactic fermentations in just five days. […..] ”For the time being, the release of ML01 to the North American market should make little or no difference to what is done in Australia, as this yeast has not been approved for use in this country,” he said.

CASEY council is set to hear the pros and cons of genetically modified crops. Councillor Rob Wilson raised a motion at Tuesday night’s council meeting calling on a briefing to be held involving experts in the genetically modified (GM) field. Cr Wilson also requested a letter be sent to Premier Steve Bracks and other state politicians supporting the State Government’s ban on planting or experimenting with GM food crops.

AN INTERNATIONAL coalition of independent scientists is gathered today in Brussels to present evidence for a worldwide ban on genetically manipulated crops. They will present ”damning evidence piling up against the safety of GM food and animal feed” to the European Parliament. While Europe considers new gene technologies that offer advanced alternatives to GM, Victoria is looking backwards. Government and industry powerbrokers want to lift the bans on commercial GM canola. If they allow GM food crops into Victoria, our clean, green, GM-free food bowl will end. All Australian canola-growing states banned GM crops in 2003. Victoria may be the first domino to fall if the Bracks Government decides to lift the ban next February.

Farmers have to dismantle laws banning the growing of GM canola in Australia, the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology says. Its national president, Claude Gauchat, made the call while commenting on the first articles of a nine-part series published in the latest issue of Agricultural Science, the institute’s journal. Australian agriculture was urged in the article to embrace the ”genomic age” as a vital tool for its future survival.

Farmers have to dismantle laws banning the growing of GM canola in Australia, the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology says. Its national president, Claude Gauchat, made the call while commenting on the first articles of a nine-part series published in the latest issue of Agricultural Science, the institute’s journal. Australian agriculture was urged in the article to embrace the ”genomic age” as a vital tool for its future survival.

CSIRO scientists in Victoria are in an international race to develop a genetically modified chicken immune to the killer bird flu. Research has begun at the CSIRO’s Geelong compound as British scientists at Cambridge University also seek a breakthrough. At stake are millions of dollars that farmers and breeders could spend worldwide to replace chicken flocks with flu-immune birds.

The recent claim that southern Australia is in the grip of a lobbying war over the impending expiry of the moratoria on genetically modified crops is a manifestation of the silliness that impedes progress on many science-based issues in society today. If indeed there is a lobbying war over whether to allow the expiry of the moratorium on growing GM crops on February 29, 2008, imposed by the Victorian Government in 2004 - or to extend it to 2013 - then it is a war based on imposition of values, not science.

The Organic Agriculture Association is urging dairy farmers to oppose the lifting of a moratorium on genetically modified canola. [...] ”The agricultural weeds that are on our roadsides now, they just can’t control it, they won’t be able to control it.”