- "If the GM industry can't even control a small strictly
managed trial plot under one hectare, how do they expect to control 5,000
hectares of GM canola spread over 60 to 100 sites?"
-
- (AAP) -- Trials of the nation's first commercial genetically
modified food crop have been found to be in breach of their licence conditions.
-
- The Network of Concerned Farmers today released internal
NSW Agriculture documents showing concerns over the trials of GM canola
near the city of Wagga Wagga.
-
- The documents show the canola, created by BayerCropscience
to be resistant to a new type of herbicide, had spread from its small trial
plot into a neighbouring wheat field.
-
- Despite efforts to poison and then slash the plants they
survived to the stage that they flowered, putting them in breach of their
growing licence conditions.
-
- NSW, along with most other states, has a moratorium on
GM food crops but is allowing trials such as that staged at Wagga.
-
- But both Bayer and Monsanto, which is waiting on final
federal approval for its own GM canola, have sought to plant up to 5,000
hectares of the new plants in NSW as trials next year.
-
- Network national spokeswoman Julie Newman said the failure
of the Wagga trial cast doubt over the plans for a 5,000 hectare trial.
-
- "If the GM industry can't even control a small strictly
managed trial plot under one hectare, how do they expect to control 5,000
hectares of GM canola spread over 60 to 100 sites throughout NSW?"
she told AAP.
-
- "The obvious difficulty that BayerCropscience have
had in managing this trial does not inspire confidence within the farming
community."
-
- Mrs Newman said the Wagga trial showed how difficult
it would be stop contamination of traditional crops by GM crops.
-
- "The difficulty in managing the trials shows just
how hard it is to remove canola from wheat, and shows how much work neighbouring
farmers will have to do to try to make sure their crops don't get contaminated,"
she said.
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- Copyright 2003 News Limited.
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- http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7784386%255E1702,00.html
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