1.GM wheat a threat to farmers: Greenpeace
2.Profile of CSIRO

TAKE ACTION: Tell the Australian Government you won't swallow GM bread http://bit.ly/stopgmwheat 

READ THE REPORT: http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/wheatscandal/
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1.GM wheat a threat to farmers: Greenpeace
Chi Tranter
AAP, July 7 2011 
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/gm-wheat-a-threat-to-farmers-greenpeace-20110707-1h3x5.html

Australian wheat farmers stand to lose billions of dollars if the CSIRO's trials of genetically modified wheat are allowed to continue, Greenpeace says.

A report by the environmental group accuses the government research organisation of "serious oversights" when it comes to managing the risks of its field trials currently taking place across the country.

"The economic implications of GM wheat are dire," Greenpeace spokeswoman Laura Kelly said in a statement on Thursday.

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Every one of Australia's global wheat market competitors, including Canada and Europe, had rejected GM wheat, Ms Kelly said.

"They were not convinced by global biotech companies that it would not contaminate their natural wheat crops and threaten their billion-dollar export markets," she said.

The CSIRO, however, says its research will benefit local farmers.

"Our number one priority is that Australian industry and farmers realise the benefits of our grains research first and foremost," CSIRO spokesman Huw Morgan told AAP on Thursday.

"All GM wheat research conducted by the CSIRO has met the strict regulatory requirements that are set down by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator."

CropLife, an industry group representing the plant science industry, said the Greenpeace report entitled Australia's Wheat Scandal was a fiction.

"(It) misrepresents modern crop breeding so extensively that it should be regarded as nothing more than fiction," Croplife CEO Matthew Cossey said in a statement.

"GM crops have demonstrated over the last 15 years that they improve the on-farm environment while reducing the pressure to convert wilderness areas to farmland."

A former CSIRO scientist, who says he was sacked for questioning the safety of GM crops, said studies in the US had shown that yields for GM crops were no higher than those for ordinary crops in the long term.

"In controlled conditions in a laboratory you can get marvellous results ... but when theyput them in the field there is zero per cent difference because ... all the genes are expressing themselves and it's complete competition," Maarten Stapper told AAP on Thursday.

He said the CSIRO was under pressure from big biotech companies such as Monsanto to push ahead with GM crops.

"It's the commercial interests ... that help develop all those GM crops because they can make money out of it," Dr Stapper said.
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2.CSIRO – Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Commonwealth_Scientific_and_Industrial_Research_Organisation

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is promoted as Australia's pre-eminent public scientific research body. Although ostensibly 'publicly funded' CSIRO has, in reality, been encouraged to get 30% of its funding from business with the CSIRO top management encouraging its staff to go to 40%. As a point of comparison, only about 10% of the funding of Europe's leading plant biotech institute, the John Innes Centre, is thought to come directly from industry although the JIC is considered highly industrially aligned.
According to John Stocker, CSIRO's former chief executive, 'Working with the transnationals makes a lot of sense, in the context of market access. There are very few Australian companies that have developed market access in the United States, in Europe and in Japan, the world's major marketplaces. Yes, we do find that it is often the best strategy to get into bed with these companies.' (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1992).

Richard Hindmarsh in an article in the Journal of Australian Political Economy (No 44.), 'Consolidating Control: Plant Variety Rights, Genes and Seeds', describes CSIRO as having a long history of involvement with intensive agricultural R&D and collaboration with agribusiness multinationals, and as having become increasingly dependent upon industry funding. The effect of this is 'to generate convergence between private sector and public sector plant breeding operators.' 

Hindmarsh notes, 'The CSIRO, in keeping with its position of being at the forefront of scientific research, prioritised genetic engineering research in 1979. CSIRO scientists have since been very active in the promotion of GE to the Australian community, and especially to other scientists (Hindmarsh, 1996). In addition, multinational companies are seen as the key avenue to the international commercialisation of biotechnology products and research of both Australian public sector institutions and biotechnology firms.'

Hindmarsh also notes, '...the indications are that a Byzantine web of formal contractual obligations and informal connections has emerged between the CSIRO and other public-sector agencies..., universities, small or new biotechnology firms (NBFs), and multinational corporations.'

The corporations listed by Hindmarsh as having direct financial connections with CSIRO include: Agrigenetics, Monsanto, Rhone Poulenc and AgrEvo (later part of Aventis and then Bayer). A collaboration between the CSIRO and Monsanto generated Australia's first major GM commercial crop. On the day of the announcement of the commercial approval for Bayer's GM canola (oilseed rape) inAustralia, CSIRO announced that Bayer would be extending its lucrative investment in CSIRO 'to develop modern biotechnology tools applicable to cotton and other crops'. 

The press release said, ' For Bayer CropScience, the alliance with CSIRO is regarded as a model for global cooperation.' For some it is a model of everything that's wrong in the relationship between public science and private interests. An article in the journal Australasian Science written by a former CSIRO senior executive accused the head of CSIRO of subverting the CSIRO's traditional role of public research in favour of lucrative consulting work for government and the private sector. Research into GM crops, with its promise of intellectual property and revenue streams, is 'in' at the CSIRO, he reportd; research into organic farming is 'out'. He described morale among staff as at rock bottom.