NOTE: Very few farmers are choosing to grow GM canola in Western Australia but it's spreading fast by contamination.
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WA's non-GM sector could vanish within 10 years
Rebecca Le May
AAP, November 17 2011 
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/was-non-gm-sector-could-vanish-within-10-years/story-e6frg13u-1226197889099

WA'S non-genetically modified (GM) grain sector could vanish within the next 10 years due to contamination from GM crops, some farmers and conservation groups fear.

Nic Dunlop, environmental science and policy co-ordinator for the Conservation Council of WA, says feral GM canola plants have been found on road verges in the state's Esperance district some 20 kilometres away from the nearest GM crop.

The discovery shows that the requirement for a five-metre gap between GM and non-GM crops under the state government's limited commercial-size trials is ineffective.

The main purpose of the trials is to assess whether segregation is possible.

Dr Dunlop said GM-free canola could be a thing of the past in WA by the next decade, given that eight per cent of roadside plants recently sampled by the Conservation Council in the Esperance region were GM, only one year into the trial.

"It doesn't matter what you're doing on the farm – the trucks are spreading it around the countryside," Dr Dunlop told AAP.

Canola seed is very fine, so it falls through holes in trucks.

This is evident by the abundance of GM canola "fugitives" in areas where road vibration is high such as grates and bumps, Dr Dunlop said.

Janet Cotter, senior scientist at Greenpeace's University of Exeter-based science unit, said she suspected WA's feral canola population would be entirely GM within a few years.

Dr Cotter warned that the "tolerance" level for GM contamination in non-GM canola – 0.9 per cent – would rise incrementally with each year the trials were held.

However, WA Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman says he's confident the level of gene-flow between canola crops will remain acceptable.

Mr Redman said a five-metre gap between crops to keep GM contamination under 0.9 per cent was the benchmark standard in Australia and was "more than sufficient".

"I'm talking 0.01 per cent – nothing near 0.9 per cent," Mr Redman told AAP.

He rejected assertions by anti-GM groups that grain customers in Japan wanted GM-free products, which attracted a premium price.

The Japanese benchmark tolerance level for GM contamination was much higher at five per cent, he added.

Mr Redman said the non-GM market in Japan was small and WA would continue to be able to supply those customers.

On a recent trip to Japan, only one out of half a dozen importers of WA grain had raised concerns about the GM trials, Mr Redman said.

"They are saying `we are happy with segregation arrangements and we're happy that we are able, if we choose to meet our consumer needs and import non-GM canola from WA'.

"It is simply a furphy to say that what we've done in WA ... is a barrier to trade in the Japanese market."

Janette Liddlelow, a non-GM grain farmer in the WA Wheatbelt town of Williams, argued that the sector was more significant than Mr Redman claimed.

Ms Liddlelow also said the minister had failed to deliver on a handful of conditions to the trial, including a public register of GM growers, mandatory random audits of GM farms and GM-free marketing zones.

There was angst in Williams, where non-GM farmers wondered whether their neighbours were growing GM crops.

Williams became the centre of the GM contamination debate in August when a truck spilled 15 tonnes of GM-canola onto a highway near the town.

Ms Liddlelow said the threat of contamination meant the choice to not grow GM grain had been taken away from farmers.

"It's very difficult to co-exist," she told AAP.

"You'd be pretty concerned about signing any long-term contracts."