Could farmer power force Australian state governments to back down on their moratoria on GM crops?
Graeme O’Neill reports.Farmers in Western Australia’s major canola-growing region around Esperance have voted overwhelmingly to ask the state government to lift its moratorium on genetically modified crops to allow them to grow herbicide-tolerant GM canolas.Northam-based agricultural consultant Bill Crabtree says WA agriculture minister Kim Chance — who has publicly declared he would not eat GM food — told him he would consider the farmers’ request to relax the moratorium to allow farmers in the Esperance region to grow higher yielding GM canola cultivars.Crabtree, leader of a campaign against the WA moratorium, recently estimated that it is costing WA farmers AUD$170 million a year in higher costs and foregone profits. His estimate lends weight to a recent analysis by Dr Stephen Apted, of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics (ABARE), which projected losses of $3 billion to the Australian economy over the next decade if the GM-shy states and territories continue t
