Press Release

The State Government has recognised the enormous benefits that will accrue to farming in Western Australia with today’s Cabinet endorsement of GM cropping demonstrations, Leon Bradley, Western Graingrowers Chairman of the Pastoralists and Graziers’ Association said today.

“Mainstream farmers in Western Australia are applauding the decision by Agriculture Minister Terry Redman and the Barnett Government to overturn a decade of GM prohibition rigidly enforced by the previous Labor Government,” Mr Bradley said.

“The decision removes Labor’s anti-GM straitjacket and moves us closer to joining millions of farmers around the world who are taking advantage of the greatest advance in farming technology since the plough.”

“These farmers have seeded over 2billion acres (800million hectares) of land to GM crops since 1996 without a single verifiable adverse incident to health or the environment, while enjoying the economic benefits of worldwide acceptance. 

“In Canada, GM technology has enabled canola farmers to make tremendous production gains and to increase their market penetration around the globe while minimizing the impact on the environment through lower herbicide use, lower fuel consumption and less soil erosion.

“By contrast, WA’s canola industry which showed so much promise in the 1990’s has been in serious decline,” he said.

“WA was once recognised as being at the cutting edge of dry land farming techniques, but we have become a scientific and agricultural backwater.  We can now rejoin our overseas colleagues in meeting the challenge of feeding a world whose food requirements are expected to double over the next 40years.”