Press Release

The Chairman of the PGA Western Graingrowers committee, Mr Gary McGill, says he was outraged to hear Minister MacTiernan’s simplistic commentary on the future of glyphosate.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of state and federal agriculture ministers in Melbourne, the Minister said Australian agriculture has to start looking at plan B for glyphosate.

Mr McGill said, “Here we have a Minister calling for a Plan B, well what about supporting Western Australian farmers and their use of glyphosate instead of demonizing this fundamentally important herbicide, and hiding behind a façade of looking out for the welfare of WA farmers ? ”

Mr McGill said that without glyphosate, harsher chemicals will need to be used more frequently, or farming will go back to the old days of ploughing which leads to pulverizing the soil structure.

“Glyphosate has helped Western Australia’s ancient soils by allowing the introduction of minimum tillage, that increases soil cover and builds the organic matter that is so important to soil health.”

“All the Minister is doing is questioning the credibility of Australia’s peak regulatory body for farm chemicals, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), and the numerous scientific studies that support the safe use of glyphosate”.

“In addition, farmers are always working on their own Plan B, and don’t need the Agriculture Minister’s unscripted and ill-informed comments”.

Mr McGill said “It is becoming evident that the Minister has a bias against modern farming practices, and does not believe that industrial farming practices are in fact both completely normal and widely accepted and used by broadacre farmers.

“We are deeply concerned that the Minister is manufacturing this false glyphosate emergency to give effect to her prejudices about modern farming”.

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Issued by PGA of WA

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