Press Release

“With one in three farmers in Western Australia having planted GM Canola in 2014, it is time for the Barnett Government to repeal the redundant GM Free Crop Areas Act to provide the grains industry with the certainty needed to increase investment in WA’s most valuable agricultural export,” PGA Western Graingrowers Chaiman John Snooke said.

“The Barnett Government can no longer allow the West Australian farming community to be held hostage by a small group of anti GM protesters supported by extreme environmental activist groups like Greenpeace.”

“In 2010 the Liberal-National Government threw its support behind West Australian farmers by granting an exemption to allow the commercial cultivation of GM canola; ending Labor’s decade long moratorium and allowing growers the same choices as our competitors in the Eastern States, as well as Canada, the US and Argentina.”

“Since the granting of the exemption, the WA farming community has shown that GM Canola is a safe crop that provides numerous benefits to farmers, including superior weed control, increased yields and early sowing capability.”

“Segregating non-GM from GM canola is no different to segregating other crops like wheat or barley and our export markets, whether in Japan, Europe or the Middle East now have the same choice in commodities as growers now have in production systems.”

“Even the recent Marsh/Baxter case, where the anti GM movement attempted to destroy the livelihood of a West Australian farmer after he grew a legal crop, showed how safe GM crops are and how well our system is working,” he said.

“The anti-GM campaigners could not muster any scientific evidence to prove that GM crops were unsafe, or that they posed an economic loss to non GM growers.”

“It also showed how deceitful and extreme these groups have become and exposed their goal of denying growers the choice to use a safe and legal crop, in order to satisfy their ideological opposition to technology.”

“It is time for the Barnett Government to repeal the GM Free Crop Areas Act and allow the farmers of Western Australia to continue to cultivate GM crops.”