You Are Here:
Victorian farmer Geoffrey Carracher finds that his non-GE canola farm is contaminated with Bayer’s Liberty Link gene.
Enlarge imageThe grassroots Australian farming group Network of Concerned Farmers has raised the following complex concerns about GE crops:
- Genetic contamination of conventional and organic crops is inevitable and irreversible
- Efforts to segregate GE and non-GE crops will impose significant costs onto farmers
- GE food crops bring greater corporate control of seeds, plants, food production, food transport and storage - and of farms and farmers
- Export opportunities – particularly to markets that have adopted zero tolerance for GE crops or genetic contamination – will be lost
- Legal liability for contamination will not fall on the owners of the technology but on farmers and farm communities
- The claimed benefits of GE crops are not supported by evidence
- Consumer resistance to GE food is on the increase
- More toxic herbicides will likely be needed to control GE-created “superweeds”.
GE cotton is currently the only commercial GE crop grown in Australia. GE canola varieties have been approved, however state-based moratoria prohibiting commercial planting is in place in canola-growing states. The moratoria are constantly under threat.
Find out more
