Australian farm ministry strongly endorses transgenic crops

 

 

Australia's agriculture minister Tuesday (July 288) strongly endorsed commercial production of transgenic or genetically modified crops and said the pressure on South Australia state to allow their usage could soon prove irresistible.

 

Tony Burke said the challenges ahead for agriculture, which include a need to double food production in the next 20 years while grappling with the impact of climate change and resistance to pesticides, suggest genetically modified products will help provide some of the answers.

 

"GM should be part of the equation," he told an Australian grains industry conference.

 

 

New South Wales and Victoria lifted the moratorium on GM canola use late in 2007. Pesticide use in the cotton industry in New South Wales and Queensland has been slashed since the introduction of GM varieties over the past decade.

 

"Now that Western Australia has moved, the pressure on South Australia is much greater," Burke said.

 

Climate projections for South Australia are a good deal tougher than what other areas of the country are facing, he said.

 

"Once GM technology is able - as it no doubt will be - to address some of those climate challenges, I suspect the arguments in Australia will tend to become irresistible," he said.

 

"We're talking about a very deep demand for improvement in global supply for food and GM will become part of that," Burke said.