NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA
1.Kelloggs agrees to non-GM policy
2.Demand for non-GM canola jumps, driving up premiums for farmers
3.GM crops contaminate organic farms
NOTE: Video of interview with Steve Marsh (item 3)
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1.Kelloggs agrees to non-GM policy
Australian Associated Press (AAP), March 2 2011
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/kelloggs-agrees-to-non-gm-policy/story-e6frfku0-1226014470971
KELLOGG'S have agreed to produce foods without genetically modified ingredients, following encouragement from Greenpeace.
The company was found by Greenpeace to be producing a bar with an ingredient that was suspected to have been genetically modified.
The Kellogg's K-Time twist bar has fructose sourced from the US as a listed ingredient.
"Fructose sourced from the US almost always comes from corn and is genetically modified," said Nathaniel Pelle a Greenpeace campaigner and the producer of Greenpeace's Truefood Guide.
Mr Pelle oversaw the production of the guide which conducts surveys into Australian companies' inclusion of genetically modified (GM) products and campaigns against their use.
"The Truefood Guide aims to fill the gap left by Australia's poor labelling laws, which mean we don't know whether our food contains GM. We are in the dark when it comes to feeding our family," said Greenpeace GM campaigner, Laura Kelly.
Mr Pelle said that Kellogg's had a green rating in the last Truefood Guide, meaning they didn't use any GM products.
However Mr Pelle said that on reviewing their GM policy this year he discovered that it had been reworded.
"Last year, Kellogg's policy stated that they wouldn't use GM ingredients or their derivatives in their products. This year they had removed the words `or their derivatives'," he said.
Greenpeace say that Kellogg's admitted to its campaigners that the fructose in their K-Time twist bar had been sourced in the US.
Kellogg's have since written to Greenpeace to say that they will agree to source non-GM fructose and were endeavouring to do so within Australia, Greenpeace say.
Mr Pelle said that the company have agreed to start using a non-GM fructose at the expiration date of the latest batch of the bars - which is January 2012 - and they will return to a green rating then. They are currently rated orange by the guide.
"It was always Kellogg's approach to source non-GM ingredients.Nothing has changed.
"We were rated green last year in the True Food Guide and worked through sourcing of a particular ingredient to ensure that we stayed green.
"We were working through achieving this prior to the release of the true food guide," a Kellogg's spokeswoman said yesterday.
Greenpeace claim that their guide has caused "shock waves" in the genetically modified food industry.
The True Food Guide is available from today.
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2.Demand for non GM canola jumps
ABC News, 9 March 2011
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/09/3159318.htm
European demand for non-GM canola crops from Western Australia has led to a dramatic increase in the price of the grain.
The Co-operative Bulk Handlers Group says the demand is being driven by the need for biofuel.
New European Union regulations mandate that a proportion of fuel be produced from oil seeds or palm oil.
CBH's Peter Elliot says a shortage of canola in Europe has pushed the price for the Australia product to around $50 a tonne.
"All the signals we've been getting back is that as long as there is this renewable energy directive in place, they're going to be structurally short," he said.
"They're going to be, in the medium term to long term, acquiring canola out of WA and SA as well."
Mr Elliot says demand for the crop should continue for at least five years.
"As we see it, at the moment barring any major change we're looking like this sort of dynamic is going to continue for the next season at least so we've got major end users looking for stable supply for around five years at least."
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3.GM crops infect organic farms
Duroyan Fertl
Green Left Weekly, 20 February 2011
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46753
In December last year, Kojonup organic grain farmer Steve Marsh found genetically modified (GM) canola plants from a neighbouring farm had contaminated 293 hectares ”” 63% ”” of his property.
The farm in Western Australia’s Great Southern region is Australia’s first known case of GM canola contamination. Marsh has had his organic certification revoked as a result.
The Monsanto Round-Up Ready Canola was being grown on a neighbouring farm after a moratorium on growing GM crops was lifted a year ago by the WA Liberal government.
Marsh found that the GM canola had blown over a 1.5 kilometre swathe of his property, well beyond the flimsy 5 metre “exclusion zone” stipulated for GM crops under WA guidelines.
Marsh has launched legal action for the damage caused by the contamination, which has lost him the premium price for his crops.
GetUp!, which is supporting Marsh’s campaign, said: “Organic wheat sells at $500 to $800 more a tonne than regular wheat, and the fact that GM seeds remain viable for several years means that more than half his farm has been rendered useless.”
Marsh told AAP in December: "I am prepared to defend my livelihood and my choice, and the choice of many other non-GM farmers to produce a non-GM product."
Monsanto has announced that it will support the legal defence of the neighbouring GM farm.
The WA agriculture department has since confirmed the contamination, but the government has refused to help Marsh.
Instead, WA agriculture minister Terry Redman called on the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA), Australia's organic certification body, to change its rules.
Redman attacked NASAA’s organic standards for not allowing GM contamination, and said that zero tolerance for GM in organic crops is "unrealistic".
In response, Gene Ethics director Bob Phelps has urged the state government to introduce new laws to protect organic farmers instead of tweaking GM thresholds, calling for automatic compensation for any farm contaminated with GM.
Greenpeace campaigner Laura Kelly also blamed the WA government for failing to protect farmers from GM contamination.
“This is a big green light to multinational chemical companies like Monsanto to contaminate WA farms, because there will be no legal or financial repercussion,” she told the December 23 Farm Weekly.
"WA consumers have lost their fundamental right to know if they are eating GM and foreign chemical companies will increase their control of WA’s food supply.”
Kelly also said that a Freedom of Information request has revealed that the WA government "isn't fulfilling its legal requirement to test food for GM contamination and ensure it is correctly labelled under Australian food standards".
Late last year, the federal Office of the Gene Technology Regulator approved a four-year trial of Monsanto's newest GM canola strain in NSW, Victoria and WA, beginning in March.
[To view a video of Steve Marsh explaining what happened to his property, or to donate to his legal case against GM contamination, visit www.nasaa-wa.com.au ]