GENETICALLY modified (GM) crops are officially legal to grow in South Australia, after parliament passed a bill lifting a 16-year ban on their cultivation.
After close to a year of debate and three failed attempts to change regulations to allow GM crop cultivation, the State Government and Labor reached an agreement for amendments pushed by the latter to be included into a bill which was passed last week.
During debate in the upper house, Liberal Legislative Council member and former Gawler River farmer John Dawkins said it was the “best possible result for, let's face it, the people who are actually the practitioners out there”.
“As someone who has been around the grain industry most of my life, the ability to have advanced scientific segregation regimes is one that I am so impressed with, because it has come so far from my early days as a grain grower,” he said.
“Yes, we hear about the fears of people growing things next to other people and contaminating things, but the great majority of people who farm respect their neighbours and actually work with their neighbours.
“Once again, I think it is time for us to get on with it. It has been a very long saga. South Australia has been left out on its own in Australian agricultural terms.
“We have shown and we have demonstrated for decades our ability to be leaders in the agricultural sector, and I think it is time that we respected that.”
In 2004, the then-Labor State Government introduced a blanket moratorium on growing GM crops, with an independent report last year finding the move had cost farmers $33 million.
The State Government attempted three times to change regulations to allow their cultivation since November – all blocked by the Greens, Labor and SA-BEST in the upper house.
To ensure the legislation passed parliament, the State Government agreed to Labor amendments which give councils the opportunity to apply to remain GM free.
Speaking against the bill, Greens Legislative Council member Mark Parnell, who has remained steadfastly against GM crop cultivation throughout the debate, said the State Government’s legacy on the issue “is not one that they can be proud of”.
“In conclusion, I believe that this Marshall Liberal government will be remembered as the government that took us down the path of no return,” he said.
“This is a path from which there is no turning back. It is a path that chooses agrochemical giants over South Australian farmers.
“It is a path that undermines healthy and natural organic foods and will lead to inevitable contamination of our non-GM and organic food industries.”