The debate over genetically modified (GM) food has flared up again recently, after Greenpeace destroyed an experimental CSIRO wheat crop in Canberra on July 14.
The Australian Federal Police is now investigating Greenpeace over the incident, which CSIRO scientists claim has set their research back by up to a year.
Greenpeace argued the crop posed a threat to the environment and to human health. Plans are underway for human trials of the GM wheat before tests are first conducted on animals.
Greenpeace also accused the CSIRO of a conflict of interest for its closeness to several biotech companies, including NuFarm (the exclusive Australian distributor for biotech giant Monsanto), agribusiness giant Monsanto and Arcadia Biosciences (a US company with close ties to GM-giant Monsanto).
It also criticised Australia’s weak regulation of GM crops.
The CSIRO rejected that the wheat posed a threat, arguing that the modified wheat contained no genes from other organisms, and was designed to improve the crop’s nutritional value.
GM crops have become the source of increasing contention recently, in Australia and overseas.
Shortly before noon on July 21, officers from the Australian Federal Police raided and shut down the Sydney offices of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, confiscating material but making no arrests.
The raid was conducted in relation to an "alleged trespass and property damage” on July 14, when Greenpeace activists in Hazmat suits used whipper-snippers to destroy a CSIRO trial of genetically modified (GM) wheat being grown near Ginninderra in Canberra’s north.
Greenpeace claimed that the wheat was planned for secret human trials later this year, but had already caused allergic reactions in mice.
According to the CSIRO, however, the wheat was not transgenic, and that wheat genes had simply been slightly modified to lower the glycaemic index and increase fibre in order to improve bowel health and increase nutritional value.
Greenpeace also accused the CSIRO of a conflict of interest because two directors of Nufarm – the exclusive distributor for the US-based biotech giant Monsanto in Australia – sat on the CSIRO board when the wheat trial was approved.
Trials of GM wheat and barley have also begun near Narrabri in NSW, as well as in Western Australia. The Western Australian trials are being run by Intergrain, a company co-owned by Monsanto.
On June 21 - ten days before it expired - the Gene Technology (GM Crop Moratorium) Act 2003 was extended by NSW Parliament until 1 July 2021, meaning that any GM crops grown in NSW would continue to require governmental approval.
This does not prevent approved GM harvests or crop trials, however, and commercial crops and trials are indeed under way, in NSW and elsewhere.
In late May, news surfaced that Australia's first trials of GM wheat and barley had quietly begun on the Namoi river near Narrabri in northern NSW. Similar trials are underway in the ACT and WA.
Apart from the information that the trials will "assess the impact of the technology on yield and nitrogen uptake", the precise details of what genetic modifications have been made to the twenty-seven different strains being trailed remain restricted as the crops are "patented technologies".
According to the May 28 Sydney Morning Herald, "The CSIRO, which is running the three-year experiment, said the various gene combinations in the trial were subject to commercial-in-confidence agreements to protect the interests of various government research agencies and a US company, Arcadia Biosciences."
Organic farmers and environmental groups - including Greenpeace - have been critical of the trial, saying who say there is no known way to stop the altered crops from escaping and contaminating natural strains used in commercial cultivation. They have also demanded laboratory tests on the safety for consumption of resulting wheat before any trial commences.
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, and 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.
Organic wheat can sell for up to $500 to $800 more per tonne than regular wheat, and the fact that GM seeds can remain viable for several years means that more than half his farm has now been rendered useless.
The debate over genetically modified (GM) food has flared up again recently, after Greenpeace destroyed an experimental CSIRO wheat crop in Canberra on July 14. 
