AUS – FARM POLICY AT RISK IN FRAGILE PARLIAMENT


06 July 2016. Source: The Land

…The NXT [Nick Xenophon Team]’s crop biotech policy says farmers and consumers should have the right to say no to GM while demanding government play a continued role supporting research into long-term effects on human and plant health.

However, SA farmers want the State government to move beyond political posturing and fear campaigns to support widespread scientific understanding about the safety of Genetically Modified crops like canola and end its moratorium on commercial production. They want farmers to access crop biotechnology; especially given federal regulators have long-approved products like GM canola as being safe to human health and the environment.

Federally, Labor and the Coalition both support GM crops as does the NFF while the Greens continue to apply a precautionary principle, despite leader Richard Di Natale admitting that, as a former doctor, he supports the science of genetic modification.