GM wheat gets the chop, Australia

Update: offices raid­ed week after decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion / French sci­en­tist dis­cov­ers signs of tox­ic effects relat­ed to eat­ing GM foods / action video

14 July 2011

Two women used whip­per snip­pers to remove a con­tro­ver­sial genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) wheat crop before day break.

The activists con­struct­ed a decon­t­a­m­i­na­tion area to safe­ly dis­pose of the untest­ed and poten­tial­ly unsta­ble GM organ­isms.

Safety in question

The activ­i­ty fol­lows the rev­e­la­tion that Australia’s peak sci­en­tif­ic body, CSIRO, is con­duct­ing the world’s first human feed­ing tri­als of GM wheat, with­out ade­quate safe­ty test­ing.

“This GM wheat should nev­er have left the lab,” said activist and moth­er, Heather McCabe. “I’m sick of being treat­ed like a dumb Mum who doesn’t under­stand the sci­ence. As far as I’m con­cerned, my fam­i­ly’s health is just too impor­tant. GM wheat is not safe, and if the gov­ern­ment can’t pro­tect the safe­ty of my fam­i­ly, then I will.”

CSIRO’s wheat exper­i­ment came under recent scruti­ny when eight inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tists and doc­tors ques­tioned the ethics and sci­en­tif­ic rigour behind it. In an open let­ter the sci­en­tists ques­tioned the safe­ty of human feed­ing tri­als planned for lat­er this year in which Aus­tralians would be fed GM wheat from the Can­ber­ra based tri­als.

Conflict of interest

On 30 June, CSIRO reject­ed a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion request by Green­peace which request­ed fur­ther infor­ma­tion to ensure the safe­ty of the human feed­ing tri­als, along with trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion about the com­mer­cial part­ner­ships CSIRO has with for­eign biotech com­pa­nies to com­mer­cialise GM wheat.

In a July report – Australia’s Wheat Scan­dal Green­peace detailed a major con­flict of inter­est at CSIRO. Two direc­tors of the biotech giant Nufarm – the dis­trib­u­tor of Monsanto’s prod­ucts in Aus­tralia – also sat on the CSIRO board at the time of the wheat experiment’s approval. View the info­graph­ic detail­ing the con­nec­tions

GM wheat has already been reject­ed in Cana­da, North Amer­i­ca, Rus­sia and the EU. The CSIRO is being used as a front for for­eign biotech com­pa­nies; this has com­pro­mised its research and put Australia’s mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar wheat indus­try at risk.

Inevitable contamination

All of the evi­dence shows that GM can’t be con­tained in the field. Green­peace has tak­en action to pro­tect our food sup­ply being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by exper­i­men­tal GM wheat. Now the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment must step in and pro­tect the health of Aus­tralian peo­ple.

“We had no choice but to take action to bring an end to this exper­i­ment,” said Green­peace Food cam­paign­er Lau­ra Kel­ly. “GM has nev­er been proven safe to eat and once released in open exper­i­ments, it will con­t­a­m­i­nate. This is about the pro­tec­tion of our health, the pro­tec­tion of our envi­ron­ment and the pro­tec­tion of our dai­ly bread.”

Trials of potentially unstable GM wheat strains are currently planted in five states and territories across Australia

TAKE ACTION: Tell the gov­ern­ment to end its con­tro­ver­sial GM wheat tri­als

READ THE REPORT: The biotech takeover of our dai­ly bread

MORE INFORMATION: Fol­low the sto­ry so far