8 July 2008

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Tony Burke
Directer of the Liebe Group and grain grower - Rod Birch

Tony: G’day its Tony, I’m out in the wheat belt of WA at the moment and here with Rod Birch. We’ve just been chatting about the moratorium at the moment on GM crops in some parts of the country and some of the prospects that Rod sees for the future. So what are the areas where you reckon there might be better options for yields and trials that you’d like to be able to conduct?

Rod: I’d like to see the science, biotechnology area of, you know, crop science allowed to express itself in form, first and foremost in trials, demonstrations and that, so that industry has got a chance to look at it and evaluate it and see what value it could add to our industry.

But having said that, I’m actually of the firm belief that there is a lot to offer given that we look at the overseas experience, because they are already so involved that they have already progressed well past that stage. So they’ve already been able to see the benefits and that, and I can’t believe, like I’ve got a lot of figures and I’ve spent quite a bit of time on research in this area and I just believe 90 percent of Canadian canola growers can’t be wrong growing GM canola.

Tony: Yeah.

Rod: Even with all the articles, technical use agreements and all that, that are all points of professional risk that we may as business people make in any case. So that’s up to us if people—but I’m a very free market orientated person and I’d say if people don’t want to get involved in it, they’ve got the right not to get involved in it.