Intelligent Island

In search of the

ROGUE genetically modified plants are likely to have sprouted in Tasmania this year, more than 20 years since the GM crops were grown in experimental field trials at secret sites across the island.

The public was assured at the time of the trials in the late 1990s and 2000 that fences, enclosures and other safeguards would contain the glyphosate-resistant crops and stop them escaping into the Tasmanian landscape.

But season after season, long since the contentious trials were wound up, GM canola continues to sprout.

The trial sites were managed under permit to eliminate GM escapees and over the years rogue plants have been found growing on and outside former trial sites and on Tasmanian roadsides.

An audit publicly available on the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment website says 53 of the 57 GM trial sites were inspected in 2014 and that rogue GM canola plants were found at 16 of those.

You might expect the number of sites where rogue plants are found to decline over time, but the 2014 audit found seedlings at many more sites than reported in audits from previous years. The problem appeared to be growing. I don’t know what’s happened since. The DPIPWE website says the “most recent former GM Canola Trial Sites Audit was conducted in May 2014”.

Even in the highly unlikely best-case scenario, where no rogue GM seedlings have germinated in the past five years, there are no guarantees they will not reappear. That’s the nature of the GMO risk.

These rogue plants probably pose little if any threat to humans or the environment, but their persistence in the landscape since field trials 20 years ago illustrates graphically that

once the gene genie is out of the bottle, it is awfully hard to stuff back in.

When released into the biosphere, GMOs are subject to evolutionary processes and environmental factors over far greater stretches of time than ever imagined in any field trial or in any monitoring of their mass production and consumption in populations such as the US over the past two decades.

What we know for sure is that widespread concern about the unknowns of GMOs has combined with a global trend in gourmet cuisine towards natural, healthy fare and traditional methods to create a measurable economic advantage in being GMO-free.

As an island separated from the world, Tasmania can exploit this advantage.

The Hodgman Government wisely recognised this brand value when it this week extended the state’s GMO moratorium for another 10 years.

“Our GMO Moratorium has been a key component of Brand Tasmania in relation to food since 2001. It has served us very well, enabling market access and advantages that are the envy of other jurisdictions. As a smaller scale and often premium producer, positioning in key markets is particularly important for the Tasmanian agrifood sector,” Primary Industries Minister Guy Barnett says in a 2019 GMO issues paper.

Mr Barnett is right. Niche branding in premium markets delivers value to Tasmania.

Pure and natural are ethereal notions, but they influence the balance sheet.

They also fit snugly with Tasmania’s reputation for nature and ancient wilderness.

Take Matthew Evans’s Fat Pig Farm. Small fry compared with Midland grazing holdings, the 22ha Huon Valley property is Tasmania’s best known, nationally and globally, via its portrayal on the SBS Gourmet Farmer TV series, watched by about 600,000 people each week.

Fat Pig Farm is rooted in the Tasmania brand. It profits from the wholesome image of healthy, GMO-free, seasonal and fresh local artisan produce.

I believe Tasmania has only tapped the surface of its brand’s potential, especially regarding businesses working together. Smaller scale premium producers should be encouraged to get creative to explore ways they can share costs and combine strengths.

Teamwork and integration are the logical next steps in the commercialisation of the Tasmania brand. It is already happening to an extent, and all it requires is for the Government to formally facilitate partnerships and networks to encourage communication of the Tasmania brand.

Northern Midlands councillor and former Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association chief executive Jan Davis this week portrayed the GMO ban as a restriction on farmers and said the Government must financially support them while they face “market interventions that impose constraints that do not apply to our competitors”. It’s 20th century thinking. Why not instead provide incentives — information, training, networking and funding — to help farmers join the Tasmania brand?

WHEN GM crops were planted at secret sites across Tasmania 20 years ago there was a grand idea floated to make Tasmania the Intelligent Island, a Silicon Valley-style haven of computer wizardry.

The late Tasmanian senator Brian Harradine secured $40 million in federal funding. Its weakness was that Tasmania lacked the critical mass of skills and experience to form a seriously competitive sector and so talk of the Intelligent Island dream gradually faded.

Agriculture is different. The island is littered with farms, and with farmers with generations of experience and lifetimes of skills. Farming is deeply rooted.

What if Tasmanian farmers regularly got together with government support to share skills and ideas and to find new ways like the nerds did in their beanbags in Silicon Valley in the 1990s?

What if Midland graziers shot the breeze with Matthew Evans to explore the Tasmania brand? What if orchardists, brewers and fish farmers formally networked with chefs and hoteliers on ways to bring the brand to life?

What if Tasmania got smart, nimble and integrated?

That would indeed be an Intelligent Island.