Many people harbour a deep-seated fear of new technology particularly when it involves our food. The current ban on all new genetically modified (GM) food crops represents the worst manifestation of this fear. If Australian farmers are to adapt to climate variability including drought, reduce their ecological footprint, and play their part in feeding and clothing an increasing world population, they need access to this new technology.
Two hundred years ago Robert Malthus predicted that the world's population would overshoot its food supply by the middle of the 19th century. It didn't happen. Then Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich predicted that by 1980 the world would have experienced terrible famine and life expectancy in the US would be just 42 years. It didn't happen.
Since Robert Malthus, food production has more than kept pace with population increase because of technological development.
Australian scientists and farmers have been trail blazers. They invented the first harvester and released the first genetically modified (GM) biological control, the crown gall bacterium back in 1988.
But over the last 10 years things have stalled and now, this winter, the wheat and canola crops failed across southern Australia because of drought. All this at a time when the world's food stockpile is low, and the world's population set to increase by another 2.5 billion.
Will Robert Malthus be just 100 years late in his prediction?
Perhaps it depends on the extent to which countries like Australia continue to embrace new technologies.
By the end of the last century farmers were growing double the amount of food from the same area of land because of new pesticides, fertilisers and crop varieties. This century the big breakthroughs have been predicted in the area of biotechnology.
Cotton is the only crop that is exempt from the bans on new GM crops here in Australia. The latest GM cotton varieties reduce pesticide use by 80 per cent and the latest CSIRO research suggests a 10 per cent improvement in water use efficiency.
About 30 per cent of the vegetable oil we consume in Australia is from cotton seed. Most of the rest of our vegetable oil is from canola. A Greenpeace anti-GM campaign, launched in 2001, targeted GM canola as the first GM food crop, conveniently ignoring cotton as an existing source of vegetable oil.
Now this year, with the failed canola crop, it is likely Australia will be importing canola from Canada to make vegetable oil. If the canola imports go ahead, Australia will be importing a product that we have banned our farmers from growing.
Canadian farmers grow GM canola because it gives better weed control.
The anti-GM campaign claims that being GM free has given Australian farmers access to more markets, in particular Europe. But Europe is likely to be importing Canadian canola from early next year for biodiesel.
Our cotton, and the Canadian canola, represent the first generation of GM crop varieties.
The next generation will combine superior yield and weed control with improved nutrition. For example, DuPont has a new variety of soybean with a low linolenic acid profile, meaning reduced trans fat, and thus a reduced risk of heart disease. Just last week Hamburger giant McDonalds said it will change the cooking oil used in its Australian outlet away from standard canola to healthier new oil blend with much less trans fat.
Then there are the climate change benefits of GM food crops. A global study of the socio-economic and environmental benefits of GM identified a carbon saving equivalent to taking five million cars off the road through decreased fuel use, and increased soil carbon sequestration from conservation tillage associated with GM crops.
Recent research in Japan has shown that by inserting a gene from maize into rice, it is possible to increase rice yields by 35 per cent while sucking in 30 per cent more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But Australian farmers haven't got past the basics. They haven't yet opened the door to GM canola, a crop that has been grown by their competitors for over 10 years.
Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, recently explained his opposition to GM food crops on the grounds that we know we'll survive if we keep things as they are, but we don't know if we'll survive roaring off into the future using these new technologies. But the only constant in life is change and we need to embrace it. It is only through the adoption of new technologies that we have managed to escape what Robert Malthus considered the inevitable human condition, one of misery, vice and poverty.
The Australian community needs to open its eyes to all the benefits of technology, including new GM food crops.
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