The growth of organic farming is the greatest success story in modern agriculture, now worth US$40 billion worldwide and growing at 10-15% per annum. However, the growth in Australia lags behind the rest of the world. In our opinion, the lack of government support is leading to other countries enjying most of this growth. In Europe there is strong government support for organic farming, but in Australia there is active resistance to organic farming from within government. For example, the Organic Federation of Australia made a very strong case for the creation of a Cooperative Research Centre in 2005, but the bid was opposed by the CSIRO. Despite the pledging of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industry, and the gathering of more stakehlder support than ever before, the bid failed.

In contrast the CSIRO has embraced genetic engineering as the way forward for agriculture. This technology was developed in the US by the same companies that bring us farm chemicals. Strangely, the expiry of patents on certain farm chemicals coincided with the development of plants which depend on the same chemcials, but which force the users of those plants to pay royalties. It coincided with the promotion of genetic engineering as the way to solve poverty, salinity, pollution and even climate change. Even though none of these solutions have yet been developed, the promise has been sufficient for the Australian government to fall behind the US ranks and support the release of chemical resistant genetically engineered canola in Australia. Even our our federal environment minister, who once stated "some things aren't meant to be, some things don't come for free", remains silent on this issue.

It is important to look beyond the promises to those who are making them, and to look at what they promised in the past, and did not deliver. Many of their "safe" chemicals have been forced off the market by later governments, but it is impossible to recall a living organism. We hope that Australians will not remain complacent on the need to avoid dangerous technologies which cannot be recalled, such as genetic engineered plants.

For more information on this important issue, see The Insitute of Science in Society (UK), Genethics Network (Australia), Gene Watch (UK) or The Network of Concerned Farmers (Australia).