Australia, one of the world's biggest wheat exporters, has launched field trials for drought-tolerant, genetically modified (GMO) wheat. The government body in charge of genetic modification, The Gene Technology Regulator, this week approved an application by the Victorian Department of Primary Industries for trials into GMO wheat.
As the driest inhabited continent, Australia has a special interest in drought-tolerant wheat. But a breakthrough in genetic engineering to produce wheat that could better handle dry conditions would have world-wide implications. "The significance is that wheat is the largest cereal with about 620 million tonnes of wheat grown every year.
And the single biggest threat that wheat faces every year around the world is moisture stress," said David Gin's, chief operating officer of Grains Council of Australia. Successful development of a GMO variety would still not "drought-proof" the crop, nor would it open up new areas of land which have been previously unable to grow wheat, Gin's said.
"You still can't grow wheat in the desert," he said. But it would boost wheat's ability to withstand dry conditions, Gin's added. Popular sentiment in Australia is still often wary of genetic modification, and even though the federal government has approved the commercial growing of GMO canola crops, all state government's still ban the growing of such crops because of fears of "contamination" of conventional crops.
But farmers are increasingly strongly backing GMO crops and view the Gene Technology Regulator's decision on GMO wheat trials as an important step in the right direction. The Gene Technology Regulator said its decision to allow trials to go ahead was made after extensive consultation with the public and with other governments and agencies in Australia.
"We are hopeful that these trials will result in new varieties that will be ready for commercial release within five to seven years," Gin's said. He also said that the decision by Victoria State to permit trials of GMO wheat was an encouraging sign that the moratorium on the release of GMO canola would be lifted in that state.
Australia is the second-largest canola exporter in the world, after Canada. It is also the second-largest wheat exporter, after the United States, and roughly the same size as Canada on world wheat markets.
AWB Ltd, currently the monopoly exporter of bulk Australian wheat, said on Friday that it supported the development of controlled agricultural biotechnology. "We will provide non-GM and GM products to commercial customers in Australia and overseas," it said on Friday.
The field trials will put Australia at the head of an international queue of countries where research is under way into various types of GMO wheat. So far the complex genetic makeup of wheat has stymied efforts to genetically engineer the plant. Australia has also conducted work on GMO wheat lines with altered grain starch and salt tolerance, and field trials have also been approved for these.