Greenpeace protesters donned white Hazmat suits to destroy a crop of genetically modified wheat at the CSIRO experimental station.

Credit: Greenpeace

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SYDNEY: In the early hours of July 14, Greenpeace protestors gained illegal entry into an experimental CSIRO operated farm near Canberra and destroyed a crop of genetically modified (GM) wheat.

Australia's national science organisation had been growing GM wheat at its Ginninderra Experiment Station, and was recently granted approval by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), a government oversight agency, to begin human trials.

"Human trials were expected to begin sometime in the next few months to a year," said Jeremy Burdon, chief of the division of Plant Industry at CSIRO. "The worst case scenario now is that the [field] trial will have to be abandoned and resumed some time next year."

The wheat's genetic makeup has been altered to improve its nutritional value, said Burdon. Modifying the level of resistant starch could impact where the digestive process takes place in the gut, and could have health benefits for obesity and bowel cancer.

Greenpeace films destruction

Wearing white Hazmat suits that don the Greenpeace brand down each arm, the protestors used weed trimmers to methodically mow down the GM crops housed in the CSIRO's compound, and filmed themselves in the act.

Greenpeace is citing fears that GM wheat crops are unsafe for human consumption and could spread unabated, contaminating Australia's bulk wheat supply, as the reason for their action. The protestors created what the organisation calls "a decontamination area" to dispose of the crops.

"The EU, Russia, and even North America have rejected GM wheat because it hasn't been proven safe to eat," says Laura Kelly, who heads the food and farming campaign for Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

Kelly also claimed that the CSIRO "is in bed with foreign biotech companies," which she said stand to make billions of dollars by attaching patents to Australian wheat. She said this affiliation is compromising their research direction and adherence to safety regulations.

Australian regulation is stringent

According to Burdon, however, CSIRO would not proceed with any project it wasn't entirely certain about. "We've been down this road in the past, where we had a program around modifying legumes," he said. "That had a problem with activating some allergies in mice and we canned it - it didn't go any further."

"CSIRO takes very seriously its responsibility to safety around everything it does," he added, noting that the OGTR regulations are incredibly strict and the CSIRO has carefully abided by all protocol as it's moved through animal trials with its GM wheat.

Internationally, Australia has some of the most stringent guidelines and regulations surrounding GM work, agrees Andrew Jacobs, a genetic engineer with the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) at the University of Adelaide. "The process to get to field trials is longwinded and rigorous… If there was a significant concern that sort of thing would get picked up well before human trials."

"Wheat and barley are some of the most advanced GM plants in Australia," Jacobs added. "The ones proposed for field trials have probably been grown and monitored in a controlled environment for the last 10 years."